This week I’ve been watching quite a lot of sport – World Cup football and Wimbledon tennis matches. I’m a latecomer to sports fandom and, to be honest, I only follow the big tournaments. The rest of the year, sport fades from my consciousness. But I still feel one can learn a lot from watching excellent sportspeople.

This morning as Wimbledon coverage began on BBC, the commentators were talking about Brazilian tennis star João Fonseca’s remark that ‘you can’t allow the ball to eat you’. Apparently this had to do with his insight that the ball must not be allowed to intimidate you and force you to react in a way that’s not in your best interests. Of course, it’s really your opponent who is trying to intimidate you, but one can easily imagine that a ball whizzing straight towards you at 123 mph might seem to have its own malign agenda.

I could identify with this, because it reminded me of a similar feeling when performing a piece of music. I think many people feel that when they set a piece in motion, it will plough ahead of its own volition, sometimes with you the pianist (or whatever) struggling to keep up. You imagine the piece has an engine propelling it forwards without your help. You feel as if you’re struggling to stay on this horse as it heads stubbornly for home.

This is not true, of course. Nothing will happen with the piece until you play it. If you cease to play, the piece will stop. But it doesn’t always feel like that when you are in the thick of it. Fast and tricky passages, especially, can seem to have a momentum of their own, a momentum slightly faster than the one you’re comfortable with. You have to realise that the time to reach for each of those notes is under your control.

In short, you can’t allow the piece to eat you. You are the one in whose hands it will enter the world of sound. We all have to digest that realisation.