This study examines participatory music practices in Japan and critically reconsiders the widely shared assumption in cultural policy and practice that listening is passive whereas participation is active. Focusing on concerts and other live music events in which performers and audiences occupy differentiated roles, it reconceptualizes participation not as visible action alone but as a relational practice that helps bring the musical event into being.Building on debates around appreciation, participation, and creation, and on critiques of the instrumentalization and formalization of participatory practice, the study proposes a framework of participation as parity. This framework comprises four propositions: role-specific recognition, pride, autonomous response, and mutual respect. Rather than defining equality through co-performance or role transgression, it understands parity as recognition across difference while respecting the distinct roles of musicians and audiences.Methodologically, this mixed-methods study combined a nationwide online questionnaire survey conducted in Japan in May 2025 with 1,000 adults and semi-structured interviews conducted between August and September 2025 with 10 music enthusiasts and 5 musicians who had sustained experience of live performance settings. The survey explored impressions of “audience-participatory” events, experiences of participation, perceptions of listening as participation or creation, and views of performer-audience relations. Interview transcripts were anonymized, inductively open-coded, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s Reflexive Thematic Analysis, with iterative movement between semantic and latent meaning and the use of reflexive memoing throughout the analytic process.The survey found that 52.9% of respondents regarded listening as part of participation in musical culture, rising to about 79% among those who regularly enjoy live performance, while the term “audience participation” itself produced considerable ambivalence. The interviews further showed that participation is not experienced only through co-performing or bodily display. When choice is respected, audience members actively decide whether and how to respond, and experience participation through autonomy, felt efficacy, admiration and distance, and senses of co-creation. Non-overt and preparatory forms of involvement, such as attentive listening, silence, sustaining endings, advance listening, and reading program notes, also contribute to shared attention and mutual respect. Moreover, when participation is designed as optional and reversible, the same act is more likely to be experienced as autonomous rather than obligatory.The study offers a theoretical basis for rethinking participation in music education, outreach, and cultural policy by shifting attention from the visibility of action to the quality of relationships that sustain musical events.