A quiet father is conspicuous (8)
I believe the answer is:
apparent
'conspicuous' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a quiet father' is the wordplay.
'quiet' becomes 'p' (music symbol for 'piano', ie soft or quiet).
'father' becomes 'parent' (I have seen 'A father ' mean 'parent' so perhaps 'father' could also mean 'parent').
'a'+'p'+'parent'='APPARENT'
'is' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for apparent that I've seen before include "Obvious, clearly understood" , "Ostensible, seeming" , "See 1" , "Obvious; seeming real" , "as such an heir" .)