High note to draw out, cut short by piano (5)
I believe the answer is:
bleep
'high note' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with perception as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'draw out cut short by piano' is the wordplay.
'draw out' becomes 'lee' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'cut' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters cut their way into a word).
'short' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letters of 'by piano' is 'bp'.
'lee' placed inside 'bp' is 'BLEEP'.
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bleep that I've seen before include "Electronic sound (used over profanities)" , "Electronic signal calling a person" , "covers swearing" , "High-pitched sound" , "Swearing substitute" .)