Songs first in the race to be heard (6)
I believe the answer is:
lieder
'songs' is the definition.
(lied is a kind of song)
'be heard' is the wordplay.
'be' becomes 'lie' (lying is a kind of being).
'heard' becomes 'der' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'lie'+'der'='LIEDER'
'first in the race to' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lieder that I've seen before include "German songs for piano and solo voice" , "German songs of the Romantic period" , "German art songs" , "works by Schubert" , "Relied on classical German song" .)