There’s little doubt that finally playing through a piece at a level we’re happy with gives immense satisfaction – the sense of being under control, communicating what we feel the piece is ‘about’, and at the same time adding something of ourselves. Depending on how long or challenging the piece is, our journey from sight-reading to this final stage may take longer than we’d anticipated, so managing our expectations is something we need to get good at pretty early on. We’d all accept that our performance isn’t likely to improve simply by grinding through the piece again and again from beginning to end, so how can we reach our goal more efficiently? The trouble with the phrase ‘delayed gratification’ is that it seems to imply the process is an irksome but necessary evil, whereas with some thoughtful intuition and imagination we can enjoy the whole learning process as much as the pristine end result.
