Maya ate her lunch quickly and went back to practicing. The afternoon hours passed slowly. Maya worked on small sections over and over again, gradually building up the tempo. Some passages required her to play very fast scales with both hands moving in opposite directions; other passages required delicate touch and careful balance between the different melodic lines.
By 6:00 in the evening, Maya had learned all the notes of the piece. But learning the notes was only the beginning. Now she had to work on making the music sound expressive and polished.
Maya practiced the piece from beginning to end several times. Each time, she discovered new problems that needed to be fixed: sometimes her hands would get tangled up in a difficult passage; sometimes she would play a wrong note and have to stop and correct it.
Elena ordered dinner for them and brought it to the practice room. Maya ate while reading through the music again, trying to memorize it. She knew that performing from memory would give her more freedom to be expressive.
"Maya," Elena said gently. "It's 8:00. You need to pace yourself. You can't practice effectively if you're exhausted."
But Maya was determined to use every minute available to her. She practiced until 10:00, when the building closed. By then, she could play the entire piece from memory, though not perfectly.
Elena drove Maya home through the quiet streets. Maya was so tired that she almost fell asleep in the car, but her mind was still racing, thinking about all the passages that needed more work.
"Try to get some sleep," Elena said as they arrived home. "Your brain needs rest to absorb everything you practiced today."
But Maya could not sleep. She lay in bed thinking about the music, playing through difficult passages in her mind. She was worried that she would forget something important; she was worried that her performance would not be good enough.
Maya finally fell asleep around 2:00 in the morning. She woke up at 7:00, feeling tired but alert. She had only five hours left to practice before her audition.
Elena made her a good breakfast, but Maya could barely eat; her stomach was too nervous to accept much food. They arrived at the conservatory at 8:00. Maya went straight to Room 15 and began practicing. She worked on the most difficult passages first, playing them slowly and carefully. Gradually, she built up the speed until she could play them at the proper tempo.
At 11:00, Elena reminded Maya that she needed to stop practicing and prepare for the audition. Maya's hands were tired and her mind felt overloaded with musical information.