But I have been becoming aware of a third attitude by playing. There is not much talked about it, because it is difficult to explain what is meant by it. I mean 'loving your music'. It is more then inspiration. Sometimes you start playing and feel that everything is going well. You are not only inspired, you love your music. You stand up and put on the recorder to enjoy it later. You sit down again and continue playing, but then the inspiration is gone. That is, because it is something very subtle.
Every sensitive musician will know this phenomenon. It seems useful to me to mention it apart, because although it occurs scarcely, it seems the most delicate element and therefore fitting best with arts. Suppose you spend 10% of the time to practice, 70% to play and 20 % to the rest in order to be able to get into the loving atmosphere, then a normal player, sensitive to the arts, will at best reach 1 % of this atmosphere. The atmosphere of this one moment will influence your soul mostly. Consider that I am not talking about the regular amusement that every music lover has, but about this very delicate high level.
During practicing you should not disturb those present, during playing there can be persons present, but to evoke the loving atmosphere, it will be effective to be alone. The point is that the full concentration is focused on the relationship between your deepest inner, musical soul live and the music that you realize.
Many times the loving atmosphere collapses due to the lack of skill. A remedy may be to reduce your requirements of the level. Just as how you can be happy without 100 grand pianos, you can adjust yourself in such a way, that you have peace with a lower musical level than Bach had.