Adult learners often treat a rest as a moment to do nothing. They play the preceding chord, leave the hand where it is, then wait until the eyes locate the next notes. The rest becomes too long, or the next entry arrives early because the hand has to search in a hurry. The score may be silent, but neither the body nor musical time has stopped.
A rest does at least three things at once: it allows the previous sound to end, keeps the pulse moving and gives the body time to prepare the next entry. After a loud chord followed by a one-beat rest, the hand need not remain rigid above the keys. It can release the old effort, travel to the new position and form a clear aural expectation while the inner beat continues. The task is not simply to 'leave one beat empty', but to practise a complete action from ending, through movement, to re-entry.
An observational study of advanced pianists' trunk and right-hand coordination found that rests could provide opportunities to prepare later movements. Its sample was small, so it cannot prescribe one movement for every player. It supports a more restrained point: silence still contains temporal organisation and motor choices.
Practise the beat before the rest, the rest itself and the following beat as one short phrase. Count first, then listen for when the previous sound ends, and finally check whether the next note arrives calmly in place. When using <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scoreflow/id6796205656">ScoreFlow</a> for this passage, treat the rest as part of the phrase rather than a blank to skip.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.838554/full
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