Just wanted to know what people put into their practice time..

> How long have you been playing and how much practice do you do a day/week?

> What is your practice time divided into.. (eg. Scales, current pieces, number of pieces learning at once)

> Ways you have improved your practice time

> Any tips you may have to get the best out of your time.


Currently I am learning one piece at a time, I practice a couple of scales, but I am a self-taught beginner so at the moment I don't see much point in scales. Though I do know them.

I practice really badly, so I'm not going to give my advice (it starts off on task but often deteriorates to half hour improvisations) but I was interested to read you learn one pieve at a time. Alot of teachers I have spoken to say its a good idea to learn two in different genres so you can swap between them.
Thought this might be good advice to reduce bordome and strain in long practice sessions, but I think we all practice differently, so whatever works for you is whats good

I try to run through all grade 8 scales once a week, and daily run through 4 or 5 appeggios/scales as a warm up. I practice about 45 mins mon-friday and 2 hours sat- sun. Some days I have no practice, some weekends I have no practice. I have 6 pieces on the go at the moment, the grade 7,s "I got Rythm" gerschwin, "Sonata in C" Mozart, and "Leola" Jolpin, I have a a number of books of grade 4/5 stuff I use for sight reading practice. Start at the back of the book and play 4 lines. At weekends I prcatice, my stuff, more Joplin, a bit of heavy Beethoven ( Beyond my abilities, but its nice to try it), seasonal stuff Xmas carols and the like, and basically anything I fancy.

This works for me, I find that the C list in the graded pieces is usually some atonal twaddle that you would never learn given the choice in a month of sundays, so burying it within other pieces does take the pain away..


Andy

Good replies! I'm going to start lessons this month so I'm sure I will have a better practice routine advised to suit me.
I learn one NEW piece at a time, but I do frequently go over everything I've learned to keep it fresh.

I'm not bored by one piece at a time, I'm happy to be slowly progressing. I know I could easily do more at a time, but do you learn at the same rate if you take on more at once? Or is it just keeping it varied for enthusiasm reasons...

I find doing mutiple pieces keeps the repitition and boredem at bay. Yes your learn them at different rates, but that makes no difference. Being able to change tack when you've had enough and still be working towards a goal makes it work.

Andy

A key part of learning is accomplished by the subconcious mind, and it takes time for the brain to completely absorb the new information. (If it didn't, our minds would be full of useless junk). So, it is actually counter-productive to thrash away at a single piece, as the brain won't absorb it any quicker really. So, having one or two other pieces on the go at the same time is useful because it naturally allows the brain to digest each of them at a reasonable pace. Obviously, you can't go to the other extreme and start dozens of pieces because then there would be insufficient repetition to embed the new knowledge.

Going back over old pieces is a good idea. Sometimes they seem harder second time round!

I've posted this before, but this topic of practice seems to keep cropping up.

There should be no 'set' practice time - i.e. "I must practice for 30 mins every day"

9 times out of 10 you arrive at your 30 min practice session and spend 25 minutes watching the clock to see how long is left whilst thinking about all the other things you could do instead of practice. In this instance you have done no constructive practice and have wasted 30 mins.

Any practice you do should be worthwhile. 5 minutes of worthwhile focussed practice is better than an hour of waiting for the practice session to be over. However short they are, if your practice session has been worthwhile and you have got something from it, then you shouldn't feel guilty about the times and days when you don't have time to practice.

Too many teachers say things like "you must practice for 15 minutes everyday" - that is one sure way of making sure you don't practice at all, because you'll have already thought of all the other interesting things you could be doing in 15 minutes!

David

I would agree that there is no fixed advisable time - it does take longer to improve the less you do, but I have also heard people practising in the most inefficient way. If you simply play through again and again, you can end up setting your motor memory into habitual mistakes. One excellent teacher I know puts a bracket around stumbling points and advises working on those first, and even playing just those bits - "patch-practice" in five-minute slots, almost in passing. Another suggested learning the tricky bits by practising them from the end of the hard bit, and gradually including more and more of the run-up until you can get right through. Scales - great for warming up, and help with sightreading too. Sightreading can often be fun, and a chance to stop worrying, providing you're not working towards an exam! I managed grade 8 (distinction) on an average of 30 minutes practice a day - I have a very busy job and kids, so did the exam in the summer, having started work in autumn. Good luck, and it is great to hear of others picking up instruments later too.

Doesn't matter whether you ask them, tell them or don't mention practice at all, some students just don't practice,...but they're quick to whinge the following week that they can't play the piece/study/scale .



Or in the case above, wasted 15 minutes just flicking aimlessly through 200 TV channels.


I've been playing the violin for 21 years. I'm a professional, but it doesn't stop me from practicing. I guess on average I still do around 2 hours practice a day - sometime more, sometimes less, a lot depends on work.

Practice would consist of a brief warm-up and a couple of scales. Work on some technical issues (yes, I still have a lesson from time to time as we can all learn new things or get our bad habits corrected), maybe do a couple of studies, or sections from them that relate to the technical issues, then I'll either move on to one or two repertoire works, or more likely orchestral excerpts, especially any that are being rehearsed for concerts.

Whatever I practice, I concentrate on the bits that I know I'm finding difficult. It's a common fault to waffle through things you find easy and to keep playing those bits, and all the while make yourself believe you've practiced. But real practice is all about working on and learning the more complicated sections of a work. Rallentando shouldn't mean, 'slowing down because I can't play this bit very well'.

However, I think this comes from the fact that students are not taught how to pratice. No one is going to practice consistently until they can see the benefits of doing it.

David

A report I read of a study of the practicing habits of various sorts of players said there was an important difference between how professional musicians and others worked on difficult passages. Essentially, the professionals systematically deconstructed the difficulties into their constituent parts, and resolved them individually before putting the passage back together. The non-professionals in general did not have a systematic and structured approach to difficulties with the result that they usually were not able to convincingly surmount those difficult passages, whereas the professionals could.

P.S. One other useful practice technique is r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w practice: trouble is, you run out of bow or puff on strings and wind respectively

Hi, Tomosiano,

I have been playing piano for two and a half years and following instructions from a teacher all the way through. I never thought of self-taught when I decided to learn it at the very beginning. I do set my practice time for at least 30 mins a day as I believe that interaction with the instrument daily would be better than nothing at all. I also think practice daily will help the mind and fingers more acquainted with it.

As I have a job at day time, my practice time of 1 to 1-1/2 hours from mon-fri would be the evening after house chores have been worked through etc. And around 2 hours per day during weekends and public holidays.

From mon to fri, normally I would spend 10 to 15 minutes of warming up with hannon and scales. Then spend some times practising with the pieces that my teacher has been working with me. Then it will come the free time that I fiddle with sight-reading on pieces at my own discretion. Afterwards, I do a little bit of stretching exercise with my body and go to bed. This kind of fix practice seems to fit into my daily life schedule just like regular meals or shower with intrinsic motivation.

O_L

10 mins scales, arpeggios and broken chords for grade 1 (all of them)
5 mins 7 or 8 excercises from a dozen a day book 2
30 mins my three grade 1 pieces
15 mins other pieces- usually 4 at the moment, more when my exam isn't a few weeks away
5 mins sight reading practise.

I would say that I have done more preparation for my grade 1 piano than for any other exam, and that includes O levels (showing my age here) A levels, degree and PhD !

Also if you are practising effectively you should be practising until it's not possible to play it wrong, rather than practising until you've played it right. If you're doing it the second way then out of 10 times of playing a section if on the 10th attempt you play it correctly & think "I've now played it right, that's OK", then when you come back to it the chances of you playing it correctly again are only 10%.

That's one of my favourite lines. Most of my students would recognise that.

My dad (a total non-musician - couldn't hold a tune in a bucket!) picked that up from somewhere and always used to say it!

Hi!

I found the book "The perfect wrong note" a real relief e.g., practice involves paying attention to your mistakes as they give valuable information as to where/what you don't understand/fully realise. It's way better than hitting myself over the head....!!

Loops

There are many who don't teach HOW TO PRACTICE (but I am one of those who does teach the 'how to' bit). Having said that there are still two angles at which you could look at it.

Humans are equipped with a brain that allows them to reason and work things out for themselves without having to be programmed with information all of the time. There are students who use this ability well and when they find something difficult they make sure they practice the things they're finding difficult. (Adults are generally better at this than children because they have a longer attention span and can focus on one thing without getting bored too quickly).

Secondly a lot can depend on the student's attitude. You can explain to them about the art of practice, but youngsters especially don't always take advice or listen to adults - in their eyes we were never their age, we've always been miserable grown-ups who just tell them off all the time. The benefits of practicing are obvious, even to the student who doesn't bother with practice. Trouble is, they need to decide whether they really do WANT to play that piece of music they like to listen to in a recording, or would they rather be mindlessly flicking through the TV channels. Ususally they want the former but simply aren't prepared to put in the work needed to achieve it.

True most of the time, but for students who don't understand how to practice/haven't been taught, practice can sometimes mean playing through the pieces and not understanding 1) why they don't get better 2) why they still get harped on at for not practising when they have. Both of which can be very disspiriting and end up with a student deciding practice "doesn't work". Sometimes being shown how practice can work revolutionises it (I know it did for me) - if after your practice you can see and hear how much better you are playing, then it makes you far mroe willing to practice!

Which is why I teach all of my students HOW to practice. With some (usually the adults) it works a treat, but most of the youngsters..well....... I sometimes wonder if I'd get more response out of talking to a wall.

I actually find that this is the other way round. Also, I find adults seem to be far more full of excuses than children. Most of the children I teach readily admit to not doing any practice - probably because they know that it's not worth lying 'cause I'll tell anyway!

David

I find that they all like playing the things they know they can play well, so I'm encouraging them to work hard at playing everything correctly first time, even if it's half a scale slowly or one two-bar phrase of a new piece, so they are always succeeding.

Oh yes, depends on the student! Can make a world of difference. I wish someone had thought to even try to explain to me how to practice when I was a youngster

I'm a model student now but didn't have a clue really what I was doing in practice sessions and why till I was in my late teens, and really only got the "ding" lightbulb over head experience fairly recently with some really effective ways of practising.

When I have come back to what I thought was a simple piece that I played well the first time round (after however much practice it took) I've found it really hard. After a few goes though, it begins to come back and I know that my sight reading has improved since I learned it which is a contributing factor.

I'm worried that I'm simply getting muscle memory when learning and not actually gaining any skill. If I was asked to play a song from my repetoire that I had learned, but had not played it for a while - it wouldn't be played well.


My first piano lesson in 10 years is booked for Monday! I can't wait! Hopefully all my frustrations and worries will be ironed out.

I suspect VN's teacher (who is an excellent one) tells her to practise slowly plus WHAT to do (sets a series of steps and tasks) rather than HOW to practise. It'd be very helpful if he did teach her HOW to practise (strategies?) but I accept that no one teacher is perfect. All I know is, she does not like scales, as to her, it's mindless repetition - a necessary evil for building a strong technical foundation. She likes etudes though and would do at least 2 each day - quite happily! I thought these pretty much contain the same scales and arpeggios - no?

That sounds like a couple of huge steps in the right direction: I've had plenty of teachers over the years who never thought to tell me that slow practice was good, or to break things down into smaller tasks. So I don't think it'll be a problem for her to practice well, he has given her the tools she needs

The problem is that pupils don't always know when they're getting it wrong, even when you've tried to go through it carefully in the lesson, so you can teach them wonderful games and strategies (like on the practicespot.com website) but if they can't hear or tell it's wrong when they are practising at home, they'll spend an entire week diligently practising the mistakes! And sometimes they just don't concentrate or listen to themselves so they'll play absolute rubbish which bears no resemblance to the music - yes, I've had one or two!

I've got a two page Word document I wrote some while back about constructive practice and a few pointers on how to get the best from your lessons. My string workshop attendess have already received it, but if anyone else would like a copy please PM me with an email address and I will forward it to you.