Hey,
Just wondering how long it takes you to learn a piece on average. For me, its probaby about 2weeks ( 2 lessons) on clarinet, & maybe 3 on piano.

Depends how big the piece. Now I'm at uni, it doesn't feel like I'd be able to perform many of the pieces I can actually "play".

How long is a piece of string?


Depends what you mean by "learn"

If by this you mean ready for an Ashkenazy style performance, it can take me as long as a year!

If you mean getting a general idea of it, almost literally minutes. Personally I can get the idea of a piece very quickly, but technical/expressive/interpretative qualities to polish it off takes a lot longer for me

If you mean up to performance standard, then about a month...if you mean just playing through then not that long (unless it is the 3rd movement of the Poulenc flute sonata.)

I'd be suprised if anyone can pull that off in a month

Or any Poulenc full stop

Depends on the piece- some a week, some a month, some take longer. It takes me longer to get a piece on bassoon up to performance stantard than flute.

To learn how to play it, purely in technical terms, about three weeks (but if I don't practice, maybe longer ). To get it up to performance standard, it'll take a few more weeks - about two months? Yeah, I don't practice the clarinet much...

As most others have said, "it depends"... on length, on difficulty, on whether it suits me even (I had one grade 6 piece that I never did get to grips with after AGES, a CPE Bach movement, and then again the Faure Morceau de Concours I got reasonable (not perfect but OK) in less than a week without working especially hard on it) Depends on the person what they find easy or hard, half the time! So... anything between a few days and a few months!

Yes, the Poulenc...I can't see myself playing it within 10 years argh!

Nah the double clarinet sonata is easy enough

ppfffffft! lol

I can sight read a clarinet piece up to about grade 7. Grade 8 or dip, anything from a few days to a few weeks. Something like the Copland Concerto or the Premiere Rhapsodie, I've had them for years and still have trouble with them.

And yes, it depends if you mean learn the notes/rhythm or have at performance standard.

i find if it's something baroque or similar then it's a few weeks tops to get it under the fingers, and maybe another couple to get it polished - mostly because it's lots of arpeggios and scaels and big jumps and stuff, and i'm quite good at technical. romantic, takes forever to get all the littel expressive details in, but i reckon about 3 months for a perfect performance is more than adequate.

I can *finish* any pieces within a week, some slower song are in a days, but with those really high notes, I prefer not to play them, unless it's a solo. Any way I've got a solo competition, and the piece which I've played before last year, is sooooo easy. But remember one thing: Easy to play, Hard to present. That took months.