I was told by my piano teacher to practise at least 2hours daily but end up I find myself slack easily and practise only I have the time. I hope to be a piano teacher one day. I am not happy with my performance. I want to do better. Any Adult learner practise very hard? If yes, can u tell me the number of hour u practise daily and what did u practise? Can share with me what i can do to prevent myself slack.

daily, i practice 1-2 hours. that's only because i enjoy it.. i suppose it's not really practicing but playing. i find that if i really love a piece i'll play it until my head hurts!

maybe you're playing the wrong pieces.. just a suggestion

I do a couple of hours a day, but this is how I earn my living. Hard to see how you can do this much practise otherwise.

For motivation, I have the continual need to prepare material for performances - not so much as a soloist these days but it is rare for a week to go by that does not involve some soft of accomaniment performance. I do not work so hard these days - I used to do 3 to 4 hours a day.

Would I practise so much without the incentive of performance?

Not a chance

Steve

While working towards grade 8 I found that 2 hours was soon filled just by doing what needs doing.
Quality is better than quantity and how much time you have can vary with work and energy levels.
Better to have goals to work towards that to clockwatch.

I play/practice every day. Anything form 20 minutes in the morning before I go to work to hours on end at week ends when I am at home.

I have a very busy work schedule as I am a doctor and also run a biotech/pharma company.

I love the piano (almost an obsession with me) and for me it is my way of escaping the drudgery of everyday routines and boring things. When you love doing something you don't notice the time passing.

I sat down at the piano after dinner last night (about 9:30 pm) and carried on until nearly 1:30 in the early hours of the morning. My wife had to literally drag me away.

When I'm travelling overseas (as I do quite often) I try and find a piano to play. Most quality hotels usually have one tucked away somewhere in the lounge/bar area. They don't mind me playing it and usually some kind listener will by me a drink if I play a request, usually something "gushy" like Moon River or Phil Collins's "Against All Odds" and the like. Someone once asked me to play Finzi's "Eclogue" in a bar at the Raffles hotel in Singapore which I did almost perfectly until about half way through then my mind went blank.

Keep up the practice/playing; believe me it's the only way to improve. The piano is one instrument, IMO, where familiarity never breeds contempt.

Good Luck!

I seem to be very similar to Roger. I try and fit in an hour before work in the morning (easier now mornings are lighter), then do an hour or so in the evening. If I do an hour of what I call 'proper practice' ie studying my classical pieces, I treat myself to half an hour or so of fun stuff - Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, old musicals etc etc. I have to work hard to study properly and work on the difficult bits, rather than do what I'm tempted, which is just play through my pieces.

I travel quite a bit, and often find a piano around where I can play for fun - some guy bought all my colleagues free drinks all evening in return for me playing the piano!

I enjoy practicing though, and choose to play often - I wish I had the same dedication to keeping fit/going to the gym.

Given the choice I would love to have 1 1/2 hours or 2 because I love piano, but right now even though I have my grade 8 in 2 weeks, I only have time for about 40 minutes because of all the y11 cwk and tests and stuff. I've had to cut down on playing all the pieces that I enjoy randomly, and concentrate on scales and pieces. All my free lunches I now spend practising in the music house at school because they have a baby grand and its gorgeous and heaven compared to my Clavinova.

My best motivation to practice is by putting myself into a competition, concert or some sort of performance situation. I works - I have been known to do over 5:30 in a day, but usually it's more like 3.

Some weeks I can't get off the piano, other weeks I can't be bothered to even look at it. I find the best incentive is when I've got a "new piece" to learn that I really love, if I don't particularly like the piece my teacher has suggested, I find it hard to pick up the motivation and will veer off and practice something I do like! Being an adult learner, for me fitting 20 mins practice a day is hard enough so don't be too hard on yourself!

Go to www.practicespot.com for lots of ideas for practice games which will make practising fun. I'm 28 years old and still enjoy playing these games, although I expect they were designed for children.

It's the quality of the practice you're doing, not the quantity that's important. Each week at your lesson, ask your teacher to set you very specific tasks that he/she wants you to have dealt with by the next week - rather than a vague "practise for 2 hours a day" instruction. Then, you practise for however long you need to to solve the problems and prepare yourself for the next lesson.

I divide my practice time up into chunks - half an hour in the morning, half an hour after school and then normally an hour later on in the evening on a good day.

A couple of hours a day is very impressive...for a teacher.

I asked a fiend of mine who teaches piano what sort of music she liked. Her reply "I'm a piano teacher, I don't have time to actually play!!"

I probably do a couple of hours a day. Try to do scales etc in the morning before work (I'm an early riser) then work on pieces most nights of the week. Usually start at 6:30 and play 'til about 9:45 with 2 or 3 20 min breaks. I then almost invariably watch "Drop the dead donkey" on Sky, and then play though a couple of old favorites that I know by heart before heading off to bed. The only exceptions being tuesday and thursday when I'm at Am. Musical Society rehearsals. Those nights I usually get to the reheasal hall early and play the piano there for 20 mins or so before people arrive. I usually just play through favorite pieces that I have in my head, but sometimes take the music along to do some proper practise.

Reading through that lot two things strike me. Firstly most "normal" people would see it as a pretty dire existance. I didn't start music until I was 40 so I can see both sides.

The second point is why aren't I a better pianist if I do so much practise!!!!

Well, i practice an hour 6 out of 7 days.
but the day before each piano lessons,
the time increases to 1.5hrs.
I dont rmb myself practicing v hard for my grade 8.
i think i only do 1 hr everyday,
and i got distinction!
Although "practice makes perfect" and blah blah blah..
one's practice will be more beneficial if one really enjoys the music.
just like "study smart",
one must "play smart" too.
instead of just practicing without using brains.
:-}

I practise for an hour a day. Uni keeps me very busy so sometimes its hard to juggle everything. I remember I used to hate practising. Then i stopped thinking of practising as a chore. Once it didnt seem like a chore to me, I would just play whenever. If that makes sense lol. Also I found pieces played an important role. If I had a song I didnt like(when doing exams) I would not want to practise it as much. Play pieces that you enjoy

can you find a piece that is rather harder than you can play? Personally i had this problem when i began piano too. (and i was a late starter for my school, most play grd 8 standard at about 14 but i was 15 when i began piano) I have been playing for nearly 2 years now and one of the things that keeps me going is te fact that i could play some really famous chopin music that i love hearing my friend play... i just thought 'i have to be able to play that...' and that is what is keeping me going.

Although, if you really don't like a piece then tell your teacher that you really do not like it and won't spend so much time practicing it as a piece that you really liked. Try and work out with your teacher what kind of music you want to be able to learn in the future and what is more closely around the corner.