re: practice vs practise: if you remember that you give advice but that you advise someone (and in that instance they sound different unlike practice and practise) then you will know which is the spelling that goes with the verb and which goes with the noun.

I aim for 2 hours a day but health doesn't always permit that. & 30 mins to an hour of piano, & others as and when I feel inspired!

I so agree, Rambi - sing before you play!!

You dont even need to be a good singer (im not)
singing has helped me discover some very interesting things.

I do 2-3 hours of violin per day, on top of GCSEs and an A level, and auditions for a number of schools/funds/orchestras and mock exam revision. I'm not doing much guitar, piano or drums at the mo, but once my grade 8 and mocks are out of the way I will do more.
Although 2-3 hours isn't enough for me really, I make sure I am actually with my violin and using it constructivley for that time.

Like what?

like inner phrases and motives

Nice......

Right now, I practice for about 2- 4 hours a day on piano, but not all in one go. Usually about 1 hour to 1 1/2 at a time. My practice time has been gradually increasing lately. I used to do around 6 to 8 most days, followed by a long stage of not doing much. I once practiced up to 16 hours a day the week of an exam. My hands felt like pulp after it, wouldnt recommend it.lol...... Of course that was just that once though. Im also aiming to put in an hour or so on aurals, and other stuff.No Im not mad.lol.Its because im more of a sightreader and am totally lost without sheet music, so I thought that if I improved my aural skills that might help with memorising, along with analysis etc.Anyone know what I could use for further aural training, post grade 8? Ive found various websites, computer programmes on the net for starters....
As far as violin is concerned, Ive been neglecting it a bit lately....but I did spend about an hour on etudes the other night....

I practise for about an hour on my flute and about 30 minutes on the piano, because it's all I have time for!

Due to a full time job I can normally do about an hour of piano practise a day and about 1/2 hour of oboe.

During the weekends I tend to catch up on piano and oboe. I can then probably play the piano for 2 hours non stop at a time, though I also play a lot of jazz when not practising my exam pieces at other times.

i practice the piano before school for about 1/2 hour every day and the same in the evening. I wish I could fit more in. I'm also a chorister and that takes up loads of time buts its something I wouldn't give up i just wish the days were longer

lol, not saying you should it, but.....

There is this kid I heard about who woke up at 5A.M every morning, did an hour before school, came back, and did another 3-4 hr.

crazy. I'd rather be home-schooled. (which I am )

Reading all this, I think it sounds like a stamina competition. My recorders would pack up if I played them for so long, as would my family and my neighbours, and they'd have something to say about it at work too. I only have the opportunity to play for at most one and a half hours at a stretch, and that only about four days per week. Sure, more would be better for the music, but not for all the rest of life. It's a good balance for me, and I'm still learning at an accelerating pace, so it must be OK. One thing I have learned - and life taught me that, not music or any other teachers - if you tackle practice in a methodical way, you can learn things in a far shorter time than if you just play for hours.

I can't agree more. Even when I was at school and practising seriously for exams I couldn't squeeze in more than 1.5 hours a day without neglecting schoolwork, food and sleep. Now with a full time job, a long commute and lots of other commitments I'm lucky to get 30 mins practice about 4 days a week. However, by targetting the practice at what really needs doing rather than mindlessly playing through pieces and claiming it as practising I am playing as well as I ever have done.

As to the practice/practise issue comparing to the Cat Sat on the mat has always worked to remind me which is the noun and which is the verb.

Out of interest, what did you get in your exam?

That was for a diploma in performance. Not abrsm though. I ended up not doing the practical section, will probably sit that this coming summer. Wasnt allowed to use sheet music in the exam, that was one of my biggest problems (another being I chose one particular piece that was extemely difficult technically, even for the most hardened pianist, put off practicing it till about 2 months before the exam,wasnt quite up to it at the time...need I say more).
As for practice, 3/4 hours is plenty, im getting loads more done now with alot less hours. Wasnt really practicing properly before.

It's not a matter of quantity - but quality. There's no point in practising 5 hours a day if your mind is not on the job 100% of that time. Far better to do 2 concentrated and perfectly focussed hours' work than trying to battle on when the mind (and body) might be getting slightly tired.

I usually practice my voice for an hour a day and my piano for 1/2 hour. With my busy schedule, though, sometimes my practice gets cut short.

Wow... but where exactly do you find the time, Rambi??? What abt homework and school?! My daughter does 1 hr be4 school early in the morning and 1 hr after school and I was already worried whether she gets enough free time? I was told by piano friends that 4 or 5 hours are essential at grade 8 to do well but quite apart from the qualitative argument, I honestly can't see how that can SANELY FIT in with school commitments including a school's extra-curricular activities?

4 or 5 hours a day for Grade 8! I don't even have that much free time! 4/5 nights a week I have something after school, then I have a load of work to do when I get home, and am shattered by 8pm. I can't flute practise when I am tired because it all goes to pot.

Exactly! You are spot on there, Nicki. Where will one find 4 or 5 hours of untired, relaxed time?! You cannot practise when you are tired or tense at the time. When I was at school at your age, I had after school choirs, Rotaract Club (charity work), police cadet corp, debating society, poetry recital, etc. Not much "free" time left. Fortunately, we were too broke to afford music lessons!

If you need to do 4-5 hours a day for a year to get grade 8, maybe you should take more time out and not do grades so quickly. When I was grade 1-3 I was doing about 30 minutes 5 times a week on 2 instruments and doing 1 grade per year per instrument, as well as school work, sports, and social stuff. I don't think you should need to practice more than 4 hours a day pre grade 8.
Since I don't know people here properly yet, can anyone sum up which age group here seems to do most practice?

Sorry, I was unclear, bohemian. It's not me needing 4 hours a day. It's quite a few parents/kids telling others their teenage kids practise 4 hours a day! One even went to RAM junior academy. But when you ask HOW they find the time, they dodge the question! Hopefully some day... a long way off... when my kid gets to grade 8, she can still just do her 1 hr twice a day 6 days a week. I am only guessing here but maybe, just maybe, if she concentrates 100% of those 2 hours, she'll still get the result she wants!

I'm with the 'less is more' attitude on this - well, not 'less', but I definitely feel that an hour of really focussed practice can be far more productive than 8 hours of unfocussed playing. Obviously as a singer, I'm restricted in the amount of practice I can physically do so I try to make that as productive as possible, but I probably wouldn't ever practice for more than an hour and a half in one go, and I tend to get in about an hour and a half on average each day. It's important to have a life as well!

Having said that though, I'll spend a fair amount of time outside my actual 'practice' sessions, researching background info on pieces/ composers, listening to recordings etc, all of which I hope adds to my understanding of what I'm singing.

No no Tess, I didn't mean you. It was a more general comment aimed at people who think doing 5 hours a day while still effectivley learning the basics is going to make them enjoy their instrument and gain so much more than those who do half as much.

Lucky people who have so much time to practice...! Sometimes I will play for an hour but rarely at the weekends, the house is just too busy. The minimum would be to go through a few scales and some Hanon exercises to keep fingers supple - about 20 minutes.

I'm forty. I did grade 7 last year, grade 8 this year, on about an hour to an hour and a half of practice, four days maximum per week. The grade 7 was my first ever distinction in a music exam, grade 8 the second. I did find I could do some elements of practice without an instrument, such as double-tonguing along to some Vivaldi or Handel whilst driving to work in the car, or listening to the aural CDs en route to ballet lessons for the kids.
Difficult to assess who does the "most" practice - easier to say who puts in the longest time, but the comments on efficient practice still hold good, I think.

I practice at least an hour on each piano and violin every day (less on weekends), which makes it roughly 2 hours per day... which I know is not enough.

But... you should see me the month before an exam! Practising all the way till midnight!

My flute and clarinet are lucky to get over 3 hours each in a week. I just find that I can't do over 30 minutes without losing concentration. So I do around 30 minutes each about 5/6 times a week. Although when exams/concerts are coming up I practice more, if I can.

well i do rather a lot. averaging 0 hours a day.

but when you consider that my average day contains at least two hours of rehearsals (usually more... for instance yesterday i was playing/singing from 3pm till 9pm... on 3 different instruments... today i'll be playing/singing from 4pm till 7:30pm and then again from 9:30-10:30pm) and at least one lecture and one supervision (for which i have to work) then i think you can probably let me off!!!

I would love to play all day I love it so much, sometimes I only get opportunity to do 20 mins or so but usually I try to put an hour a day in. I'm not doing music exams but would love to, and I havent got a teacher either.... I find it helps me to unwind after a day at work cos it takes my attention and the focus off the pressures of work.

Here in Egypt, we have something like this gcses, and this year i study 15 subjects!!!
So, i think you can imagine how i suffer, but i usually succed to practice 1 h 30 mins to 2 hrs per day also , and during the vacations i can manage to practice about 5 or 6 hrs.

just 2 hrs for practice.

Hi LC, are you sure? Just kidding. During the vacation I rather suspect my kid plays all day and practise much less! There is a big difference between play and practice. Hmmm...

Ok i'm quite scared by some of the people on this thread. Due to school, homework, orchestra practice and tv i manage to do an embarrassing 20mins per day of violin, if i'm lucky.In the run up to an exam it rises to 1 hour, but i would never be able to do 5 hours. As for piano, well...the less said the better. How on earth do people find the time? I mean who has 5 hours to spare?

Oh I get so bored of these threads..... It's not how much time you spend, it's what you DO with that time that counts!

So start a new thread, "how do you use your practice time?"
I know that I use my limited 100% effectivly, I have a chart on my wall where I note down how long I play each type of scale (number of octaves, bowing, mode, 7th, arpeggios, chromatics, double stopped etc) and each piece, as well as techniques (spicatto, riccochet, LH pizz etc), and that's what I add up, not how long I have a violin out for! My pieces get relativley little time because I spend most of it on the techniques within the piece. So although my violin might be out for 2.5 hours each day, I know about half an hour of that will not be actual practice...

30 minutes per day
1 hour at the week end

How long do you spend on filling the chart in?!

About 2 minutes....

If I tried the chart thing I'm sure it would be like Rimmer's revision chart in Red Dwarf....

I haven't voted since I'm not the musician but my kid is. Just realised it asked how many hours a day. The question seems to assume that one practises every day? Er, some kids practise 4/5 days a week, some 6 like VN.