I personally practice 5 hours a day and none on Sundays? How bout you?

I'm bad really, my practise tends to go in 'fast and famine' waves! If I have an exam that instrument gets more practise, but if not it tends to fall by the wayside. I do try to practise if it someting really tricky, but otherwise with about 3 or 4 hours homework a night and dancing lessons I just don't have time to practise without disturbing the neighbours (not that my heart would be in it at six in the morning or 12 at night!). Also I often find I can go to a lesson without practising much (if at all!) and play well, but after a week of hard practise I will be terrible, ironic really! I do realise that this shouldn't be a basis for life, but in the short term can work wonders.

My Mum once told me when I was practising my flute for an exam that I should put it away because I sounded so bad, but that I should leave it until I had come back from my school trip to France and hope that my hayfever had improved! She was right I returned and my playing was much better, and I got a merit more from a change of scene rather than hours of practise.

I think that to do 5 hours practise a day is just weird. Does it really profit you? Don't you get sick to death of the pieces, scales, technical exercises etc? I know I would, I would also get phyiscally tired- you can't play a woodwind instrument for that length of time really without your mouth going. My friend goes to the Royal College in London and says that she should practise at least 2 1/2 hours a day, but I worry for her because then she will get tired by that and stressed out with all her school work as well. Also you here of peole who pass exams because they 'put in the hours of practise every day', but if I can get there in minuets each week is there any point in doing more an being bored? Also I find that if I practise something to much I peak before the exam, so although two weeks ago I played it really well when I get into the exam it has gone downhill. Sometimes I now have to deliberately stop myself from playing a piece so that when I go into the exam I'm a little bit nervous and so concentrate harder and play better.

Maybe if you want music as a career you may need to practise a lot but otherwise I think it can do more harm than good.

due to my work load in gcses... (i do a bunch of idiot subjects)...i can only manage to practise 1h30mins to 2 hours per day...

i try and practice between 1-2hours a day, but due to work in a levels, and job, it can be distracting. and it does annoy me when u have bought new music and ur dying to practice it and ur at work or have other important things to do.

if i had loadsa of time, i would practise more than 5 hours a day. sometims on weekends i do this.

but now im studying Alevels and it limits my practise time to about 1-2 hours

but i want to study music, so shouldnt i practise more? lol

Ok, so now i feel bad! Even t hough I already knew it....I'm afraid that practise really does not enthrall me. I do always mean to but it never gets done, which is not too good.

Saxaphone generally gets absolutely no practice a week (but then my teacher doesn't really remember which pieces I do and which my mum does, and so we generally pick at random...improve sight reading?). However, I suddenly realised that I had grade 7 in a week so i started practicing more, say, um, at least half hour a day? Sounds like none but believe me, I had a new reed and my lip actually has 3 scars on it still and i had to completely numb my lip with ambesol for the exam!

The piano gets more, but I do it all in one go just before (my God this looks like evil student!) This is also grade 7 (doing it at Christmas) and I really should do more as I have 4 pieces other than exam pieces, but I get by and still make hardly any mistakes. I put this down to a memory that just remembers things like that if i pay attention.

Anyway, I heartily congratulate you on your 5 hours of practice....though how you find things still interesting about the pieces after 2 days beats me!

i can now practise at least 3 hours a day as i've finished all my gcses....more time...hehe...

I find that 2 hours at a time is the most I would be really concentrating for.
Usaully try to do about an hour and a half in the morning and some more later.
It is not really a matter of clock watching... quality is more important than quantity and sometimes I achieve more in half an hour than I would, on other days, manage in 2 hours

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....though how you find things still interesting about the pieces after 2 days beats me

You must be either very talented, playing pieces way too easy, not very interested in what you are doing or easily satisfied if this is true.
Takes me more than 2 months to get anywhere near finished on a piece, not 2 days!!!

Well done to you all who do 5 hours a day.. i could never manage that on a piano for some reason the longest is one hour and im doing grade 5 so im thinking that i should be doing more than i should but i don't have any idea why but i cant last on a piano rly lonng as i get tired of all the repeated piano playing and things like that..

Heh... My average is 5 hours, but I can sometimes go upto to 9 or 10,
depending on what I want to achieve... Like learning grade 5 scales in half a year (starting from scratch).

I tend to wear myself out when it comes to piano, but I really don't have anything else to do, especially during the Summer.

Oh my goodness, do none of you have anything else you have to do with your lives?

My clarinet is lucky to meet me for 2-3 hours per week - and then I feel I'm doing well!

About 2 1/2 minutes a day in the last year.

But I blame that on my brace (which is now back on, to my chagrin) which some of you know about, and the fact that I've decided to go back to full time education and give up teaching.

I also despise practising when I have other things, and what with 1 play and 1 novel on the go, and cutting my first CD, I just don't have the time to practice! Also, playing 3 instruments is just plain difficult - I never am quite sure what to focus on, as my teaching instrument is my favourite, but far from the most important to me at the moment. Most of all I want to get good at improvisation and erm... bulldookieing... on the piano, so I can play things people ask me to.




By the way, not that it has anything to do with it, but take note of the words practice and practising and that C and S - you'll that way avoid my wrath if you reply to this.

ohhhh tricky...i pratice when i can really. i cant pratice for to long though coz mi lips go!
i have 2 b REALLY careful at brass bonanzas!

I "practice" maybe 1/2 an hour to an hour if that, depending on what day it is, but I play for ages, especially the piano. I spend 3 hours or so on a thursday playing in the youth and local band, and play in school almost every day, but I can't find time to practice every day!!

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I "practice" maybe 1/2 an hour

Actually, you practiSe maybe 1/2 an hour.

PractiCe is the noun and practiSe is the verb. You did your practiCe, but 'you practiSe'

Confusing isn't it

sorry! I even read Davidmusic's rules and still spelt it wrong!

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My average is 5 hours, but I can sometimes go upto to 9 or 10

#$^%!!! when do u find time to SLEEP?!
i practiSe (happy, Louise? ) about 1 1/2 hr total per day, cuz i play violin & piano. however i tend to do more violin practice than piano .

oh, & i'm doing violin, piano, AND theory exams this year (all grade 5). should i be nervous and/or practise more? i've never ever taken an exam before so i don't really know what to expect

and this is my first post ever (logged in bout 10 mins ago). not that any1 cares .

I usually do 4-5 hours, but lately, I've been too tired and busy to do even that (more like 1-2 hours). Sometimes, it's just random come-and-go practice.

Not that it matters, but "practice" is the only form used where I live so that's the only form I'll stick with (otherwise, people will point out that spelling "practise" like this is incorrect when it's merely a different spelling in different places).

The way you put it, yes... It's quite confusing.

I don't sit at my piano or hold my clarinet and practise non-stop for 6 hours, nobody can really do that enjoyably. I practise when i feel bored or hungry or any time when i am free. I don't practise as such, i just play my exam pieces through, or learn a new song. IT isn't practising, just playing in my free time and learning as i go along, if that makes sense At the end of the day, if you have to be told to practise, then you really can't be enjoying your instrument that much, is that true? I have never had to be told ot practise as i usually just pick up my guitar, or whatever, and play the required pieces i have to work on. But per day, i think anything over 30mins a day is fine, unless your doing grades, then i think perhaps a little bt more.

I don't practise every day, but when I do, it's usually for about an hour or an hour and a half.

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Well done to you all who do 5 hours a day.. i could never manage that on a piano for some reason the longest is one hour and im doing grade 5 so im thinking that i should be doing more than i should but i don't have any idea why but i cant last on a piano rly lonng as i get tired of all the repeated piano playing and things like that..

i did 5 hr. a day in grade 2

I do at least 8/9 hours a day in the week, and even more at the weekend, because i'm one of those people who can't leave a piece of music alone for 10 minutes until i can play it to a fairly good standard- but it does mean that i have no time for anything else, like homework, so it can be annoying

what about hoemwork? and having a life outside music?

QUOTE (debussy_fanatic @ Sep 7 2004, 07:46 PM)

I do at least 8/9 hours a day in the week, and even more at the weekend, but it does mean that i have no time for anything else, like homework, so it can be annoying

But how do you have homework? how do you even go to school if you're doing that much playing every day?! I don't know about you but I literally don't have 9 hours a day that's outisde school time- I leave the house at 7am and come home at 6pm on the days where I DON'T have music after school, which leaves me about 5 hours to have my dinner and do my homework and do my practice! I end up doing about 2 hours horn a day during the week, 3 hours on a saturday and 4-5 on a sunday, and I thought that was a lot!

QUOTE (liebe_klavier @ Jun 21 2004, 07:41 PM)

due to my work load in gcses... (i do a bunch of idiot subjects)...i can only manage to practise 1h30mins to 2 hours per day...

me too. I practise at least 1 hr 30 mins per day. Whenever, if time permits, I'll practise more than 3hrs.

I usually practice for anything between 6 and 8 hours a day.I have sometimes done more than that.Sometimes,though,I go to practice and end up playing for hours instead.Im rarely satisfied with what ive done,I nearly always find something wrong,I guess thats one reason why I practice so much.Also, if I hear a piece that I like I just cant leave it alone until I have it learnt,no matter the difficulty.

I get up around 6 o clock in the morning and practise till about 8, then when i get back from school, i practise from about 6pm sometimes til around 1 in the morning. At the weekend- i can easily fit in 9/10hrs practise.

And yes, i do find time for homework (lunchtimes @ breaks at school)- and i do have a life outside music- i still find time to go out and stuff- i don't need more than 4/5hrs sleep a night

i'm doing 3 a day at least... 5 at least in the weekends.... despite all the AS level

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i don't need more than 4/5hrs sleep a night

I thought that until the first day of the summer holidays when I didn't set my alarm clock- I slept for 11 hours!

I do not believe in the idea of saying you have to do a certain amount of practice a day. If you say you are going to do an hour a day, then you end up spending the whole time looking at the clock and waiting for the hour to be finished! This just means that you end up wasting the time. Make sure that when you do practice, it is quality practice of the things that need practice, then when you have finished you can do the things that you want to do. Until you try serious practice, you don’t know what a difference it makes! If you use the times you do practice effectively, then you shouldn’t feel guilty of the times when you don’t practice.

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I do not believe in the idea of saying you have to do a certain amount of practice a day. If you say you are going to do an hour a day, then you end up spending the whole time looking at the clock and waiting for the hour to be finished!

I totally agree with you! I remember being told that I had to practise for at least half an hour a day when I did grade 2 violin. I was incredibly bored and spent ages clockwatching. Now I don't have a set time for practising but I normally practise a lot more and enjoy my practising.

QUOTE (dcmbarton @ Sep 12 2004, 09:36 PM)

IMake sure that when you do practice, it is quality practice of the things that need practice,

I totally agree with u. I read a book by Jeffrey. The tittle is The Art of Practising for Piano. There is one sentence which I found it to be useful. "It is the quality that counts and not the quantity that counts".

it's difficult when you're a bizarre person like me... i play several instruments and find it very difficult to commit to all of them. violin and piano get the most priority (about an hour and a half a day for each) as i hope to study them at music college, but i hardly ever find time to play my viola or recorder and the French horn gets a pitiful 15 minutes every other day! on top of schoolwork and rehearsals and things it gets rather difficult. does anyone have any suggestions? (i don't have a life outside music!!)

Probably practice about an hour a day, but it depends how much coursework I've got to do etc, so changes!

I practise an hour a day but as I'm doing Grade 8, later I will increase that. However, I get a lot of homework, (but I'm not very fast at homework) so I can't practise too much.

As for the people who practise more than 3 hours a day, why don't you get bored of playing the same things over and over and over and over and over again??

--------------------
~tremolololo~
Just done Grade 7 Piano (22nd Sept.) (done well except aurals!)

i practise 8hrs a day never more i just wouldn't be able to handle that!
i wake up at 6 on a school day and do 2hrs b4 school and then do 1 hr at school and 6hrs at home in the evening. But i guess thats because i sing play piano and the cello and i'm in like 3 choirs, barbershop, orchestra, opera chorus and the list goes on! so i usually need all the practise just to cover all my weekly work but a week off is defenitly (i cant spell!) welcome when it ever happens.

how can u practice soooo much i can barely get myself to do anything!!!!!

then again i do get lots of homework n i do do lots of other things aswell!!!

oh well lol

Lucy

QUOTE (char @ Oct 1 2004, 09:56 AM)

i practise 8hrs a day never more i just wouldn't be able to handle that!

how about al your homeowkr...how can you handle everything...

well im only in year 9 this year and i dont have trouble wit schoolwork cause i find it reali easy! The onlis subjects which challenge me are maths cause im reali bad and music cause my teacher is a musician and she knows her stuff so she sets harder work for our gifted music class. Exams are coming up so i am goin to cut down my practise so i dont flunk exams!

oh and i Do do otha stuff 2! i play netball and do debating and stuff so i mean i guess my schedule is flexible enough 4 me 2 b able to do it! some people in my class are worse than me they practise all the time and have no social skills or other stuff other than music plus the teachers at my school check our "practise timetable" to c if we r doin any work and most people just chaeat and make it up!

QUOTE (char @ Oct 11 2004, 07:48 AM)

well im only in year 9 this year and i dont have trouble wit schoolwork cause i find it reali easy!

hey...i'm in the first year of six-form...so much work....

Actually I am wondering why and how you can practise for so much time!
I like music, but certainly don't practise for much time, about 0-10 mins per day.
When a new score arrives, I will at most practise for about 5 times. Afterwards, it returns to 0-2 times a day.
Don't you have other things to do, such as sports, internet, other extra-curricular activities?

10 mins per day..that's unacceptable....i can still practise a lot when there's loads of work coming in the very same day

I used to practice about 2 hours a week! Plus in about 6 music groups. But before my grade 7 my teacher made me practice an hour a night and i really couldnt manage that what with A levels (not in music), resits and trying to get A's. I would love to be able to practice more but as music is not my specialised subject i find it difficult to find the time. Also im now a fresher at uni and i dont think my housemates would appreciate me playing scales at any time of the day!

My best time for practicing my violin is early morning. I get up at 6 am and practice some scales and music I'm working on. I find I'm so much better in the morning than when I come home from work in the evening.

On weekends I usually try to get 3 sessions in morning, afternoon and evening. Although on weekends I do lie in till 7 am

with the manic workload we have at GCSE, I am lucky if I get in 3 hours for my 4 instruments.
I also try to balance this with my fairly busy social life which I couldnt live without, so this year I have adopted the theory 'sleeping is a waste of time'
and I'm trying not to get to tired and if I really cant cope, then I catch up with my sleep in physics!!

Just wanted to bump the topic.
I now do about 6-7 hr a day
working on sundays also

i wanted to comment on a very early post, (concerning how i can practice a piece for more then 2 days),
It helps alot to sing when you play. It helps you discover new ideas and the great thing is: whenever you sing the piece you can sing it anyway you want. (your voice is more flexible then your're fingers) and then you can copy that idea and try to play it.

I practice about 30-60 minutes a day.

Car Expert

If i had time I'd love to do 2-3 hours a day but seeing as i don't i try to get one hour in.