How much do you suggest your students practice (per day/per week) in preparation for each grade (or at each age group)?

I am not a teacher but I thought it worth pointing out that although my girl has an excellent violin teacher, he has NEVER once suggested how much time she should practise. She herself chose to do 10 mins twice a day (six days a week) from day one in the first term when she began. Then she upped this gradually but she did not tell him either and he never seemed bothered although he did ask a couple of times how much time she spent on scales.

Hmmm, it seems a bit tricky to tell your students at the outset what to do so precisely, don't you think? It depends on the particular student, the instrument, etc.

I might suggest minimum practice times if necessary but I prefer to encourage setting targets for each practice session rather than having clock watching.
In some ways i think if people REALLY need telling how long to practice their heart is not in it.
If you are interested in your learning the right amount of practice will mostly happen, though of course life sometime gets in the way even for children.

I always give my students suggestions and instructions about their practice. The very young beginners often think that if they try a tune and cannot get it right the first time then should leave it until the next lesson. Others think that they should play once a week, or play each item once through every day. Beginners of any age will benefit from clear directions about using their practice time. The more advanced players will need prompting about certain aspects of their daily practice. Some will never work at sight reading unless they have an ex or two set for each day, others will not spend long enough on scales and arpeggios. I suggest timings often. A plan for a grade four level student (not necessarily one preparing for an exam) might read: Five to ten minutes working on scales etc at the start of your practice session, ten minutes on the study, ten minutes on your piece and one sight reading ex each day. I suggest that they split the practice into several short sessions during their evening if they want to, and find that they will spend far longer than the suggested time on one or two items without forgetting to get the rest done too.

My daughter started the cello aged six and a half. Right from the beginning her teacher said she should be practising about 20 minutes a day (I later found out that this is what she says to all her beginners whatever their age). I also realised fairly rapidly that 20 minutes was too long in one session for a six and a half year old and given the school days here (in France) splitting this was not an option. Her actual practice time was more like five or ten minutes - she used to play through everything once (or very occasionally twice).

Shortly before the end of the summer holidays this year (ie age nearly nine and a half) she asked me to put the timer on for twenty mintues, which I did. She then discovered, rapidly once lessons started again, that she didn't have enough things to practise to fill up 20 minutes. She only has pieces to practise on a regular basis but she came up with the idea of filling up any extra time with playing scales. She would stop as soon as the timer went off.

About a month ago she has decided that the timer must be broken. The timer goes off after 20 minutes and she says "stupid thing, that's not twenty minutes" and carries on playing until she thinks she has finished. She also has what I consider to be a more useful attitude to practice since if she makes a mistake she will practise just one or two bars until she gets it right. (Before she would, as Petrat says of her pupils, either give up and wait for her next lesson or go right back to the beginning and hope the difficult part would be right the second time).

I should perhaps add that apart from saying she should practise for twenty minutes her teacher has never suggested how she should structure this time and when I asked if she should be starting with some sort of warm-up exercises (ie scales or bowing exercises) she said not necessarily.

I tend to be very specific about requirements, and ask them to fill in a practice timetable. Not everyone agrees with this approach, but I find that with younger children, especially, it then becomes like part of their homework routine, in that it's just something to be done, without issue. I ask for 10-15 mins for a beginner per day, and gradually raise this to 25 mins, say, for Grade 5. I find this works better than no practice for a few days, then an hour and a half's blitz. Though, of course, they're always welcome to do more than that if they feel the urge, and several do!

This is the sort of thing my daughter would love!
It has become part of her routine because I have made sure it has. When she comes home for lunch (she has a two-hour lunch break) she practises then. If she hasn't come home for lunch she practises after her homework is finished (these tend to be the least productive sessions). At the weekend she practises just before teatime.

As a parent I would like something a bit more specific than N° 4 page 15 and N°6 page 17. Mainly because my daughter follows religiously what her teacher tells her to do and until I actually got her teacher to say in my daughter's hearing that practising didn't just mean playing once through from start to finish and that you should spend time working just on the difficult bars my daughter refused to do so.

I definately think there is something to be said for making practice part of a routine as suggested by Dulciana, however different stroakes for different folks! What works for some doesn't for others.

I can also see why 20 minutes a day might be difficult for a 6 year old! I think the trick is finding a way of making practice to students rewarding in a way that makes them want to, and to even run over their practice times.

This is my point the view both as student and teacher who went from never wanting to practice to playing several hours a day!

I think those who really excel don't think of practice as practice but do it in the same way they watch the telly or surf the internet, as a passtime...

Still I know my classical piano teacher suggested to students an amount to practice per week based on their level, I'm not sure exatly what is was but something like:
for grade 1 - 1/2 hour (per week)
grade 1 - 1 hour (per week)
grade 2 - 1 1/2 hour (per week)
grade 3 - 2 hours (per week)
grade 4 - 2 1/2 hours (per week)
grade 5 - 3 hours (per week)
grade 6 - 3 1/2 hours (per week)
grade 7 - 4 hours (per week)
grade 8 - 5 hours (per week)

I wondered how that would compare to the suggestion of others.

Broadly speaking, I'd be in line with the above, with the proviso that I might possibly advocate slightly more than just the half hour per week for Grade I. Maybe 5x10 minutes weekly. I also tend to advise, if asked that, practice earlier in the week (i.e. soon after the lesson is better than at the end of the week) when points from the lesson, techniques etc. can be consolidated while they are still fresh in the memory. At any rate, as I have stipulated elsewhere, little and often is the best policy, rather than a one-hour blitzing session the day before the child returns for the next lesson. I'd probably say one hour daily for Grade VIII but there again we have to remember that some young folk have more than one instrument and, what with coursework for GCSEs AS and A2 levels it can be a tall order for them to achieve this level of commitment. Perhaps it's not wise to be suggest a one-size-fits-all scenario. These are broad, general guides only - and they work OK for me.

LR

Excelled myself on Christmas Day :- I practiced a total of 6 hours!! And no tinkling! All actual practice

I practice for however long it takes me to get what I need to do done.

Good guidelines, but would prefer my grade 8's to do at least an hour per day. However, what about the youngers who find it difficult to work to a time scale? I have several who are that busy watching the clock and don't really know what to do with the time. I think the most important thing is that teachers help each child structure their time. For several of mine who find it difficult being guided by the clock, it is much more beneficial writing down a practice routine for them, eg
C Major x twice perfect on the trot
G Major x twice perfect on the trot
D Major x 5 (assuming this is the new scale being learnt that week)
List A Piece - x 2 (to keep up)
List B Piece - x 2 (to keep up)
List C Piece - right hand x 2 (assuming this is the best one)
left hand x 4 (assuming this is lagging behind)
Sightreading - 2 per day - each one played twice (hopefully to spot mistakes them made first time)
Any Past Piece - For Enjoyment to end the practise sessions.

I know this takes time to write out each week, but these type of students make much better progress, and now several of them actually ask me to do this for them.

Hope this helps with some of your students!

If asked by a parent I tend to suggest 10 minutes warm up plus 10 minutes per grade daily. So for example a G1 student should aim for 20 minutes a day, a grade 5 student 60 mins and a G8 student 90 mins. I teach brass so in the early stages stamina can be an issue, hence the 20 minutes idea.




6 hours? were you on your own or did you have family with you?

SIX HOURS on Christmas day?! If you were with family I can't imagine you being flavour of the month by practicing for six hours.

I managed four hours on Christmas Day - but I did have dinner for nine to make.

My teacher expects two hours a day practice from me and a lot of written work too. Not sure if the half hour singing she requires is additional or included though (I daren't ask).

I'm taking my grade 5 classical guitar this March and I tend to practise for an hour a day - which my teacher said was good. I spend around 30mins a day practising violin, sometimes more, but I haven't been playing that long, so I have stop when my shoulder feels tired

The crucial thing for us was when told that young beginner violinists should practise for at least 5 minutes every day, the "every day" being the important aspect. 5 minutes doesn't seem at all daunting.

In reality when I actually encouraged my daughter to take the violin out of its case every day to do the 5 minutes, we found that the practising came easily, always exceeded 5 minutes and she now happily plays for anything up to an hour at a time. I think if we had been told 20 minutes it would have been a lot more off putting!

Hello!

I think as someone else pointed out, the quality of the practise is very important. Half an hour spent concentrated on improving something specific can be more productive than two hours just playing over the same old pieces.

I hadn't thought much about this until my daughter, then aged 7, made a timer with my husband. She likes it... and wanted to use it for her practice. Her teacher wants her to practise 5 times a week... and as she is working toward grade 2.... we decided on 15 mins. If she does what is required before this time, she can play other stuff ( carols etc at this time of year...or if she is very unlucky we do aural). Before, she just wanted to play everything through and then said "I've finished". She is now beginning to really practice properly and independently, to get it right as she knows she has to do 15 mins anyway. It works well for her.
My son only has to do 10 mins... with the timer. Before he was doing about 3 mins... but if he has done everything, I can persuade him to do more as he knows 10 mins isn't up.

It doesn't work well timing practice with my eldest as she gets cross about the time restriction. However, if my dad is staying, she will practise for a really long time with him, without any arguing...whereas the other 2 complain they have done their 10 mins ( my Dad is 77, a pianist who loves to play music with my kids!!!!)
I don't recommend an amount with most of my pupils unless they are doing an exam, although I do recommend 5 times a week. I know that some of the pupils do more than the time I would alllocate them and if I said do 15 mins 5 times a week it might limit their practice. However, one of my pupils is not progressing very well as she does not practice and I have suggested 5 x 10 mins a week. I know she doesn't do that but she is now practising 2 or 3 times a week and is making much better progress.

I am learning the piano myself, and following my childrens use of the timer... I have begun to use it. During Christmas hols I'm trying for 1 hour a day (got an exam coming up and I can't play the 3rd piece yet....) but usually do 30 mins a day. The timer helps me check I have enough time to get through everything (so I don't spend 1 hour on scales... and have time to do my pieces). The down side is once I have done my hour I don't think of returning to the piano to play... whereas I might have done that before I began using the timer.

Yes, I think we have reached a conclusion here: little (better than none), regular and focused sums it up. The ideal scenario is when people like Clari's daughter (above) or the young violinist beginner mentioned earlier find that practice is habit-forming. Routine, routine, routine. That's the watchword. Might seems mechanical and predictable. But don't knock it. It's better than a lack of routine, which just makes for indolence!! We see enough of that.

LR

When I was sitting in the waiting room of an exam centre just before Christmas, with some of my pupils and their parents, we were all quiet and listening to a converation that was going on amongst another group. (Another teacher and her pupils' parents.) They were discussing how terrible it was for a teacher to be so prescriptive as to specify practice times, and seemed to feel that it's the parent who pays, that this should be fun, and that practice should be up to the child! My crowd and self just sat and looked coyly at each other, saying nothing, since I'm totally prescriptive about minimum practice times, and ask for the practice timetable to be signed! However we were able to hear the candidates play, and there could have been no argument as to which bunch was better prepared, and which children came out looking more pleased with themselves. Children and even teenagers do need a little gentle shove in the right direction sometimes.

from experience of teaching (not music) children generally appreciate structure and indications of what to do and when etc. The need positive direction a good bit of the time.
Regular, worthwhile practice MUST pay off - and the pupil sees that too.

Well I have a few fortunate circumstances,

Firstly my family don't really "do" christmas
Secondly the piano is in the hall not the living room so it doesn't interfere with theose watching the telly
and Finally... My family are so used to me playing that they just switch off to it...

I'm lucky I guess

Yes! No matter where I took my clarinet, I was barked at by a large dog! I don't get enough time to practice...

I took up that attitude a while back, and it really worked well! I went from being a just above grade 6 player to a reasonable grade 7 player within 3/4 months doing it that way, and instead of dreading lessons as I used to find them a drag I looked forward to them as I could actually go in and say "I've learnt this piece, can we fine tune it", instead of the endless note bashing that I used to do. I also have a good day/bad day system. On a good day I will practise for anything up to 1.5 hours, going through everything I need to (including solo, orchestra and wind band music), on all three of my clarinets. A bad day will just mean scales on all three instruemtns with no pieces (as there will be no way of geting anywhere with them), but this will still add up to 45mins+ with all the grade 8 scales to go through.

I don't know why some kids are so keen to practise and others have to be reminded all the time. It helps to remember that Mozart had to be nagged to practise by his dad!

Practice charts are good especially if you offer a reward for lots of consistent practice, but then you worry that practice should be its own reward. Then you think of Mozart and his dad and you stop worrying - for a bit. It's a minefield really.

It helps when you set tunes they really want to learn; I set Jingle Bells for a couple of Autumn beginners this year; they had to skip a couple of pages to get there so I made it a bit of a treat, and boy did they practise to get it ready in time for Christmas! So you can create fun incentives but this isn't always easy, expecially when you come to scales practice....

Getting them to keep a practice diary is also a good idea.

Violinia

Theere are lots of tricks I've discovered to keep motivated to practice.
These are things I'd advise anyone I was teaching that was old enough to be self-motivating and not reliant on a parent telling them to practice.

I've noticed that the hardest thing is breaking into a piece.
Once you've got past this part it's a lot easier to practice!

So, I always try and make sure I am breaking into something at the same time as improving my playing on whatever else I'm learning and have had some progress with. This way when I'm finished learning a piece or two I don't only have completely new things to turn to and thing "ohhhh godddd how long is it going to take till this sounds musical?!!", I've always got something on the go to thats less daunting to switch between when I get aggravated...

Another thing is, if you take a break from practice
for goodness sake do not turn on the telly or go onto the computer!!!
You'll almost certainly get distracted or drawn into something!

The best is to put the kettle on and/or have a wee snack during a break in my experience.

Scales can be boring or daunting to a lot of people but I find once you get into them you forget how arduous you found the thought of practicing them! If you can just force yourself the first 5 minutes you might find you can just drift away and forget about things for a while. I can at least sometimes.

The main thing is getting over the psychology that practice is a chore. This was the problem for me in years gone by, if you have to force yourself the first 20-30 minutes and then after that you remember how much you actually enjoy playing then thats the ticket. Tough love yourself into practicing! Sometimes it will definately work, other times if you're not in the state of mind (as I wasn't today) don't be too hard on yourself, just make sure you practice tomorrow

I'm so pleased to hear it's not just me.

[quote name='Rock Star Guy' date='Dec 30 2006, 09:34 PM' post='441683']
Theere are lots of tricks I've discovered to keep motivated to practice.
These are things I'd advise anyone I was teaching that was old enough to be self-motivating and not reliant on a parent telling them to practice.

I've noticed that the hardest thing is breaking into a piece.
Once you've got past this part it's a lot easier to practice!

Yes, this is so true! Our girl usually has a hard/new piece and a much easier contrasting old piece simultaneously.

Another thing is, if you take a break from practice
for goodness sake do not turn on the telly or go onto the computer!!!
You'll almost certainly get distracted or drawn into something!

Yes, true again. Our girl is a natural artist first and a fiddler second. I once saw her doodling way happily with pieces of paper all around her in a right mess on the floor as I passed her room. So I assumed she had finished but - Oh, mum, I just have this GREAT idea I simply must get this down on paper... They were various designs for superheroes' suits.

The best is to put the kettle on and/or have a wee snack during a break in my experience.

True again in VN's case - milk-free vanilla ice-cream...

The main thing is getting over the psychology that practice is a chore.

I think that is the MAIN thing for our kid.

She has somehow got it into her head that it is not a chore. To her, it is a natural routine/habit one gets up to as soon as breakfast is over. Hmm, time now to tune the violin which is never in its case, anyway. It sits on her shelf directly above her bed with shoulder rest intact and already perpetually stuck on it. She only takes it off to play it as a guitar from time to time a tune she has in her head.

Whenever people ask/wonder, she actually says - It's a bit like brushing your teeth, isn't it? You don't go to school if you haven't brush your teeth, do you?

I guess we are "lucky" for want of a better word. I fully agree with RSG on the above.

Eeeeeehehehheeh *giggles gleefully* Thankyou I feel very encouraged and full of myself joy!!
In honesty I'm not always as confident as I come across though so it's good to hear my thoughts ratified by others


Oh yes, I have one more suggestion on this, apply the same principle to learnign long pieces...
More often than not we learn long pieces we learn them in sections, my suggestion is when you are doing this every so often skip forward and play the next section (or better still the whole piece) through, no matter how slowly!
This gives the fantastic advantage that once you've finished learning the section you're on, the next one is not brand new to you, you've already made just a little ground on it, so you won't get discouraged by the fact you're fluent in one part of the song and totally clueless as soon as you come to the next...

I do that.
Good to hear an explanation of why it's a good idea.

Something I always tell my pupils and especially the younger ones is that they should try to play every day. Even if it's just 5 minutes. I can't remeber who said it... but I completely agree with the idea that if someone sits down and aims for 5 minutes they will make it to at least 10. I did the same today - 5 minutes and then I will do some more maths, I said. I was there for about 40 minutes.....

Wow, that is a very clever idea! Hmm, only 20, I wonder how long you have been teaching? Are you sure you were born in 1986?

This approach can work well but bear in mind some top musicians advise against it, because they see it as an inherently 'unmusical' approach, treating the music as a series of notes to be tackled rather than a piece of music. Like if you were to learn to recite a poem starting with the middle stanza and working backwards....what would that do to your feeling for the poem?

Violinia

But sometimes you really do have to spend time just learning the notes.

Yes you do but it could be counterproductive in the long term if you end up killing your feeling for the music as a whole in the process.

Violinia

I think I end up doing that half the time I think it's because my teacher always used to say that I should spend more time learning the notes, so I went through a phase of only learning the notes, and now she is having to remind me to put more emotion into the music! But you can only really put emotion into the piece once you can play the notes, so note-bashing isn't always a bad idea.

Nearly 21

I started teaching seriously in the summer, (although I'd given some lessons before that,) I went to america as a camp councilor for 9 weeks and taught kids (mostly teenagers) keyboard and other music-related things 3-5 hours a day, sometimes in groups and sometimes on an individual basis.

Atm I don't have very much time to teach at all because I study music performance at a different city from the one I live in and the commute takes it out of me, but at the end of this academic year I'll hopefully be studying my degree at a university institution closer to home and I will have already completed some of the modules in my HND so I'll have a lot more time,

Basically all my knowledge and ideas come from the experience of being a kid that didn't want to learn to becoming voraciously motivated by music too. I think because I've gone through that I've got lots of good ideas about getting others more motivated. I'm probably a better teacher than player, so I guess it really is all down to experience.

Remembering the 'experience of being a kid' is one of the most productive tools you will ever have, so don't ever lose it! Knowing where they're coming from and what makes them tick is something that is worth a decade of teacher-training.

Usually I tell beginners that they should try to play the piano for 5 minutes a day. This usually translates into 5 minutes on 4 or 5 days per week which is acceptable.

When they progress to say, Prep test level, depending on their age, I write a bit more detail in their notebooks about exactly what to practise, but no time limit mentioned at this stage. If I feel that practice is slipping, I fix them with a steely gaze and enquire firmly about amount of practice and have a thorough discussion and usually exact a "promise" to do more.

Later on, I have a few different ideas to try out on the older pupils depending on their temperaments, should the need arise.

With four kids they all have different approaches to practise. No 2 daughter practised that cello diligently every day for half an hour and every week her teacher said "you havent practised". Yes, we changed him after 4 years - should have done it sooner.

No 3 daughter practises her jazz piano every day for one hour minimum. But Not On Xmas Day, Her birthday or Holiday! She selected the time. The other instruments, viola and alto sax, are fitted in as and when, usually furiously just before a grade exam, then practise is abandoned on the grounds that she has two orchestra sessions a week, with jazz band and concert band each once a week so there is defintely no need to practise those! Occasionally a session at the Roundhouse or with the NYO challenges her and pulls her standards up. In the case of piano this is her absolute favorite, but she hasnt done any exams there for 3 years, doesnt want to. We never have to remind her and she usually practises when she gets home from school. In addition she practises at school for half an hour on the day of her piano lesson - they have a Steinway! I have to say when she is working on a piece and taking it apart again and again, its hard listening. You are talking of nearly 20 years of listening to a variety of instruments being practised daily from beginner level. Yes I too have learnt my scales!