Hi everyone,

I have recently taken up the piano after a loooong gap (14 years or so! ). I have Grade 4 which I took when I was 14 or so, and was studying for Grade 5 when I gave up. I am now 28 and work full-time as a lawyer - it's in the City and more than just 9-5 hours, so I have to manage my time very carefully to have time for piano.

I am next having lessons again in September, and will ask my tutor how much practice I should be doing - because I want to step things up again and maybe think about doing Grade 5 again when I am ready - but just wondered if any posters here had any thoughts about how much practice I should be aiming for per day / week to make Grade 5 next year (or the year after, even)? I know my piano tutor herself will be the best placed to tell me, but any thoughts of people in a similar position about how much time they aim for would be very interesting to hear. I am not someone who is very naturally talented at music and I do have to really work at it, but my piano teacher says I have improved a lot over the last few months.

I would ideally like to be doing an hour or so targeted practice a day but it isn't always possible with the hours I work...

Thanks

The quality of the practice is often more important than the time, it sounds like you are a busy lady so if you aim to get to the piano every day - if you can do an hour great, but if you know you only have 15 minutes, use them well - set a target with your pieces or scales and try and do a small part of a piece really well rather than playing through the whole piece and not really progressing it.

I have just taken on a retired gentleman who like you got to grade 4 but in his case 40 years ago and he is progressing nicely on half an hour a day.

I'm sure you will get to grade 5 and it will seem like no time at all - but most of all I wish you all the enjoyment in the world with your rediscovery of the piano Have fun!

Hi unlikelyheroine, and welcome.

I'm not a pianist, and not on the exam trail so I can't answer questions about how much practice you might need to do to get to grade x in time y, but I can give you my experiences as someone trying to balance practice time with a sometimes demanding job.

First, there's playing and there's practice - one is fun and one is more like hard work. I used to do a lot more playing than I did practice, now I am usually very focussed about my practice and my progress is much faster. Not that playing isn't valuable - when you have a stressful job some light relief is valuable in itself, but don't mistake it for the practice that is going to help you progress.

I used to think I didn't have time for much in the way of practice and used to only really practice at the weekends, then I revisited that assumption and made the time for it. I've cut out a lot of other stuff, I don't watch much TV and I quite often turn down night's out if I don't think I'll have enough time for practice in the week. Even when I'm tired from work and stressed from commuting I make sure the first thing I do when I get home is to do my practice.

Occasionally work gets hectic - I've just finished a six-week or so stretch of late nights and weekend working. When this happens I find I just have to accept it, get on with the work, do what practice I can to keep my stamina up and not stress about what I'm missing - it's just the way my life is sometimes. Things are nice and quiet at the moment though, so I'm getting plenty done now.

It's also worth thinking about what you can do away from the piano, maybe while you're travelling to and from work or at lunchtime. If nothing else listening to music on an iPod or similar is a good motivator on the way home from work. Counting rhythmic patterns and subdivisions in time to your walk is another one, or mentally thinking through scales, patterns etc.

You can do little bits and pieces away from the piano, for instance, whilst waiting for the kettle (or the oven or microwave etc) you can do some finger exercises on the worksurface to get a bit of dexterity back.

If you can manage an hour a day of real practice that should get a lot done. It might be easier to cut it up across the day (as long as you don't have neighbours to disturb) eg: 20 mins before work, 20 mins when you get home, 20 mins before going to bed, or two half hour slots might be better. Certainly, to start with an hour's solid slog might be a bit heavy.

Hi unlikelyheroine

I thought I was reading about myself! Basically same story here (stopped playing at about 13 and restarted last year age 27, although I only started having lessons again early this year). I also work in the City (but physically in Canary Wharf not the square mile), so I fully understand how difficult to fit in practice time (still I'm mad enough to take up a second instrument as well... ) On average I'd say I do about 30-45 minutes a day on the piano (plus couple of hours on the weekend) and I think I'm making sensible progress.

What works for me is to set performance targets rather than timing. Instead of say, an hour a day, try, say, 12 bars a day/one page a day or whatever suits you (bit of trial and error to start with but after a while you'll find out how fast/slow you learn and can set more realistic targets). In this way, I also find I practise more efficiently as it is very easy to fall into the trap of just putting in "face time" at the piano and achieve very little in an hour, particularly when I'm really tired from a long day.

Also, I agree with TSax that it's worth thinking about things you can do away from the piano. Once on a business trip, I worked out the fingerings of a Bach fugue on the flights - to the amusement of the flight attendants and the guy sitting next to me...

Good luck!

Hi unlikelyheroine!


Congratulations on taking the piano up ago and I hope you get LOTS and LOTS of enjoyment out of it.

If it's any help, I'm also working on Grade 5 piano and my teacher recently told me I should be doing about an hour a day. At the moment, I'm using this as a target and setting a minimum of 45 mins. I find it helpful to have a target amount of time, but that's my approach and it may not work for you.

I agree completely with what others have said about the quality of the practice. The advice I was given by my teacher (and it seems to work) is to focus on small sections at a time and REALLY work on that section, taking it apart, putting it back together and so on.

Hope this is helpful and good luck!

Thank you for the replies Some really interesting thoughts here - much appreciated. I think it might be a good idea for me to actually listen to some piano music on my Mp3 player rather than the rubbish I have been listening to - good call And it's also true that I can work on some finger exercises to try to strengthen my fingers - it's amazing that I can feel how weak they are now compared to when I used to play piano regularly a few years ago - the ring finger on each hand is especially feeble!!

Also a good idea to split the session up - an hour can be hard to find but 20 minutes here and there may be easier. We actually have a piano in our office that we can practice on, which is pretty cool actually, so I sometimes sneak down there on the rare occasions I have a quiet day at the office!!

Thanks everyone

A fairly constant amount of time each day is best. If your time is limited it is better to get up early and practice before work - while your mind is fresh - rather than after commuting to and from a tiring day at the office - especially as you say you work more than an 8 hour day.

It may not be practical to use an acoustic piano for this, so I would consider a good quality electronic piano, reserving your acoustic for weekends. That might also allow you to put in more time in the evenings - if for example you arrive home too late to disturb the neighbours with an acoustic piano.

Alternatively can you get to work early and use the piano there for an hour before anyone arrives?

It is possible to put in quite long sessions (3-4 hours a day) at weekend and improve quickly, so long as you do at least something (15-20 minutes) on each week day in-between.

An average hour a day is enough practice time to reach grade 5 and beyond, even if much of it is in the form of some relative marathons at weekends. At Grade 8 and beyond an hour a day is really not very much.

A violin teacher friend of mine says she tells her students to practice for twice their age minutes per day.

But I also agree that quality of practice is paramount. I certainly feel I improve more by concentrating my effort on one or two studies/pieces each day rather than trying to rush through everything every day.

I've heard of a performance student who had to give up and seek a different career after he got RSI through over-practicing. So thats another very good reason to make sure you get the most out of the time you spend playing.

I'm also a lawyer and used to work in the City so I know how difficult it is to put in practise (I now work in Bahrain at a local law firm and the hours are not as hectic as international law firms )...anyway, I would average about 1 and half to 2 hours a day (most days) and make up for it during the weekend, around 3 hours. Also, I would tackle certain areas of difficulty instead of playing areas which I already know.

For us wrinklies, that's an awful lot of practice!

[quote name='musicalmel' date='Aug 14 2008, 01:50 AM' post='733208']
A violin teacher friend of mine says she tells her students to practice for twice their age minutes per day.

Sounds about right to me!

I am 17 and practice over 34 minutes a day.

I find it funny imagining my dad, 64, playing for 128 minutes a day. Luckily he does not play an instrument and is musically useless in every way possible.

Let us just hope that he useless at scanning electronic forums!

I work in the city too and do mad hours, sometimes I don't even get time to practice or too tired to get out my violin. I hardly do any practice. I can only practice during the weekends when I'm not busy/lazy. On average, I would say I only do 1.5 hours per week. I go through my grade 5 scales, work on a piece of my grade 5 pieces and do some technical exercises. My old teacher says that I'm not doing enough practice, I should try to do at least 15 min a day. But I'm just too tired to practice! So my progress has been slow! If I wasn't so busy, I would aim for 45 min of effective practice per day. My friend practices about 45 min to one hour per day and he's progressing very well.

Hi!
I suffer from lack of time and although I don't play piano (yet) I am studying for my theory exams. I have drawn myself up a focus plan - physically. Rather like a time table only with out the times. If it was for practical an example may be;
Monday - Scales. Half hour Minor scales and half hour major scales
Tuesday - First set piece - " half hour slots ( or 3 x 20 mins, whatever you can fit in) work on individual parts of the piece and in the final practice play it through completely.

I find I don't stress quite as much about how much I revise or practise because I know I am focusing on all the relevant divisions and making up for quantity with quality. There may be some things which require more work so you could do say two days of set piece one and only one session of major scales - this will be to suit the individual obviously.
Sometimes we can't possibly get up any earlier or go to bed any later!!


P.s I'm sure you'll already do this but do allow yourself 'fun' pieces too. A grade standard down is good because it refreshes you mentally instead of stressing you!

Do you gt a lunch hour??? (as a lawyer you should be aware it is a legal requirement to have a break).

I have two friends I know of who work in the city who are able to get a little practice at lunch times - one works a few minutes walk from the Barbican, and they have a practice piano in the library there you can use (digital with headphones) if you are a member of the music library. The other has located a piano shop where she can arrange to go and play a 'real' piano at lunch time.

It would make a nice break from work too.

Thanks for some more helpful posts. My firm has a piano room so that's nice, I can go and practice in there! I have a keyboard at home - not the best, I know I need something with weighted keys, but I will treat myself to a decent electric piano if I manage to keep going making progress as I am.

I am looking forward to starting lessons again in September after the summer break so I can talk to my teacher and get an idea of what will help me learn faster!

I reckon that at an advanced level of playing grade 6+ 1 hour a day should be good enough i the time is not wasted.

10 minutes a day on scales will probably do and the rest cna beon practicing techinques etc.. through playing pieces of music. Concentrate on a couple a week.

Or if you are preparing for an exam/audition then spend 15 mins on scales and the rest on pieces.

At the weekend maybe try and do more practice than you owuld normally.


Thats what I might do. Please say where I am wrong/right.

this is only what i did, but for my grade 8 violin by the time I'd learnt all of my scales etc:
10 mins on each piece
5 mins sight reading
10 mins scales

now i split my practice into studies/pieces. sometimes i only do studies, sometime pieces, cometimes both. depends how i feel.