The title says it - is it worth practicing when you're tired or do you just make too many mistakes and start to practice doing it wrong?

I'm off to bed now, about 2 hours earlier than usual (usual being about 1 am) because I'm shattered.

I think it seems just slightly wrong to prevent yourself from doing something you enjoy just because you're tired and might risk making it minutely worse. Isn't the reason we play instruments because we enjoy doing so, not so we can get to as high a standard in as quick a time as possible?

If you're particularly worried about going backwards, you could practise particularly slowly to compensate for lower levels of concentration or just have a bit of fun by sight reading through loads of random music, or play some easier pieces you learned a while ago etc etc.

I've found it's usually worth a try, especially when you feel you haven't done as much as you would have liked. I find that once I start, I usually somehow find the energy. If I'm really not up to it, I soon realise & stop, but I don't think it actually does any harm. I find the danger is that I go on too long, then I'm really shattered in the morning. Recently, I've been more into getting up early & doing extra practice then rather than late night, as I'm fresher & it seems to have more effect.

I'm the worlds worst when it comes to practising until the wee hours as work and study (and a severe case of insomnia!) prevent me from practising at "sensible" times. Once I've started though any tiredness soon goes and I've had many a good practice sesh at seemingly idiot hours in morning. I always regret it though at work the next morning. Good small hours piano practice = unable to function as a human being at work the next day But I think you know when your practise session just isn't working and it's time to go to bed or do something different whatever time of day.

I think my worst habit is deciding to play when I've gone though a bottle of the finest french grape juice, always a bad idea

Lois

I think if you are tired, the probability of making mistakes is higher. I read somewhere that if you have made mistakes in the final run before you ended the practice session, the mistakes stick with you. For the next session, you'll have to spend time undoing the mistake.

Another observation I make is that when I am really tired, I cannot sit properly at the piano. That means I will have a bad posture. Very soon my hands and arms would be aching. Hence it would not be possible to play for very long either.

Not to mention the huge mental effort you have to make to play a piece well... Can be a very tiring process on its own! After a practise session, my brain will still be so active, albeit tired, that I need to relax before being able to go to sleep...

It is both! At the same time.

Deciding whether or not to practice when you are tired is not a black and white thing. There is every degree of tiredness from completely alert and fresh to completely done-in. The more tired you get the less effective the practice.

Somewhere there is a crossover point where trying to practice will make you worse instead of better. That is going to be different for each of us. But there is the problem that when you get to that level of weariness your judgement is also all gone and you can't make the sensible decision to stop and go to bed!

Practicing when completely done-in may not be very productive, but playing through a piece when you can hardly stay awake is a good test of how well you have memorized it.

If you're tired, go to bed, get some sleep and practise the next day when you're refreshed and will play better. Simple!

I play the saxophone, but if I'm tired I don't bother practising.

I sometimes try to play when drunk - now that is a big No No!!

I totally agree with this as this is exactly what happens to me if I try to practise while tired!!!!
If I'm tired I'm first going to try to play a piece I know well and that I really enjoy. If I manage to finish it having enjoyed it, I suddenly will feel well enough to tackle some proper practice. But if I realise after a few bars I'm not enjoying it and cannot play without making silly mistakes I give it a rest, have an early night, wake up refreshed and practice the next day is much more productive!

I would argue that "completely alert and fresh" is not a "degree of tiredness" - surely it falls outside the "tiredness" scale?

I agree, much as it pains me to do so.

I find that practising when tired is counter-productive. Both physical and mental tiredness (especially mental tiredness) render any positive practice impossible. I think this is a reason why many music pupils (especially working adults) cannot make as rapid progress as they often wish. Practice which has to be confined to evenings after a hard day's work can never be 100% effective.
The best time for practice is early morning when one is mentally and physically most alert.

I try and practise every day, not always possible and if I am very tired then I just run through my pieces a few times and maybe do some scales. Always feel better for doing a little bit.

I do find it hard to do some theory revision though when I'm tired and will then give that a miss

That must be a personal thing surely - many people do not reach "mentally and physically alert" until at least 11am...

I would agree with that. I'm not fit for anything involving application and concentration until mid-morning, and am often still fairly alert in the late evening.
If I'm tired, but want to play, I'll either do tiny stretches of patch practice, or do some out-of-focus let's play for fun sort of stuff - that gets over the need for the music without setting serious errors into my system. Since most musicians will be developing their skills in all sorts of different ways, not just playing pieces, or, heaven forbid, just playing scales, it's usually possible to find a small subsection of the range of a full practice session which are suitable for doing when tired.

Of course, in the same way that black and white fall outside the grey scale.

If you look back you will read that my full message begins 'I find that . . ' which I intended to be interpreted as 'In my experience . .' and everything I wrote after that is conditional upon it. Obviously, the experience of many people is different, so obviously, maledictis, you are right: it 'must be a personal thing' but also a personal thing to many others who share my experience.
Best wishes.
rk

If I was practising towards a recital or something, then if I really was tired, I would find that I kept making mistakes because I wasn't 100% focussed and that would make me more tense and frustrated therefore more mistakes would creep in. Instead I would either leave the piano or just play anything for enjoyment, or even run up and down scales/arpeggios and Hanon just to play something.

Seeing as I'm holding down a full time job and have other pursuits aside from piano, I'm pretty much always tired when practicing - I'm still making progress though, I just take things slowly and try to be accurate when tired

Sorry - a typical case of "I didn't read the post properly because I was too busy trying to think of a smart reply". My apologies.

I always thought of being a consultant surgeon as a pretty full time job, and apart from piano I play flute and chess (and teach chess). Even so, I'm not always tired when I practice.

Unfortunately I do a lot of weekend and on-call work what with being in IT and I have a distinct lack of ability to switch my brain off so I don't sleep much I just get by on caffeine and the thought that I have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead

I have a few other things that I'm working towards that require quite a bit of study Poor single brain cell is working overtime!

I'd better sleep and start the practice in the morning