What instrument do you play?
What grade are you?
How long do you practice on average each day?

I play flute. I just hit Grade 6.

I practise 1 1/2 - 2 hours each day Monday through Saturday. I am taking a day off on Sunday. Which feels quite nice. Thus, I have a day were I am free of any duties, even if I love them or do them on my own accord.

I forgot to fill in my own answers

I play piano
I'm grade 3
I practice for about two hours per day on school days and three hours on non school days

Recorder: just done grade 8, around 2 hours or more a day at the moment.

Piano: grade 8 last year, not very much but should do more - I just play it when I feel like it probably an average of about 30 mins a day maybe, but it varies from none to loads.

Fiddle: traditional, so there's no grades, but I'd probably be somewhere between grades 1 and 3, probably an average of 20-30 mins a day.

Out of interest, Sarah, how long did it take you to hit Grade 8, and are you now at a level where you feel comfortable picking up and playing pretty much anything that isn't of an epic scale? How long does it now take you to learn and play say, a Grade 6,7 or 8 piece to exam standard?

Just interested... oh, and it's Helen's turn to host guess the piece tonight

I suppose I should answer the question - my practice varies from none to several hours a day....

It took me slightly less than 9 years, I think. For the first 3-4 years, I had not a lot of enthusiasm for it, so didn't really practise and got correspondly bad results for grades 1 and 2. The next couple of years, I decided I actually did like piano, so practised a bit more, but not more and certainly not an average of over than about 20 mins a day. When I got to grade 6 though, I realised that the music I was playing was actually quite nice and had started to sound more interesting and from then onwards, I practised more, getting to a high of an average of about 4 hours a day around a year ago. Since then, though, recorder has really taken over and piano has been put to the side a bit.

I'm not really one for learning pieces to exam/performance standard unless there's a reason, as I prefer to pick an choose and play loads of new stuff. I learned a grade 6 piece in 2 weeks for my AS performance though when I realised my treble recorder was out of action and got a reasonable mark for it. I think I've got to the point where, with most (up to about diploma) music, it's more a question of working out fingerings and learning the notes than a question of improving technique in order to play it though. So the time it takes to learn something is roughly proportional to the number of notes.

How about one of the chopin etudes? Theyre about diploma level.

I've only seen a couple of them, but the main problem with those would have been sorting out the notes and fingerings. (assuming you're not going to play them at the impossible speeds that are sometimes marked!)

Unless there's a lot of repetitions or repeated chords, it seems, then it gets much quicker - it's nice when you know you only have to learn about half a piece and you'll have it pretty much cracked because of a similar second half

Not bad going though, I'm sort of expecting it to take at least 8 years before I'll pass Grade 8 but I'll see how I go. I'm not sure I will manage a grade a year beyond Grade 4 or 5...

I think it'll probably take you lees than 8 years given what I've seen of your playing - you're not exactly the average just-passed-grade-1 pianist! Even to have got anywhere at all with some of the pieces you're doing suggests you're quite a way above grade 1.

I think I'm doing ok through ridiculous amounts of practice more than anything - I'm fearful of looking like an idiot in front of my teacher. Sometimes it feels like self-flagellation but I think she wants me to try to get the Adagio Cantabile to a reasonable standard for that student concert and play that instead of the Einaudi Passagio

Thanks for the kind words

Er, isn't that the way it normally works?

Oh and for OP:
Oboe
Grade 4
About an hour a day but with great plans to increase to 1.5 any time now.

If I had an amazing natural aptitude, I might not need ridiculous amounts of practice

Pah. People who think they have natural aptitude can't read the time.

Mozart has quite the natural aptitude at piano, and violin, and I've never read anything about him not being able to tell the time!

Any idea how much time he spent practising?

Probably all day every day. I doubt he had to go to school. That's my problem. On a school day I only really have time to practise one instrument if I want to do homework and have a tiny bit of free time.

Yes actually, to start with he didn't practice violin at all! He just watched his sister playing, then one day he simply picked it up after his sister was finished practicing and started playing all these complicated pieces which she had been playing.

Is there any evidence to suggest that Mozart may have been mildly or otherwise autistic?

That's not fair! I wish I could do that!

I'm not sure about autism, but I'm sure I read something about Mozart having OCD somewhere a few weeks ago

I think I'll ask my oboe teacher to let me watch her pla the Strauss concerto.

Nice idea!

I've just done my grade 8 flute, and before the exam I was practising probably about 45 mins per day, maybe a little more if I had some spare time. Now it's more time because it's the summer holidays, so probably about an hour of flute spread throughout the day (eg. 2 or 3 sessions) and about 20 mins each of sax and violin. I'm a beginner on the sax and about grade 6 on violin, although I'm not planning to do any exams on either instrument.

1. Oboe and a bit of Piano
2. grade 8
3. About 2 hours on oboe and 30mins max on piano a day

This is what I am doing for Summer:
1 hour piano
30 mins oboe

I am grade 8+. I practice about 45 minutes a day.

If i find if i go for any longer then i just playing through music purposelessly which is simply a waste of time.

Sounds like you need a new teacher.

BTW whats HANDBELL ?

Adult learner (52).
Piano: 2 hrs every day (occasionally, about once a week, 3 - 4 depending on time availability, tiredness, etc.). A lot of that time goes on technique (Hanon, diff. types of scales, arpeggios, etc )

It's a one of these:

i play piano. I am working towards grade 8. I practise between 1 and 2 hours a day.

Sarah's gone all Italian on us!

I play piano - Grade 6
cello - Grade 3
And when I practice I usually go on for about an hour, maybe longer, but that's on piano. Cello I don't practice as much but I tend to practice considerably longer if I have concerts or exams. (I found playing the same piece over and over again tends to get on my mum's nerves! )

That's only in the holidays though. During school time, some of my activities can go on until 9, plus I have homework so I really need to organize my time a bit more.

I play the oboe and cello. I'm at least grade 4 on the cello - not sure what standard I'm really at now - and I'm working towards my grade 7 oboe exam in February/March next year.

You know, I don't actually time how long I take to practise, so I'm not entirely sure. Right now I'm trying to focus on oboe, so I've cut back on cello. I still manage to pick up my cello almost every day and play a few scales and a piece for around half an hour.

As for oboe, I don't practice every day, because I've just started university and find that there's just so much work to be done now, and I somehow feel that I need to be in a somewhat focused (and unworried!) mood to practise oboe. I'm quite a worrier, so this mood doesn't come around very often but I try, and it works out, most of the time. Like I said, I hardly time my practices, I practise as long as I need to finish my long tones, scales, assorted exercises and piece-of-the-day/week, and put down the instrument for a bit when I'm feeling unfocused or too tired. I suppose each practice amounts to a little more than an hour.

I tend to ramp up practice a two or three months before the exam, so I expect I'll be going for at least one and a half hours every single day by December or so, assuming my time estimations are accurate!

I practice the piano for around 2 hours per day 5 days per week. Initially I wasn't practicing anywhere near as much, say 3 hours per week, but it seems to be creeping up and up. It seems to me that 2 hours a day is quite a normal amount of time for many of you! Even with 2 hours a day I dont feel like I am progressing much at the moment.

I can do 4 hours and still not get everything done that I want to Join the club...

I think 2 hrs a day is more than enough for Grades 1 - 2 and others. In 2 hrs you can get the scales done, the arpeggios, the exam pieces, other pieces you may be preparing, and a few other things. You should be pleased with those 120 minutes a day.

2 hours for grade 1???

You realise hat a lot of the people that have replied saying they practise for 2 hours a day are around grade 8 standard?

Practicing 2 hours a day at Grade 1 isn't that unusual considering there is still a lot of nice repertoire to learn besides doing exam pieces and exercises. Some that spring to mind for piano that could be learned for fun ~G1 would be Haydn's Little Serenade, Beethoven's Ecossaise, Bach's Prelude in C, Dolly's Dreaming....

I can think of tonnes of things I could fill the time with around Grade 1

You also need to consider the instrument. A Grade 1 oboist will certainly not be physically capable of 2 hours practice a day. Working towards Grade 5 I am now trying to increase from 1 to 1.5 hours a day.

Out at work from 8 til 5, begin organ practice 5:30 -6-45p.m

Home, cook the dinner, flake out from 8-9 then piano practice from 9p.m til 10:30 when I prepare next days sandwiches in order to do it all over again.

Sometimes piano or organ practice gets consigned to the bin of life and I do Pilates or aerobics to keep my ageing body alert and frisky and to oxygenate the brain.

Working towards LTCL piano and gr 8 organ so not really enough practice on either instrument.
Life is all compromises.

I guess unless you're the big, bad wolf, you can't huff and puff for that long... good point

It's lip muscles being in a silly position, not the lungs that get tired (even though it can be hard work on a bad reed)

I could only practise for 20 minutes when I started...and that was for the piano!!! After that time I was absolutely exhausted!!! Just trying to read the notes on the simpliest pieces was so tiring. I used to make copies of the pieces I had to learn in my first book "Jobbidy-F and A-C-E" and write all the names of the notes on them and do my practice using the photocopies. Then after about a month I increased my practice time to 1/2 hour.
3 months later I started practising for about 1 hour every day and stopped writing the name of the notes of the music as I didn't really need to anymore.
6 months later increased practice time to 1 1/2 hour per day.
Then this year again I increased practice time to about 2 or 2 1/2 hours a day.
But 2 months ago, on the advise of my teacher decreased that time to about 1 1/2 hours a day!

So at the moment and after just under 2 1/2 years of playing, practising on overage 1 1/2 hours day.

I admire people who can practise for 4 or 5 hours per day!!! I haven't reached that stage yet! My brain and body just can't take it anymore after 2 or 3 hours!!!!!
But hopefully in another 2 years I'll be able to do so (well not during the week, as I still have to go to work, but weekends maybe when I'm home!!! )

I do about an hour a day on the piano and then 30 minutes cello practice . I could physically cope with more than an hour on the piano , and probably manage 90 minutes per day before exams, but can't physically manage much longer than 30 minutes on the cello yet except during lessons. I wish I was able to spend 4 hours a day on practice!

Oh dear! with the very Slowwwww progress I am making I dread to think how long I would have to spend for grade 8 practise! I should point out that we all learn at different rates, unfortunately mine clearly is not fast! I am not applying for graded exams at the moment anyway, so am currently learning:

Minuet In G Minor / A shortened version of Fur Elise / Kummer on grade 1 syllabus

Fine tuning and playing the songs I have learnt from memory such as 4 pieces from grade syllabus and Minuet in G major

Plus scales, arpeggios, sight reading and technique exercises!!!! I can barely fit it all into 10 hours per week!

But I love it! I knew I was obsessed!!!!

I was on grade 4 (piano), it took me a whole year and i got a pass (just)

then i started practicing properly and did my grade 5 practicing for an hour a day
a couple of weeks after starting i was finished and got a merit
so i skipped grade 6, and 7

now im on grade 8 ive learnt all my pieces and can sight read properly,
but im practicing for 6 - 8 hours a day. its my 5th week into grade 8. the only thing left is aural but i cant sing at all

i spend 2 hours sight reading, 30 mins on each piece and then 30 mins on scales and repeat things i want to before going out, as well as pitch and aural

its abit mad, i know, but i get really scared when i perform, wherever it is, to the point where im sweating all over so everything has to be perfect.

I don't get it.

I practice about 3 hours a day (depends on how I feel after school). Just started working on my LTCL for classical guitar.