How much practise should a 12 year old violinist who wants to pursue a professional career, and is working at grade 6 standard do every day?

I was forced to play when I was that age and HATED it, but I guess if the child is really motivated then it's very different. I want to stress that I'm not a parent (unless you count a dog and two rescue hamsters ) so my advice may be completely useless

I suppose what immediately comes to mind is that if the child is very driven and wants to play, then I suppose there's no need to set a limit...

But I'm also inclined to say that a lot can happen between 12 years old and a professional career... That it's probably also important to seek a balance between music and other activities/friendships etc.

I guess you are really the only person able to judge what's right for the child in question.

Good luck!!

If your child really wants to become a professional violinist, presumably (s)he is very motivated to practise. Really, the more practice the better, but of course it will have to be fitted around homework etc. I'd have thought one to two hours per day would be fine, particularly if it's in two sessions (perhaps before and after school).

At 12, few children will have the discipline to practise for a set length of time every day, and it would be sad to kill their enthusiasm by being too rigid. Sometimes they'll feel like doing more, and sometimes less, depending on what else they have to fit in. Perhaps you could suggest that your child aim for say 10 hours practice a week in one hour sessions, or 8 hours in 45 minute sessions - whatever they feel comfortable with. That would allow some days or evenings off.

Are you talking about yourself? If so, perhaps you would be better asking the question in the teachers' or strings forum as you might get better informed answers there - no offence to other parents here intended!! My daughter's cello teacher maintains she practised for 5 hours a day when she was my daughter's age (13).

As much as they can sustain with full concentration and without hurting themselves, or wrecking their health. That depends on the person. It might be 2 hours, it might be 10. Also, the more you practice, the more you become able to sustain effective practice.

that is SO SO TRUE!
as I've experienced it first hand when I went from my previous 45 minutes slot up to 2 hours slot, now 2 hours feel like 5 minutes to be honest! and I do 2 hours of 'proper practice' not 'playing around'

Quality of practice is so much more important than quantity. Not only can poor/less-than-100%-careful repetition lead to reinforcing mistakes and poor technique, there is also an increased increase of injury caused by any number of possible combinations of poor posture and repetitive actions.

Your teacher is the best person to advise you and to help build a healthy and sustainable practice plan.

Of course it is.

So can we simply take that for granted and assume, when someone talks about "x hours of practice", that it is implicit that we mean good quality practice, rather than mindless repetition, vague playing through of pieces, or other unfocussed and inefficient ways of setting about it.

Hello all

It is my first post in PARENTS section.

Thank you very much for reminding me, Minstrel. I forgot this important meaning.
My daughter is still 6 years old and we are doing a practice together (according to Suzuki method) everyday except Friday.
Sometimes it become 1 hour because she feels she got a tip and feeling of bow and memorizing is ok, but sometimes only 25 minutes if she is very tired and I picked up her concentration and energy has gone long time ago.
I tend to force her "shall we do little bit more?" because she did 45 minutes yesterday, I feel I could do it.
But really.. I regret after everybody's post in this post. It is not correct.

I agree with everybody.
It is really depend on child. As far as they don't hate the practice and keep on loving the music - I think it is the most important thing.

My daughter is just 11, taking grade 7 this year, loves playing the violin and is progressing well. We have increased her lessons from one to two 1.3 hr sessions a week, as we've found that increased contact time with her excellent teacher makes all the difference. This means she only has to practise on 5 days a week which takes the pressure of slightly! We aim for an hour on a week night - if she's in a bad mood it will be less, though she always does something, if she's enjoying herself it will extend past the hour. At the weekend we will do a couple of practice sessions each day, though I will try to disguise this by begging her to let me accompany her "for fun"! She does go to bed late though - rarely before 9.30, what with homework, theory, piano practice, and playing this dreadful Sims 3 game which is apparently an essential part of her life.......

She also does school/local orchestras which all counts as playing time, although this is not necessarily the same as practice - before she goes to orchestra, we'll discuss some element of technique that she should concentrate on, to make it time more usefully spent.....

Definitely Quality is more important that Quantity. If we are short of time, we talk about which bits need most work and concentrate on those.

Obviously don't force her to practice. I reckon about 1 hour a day should be plenty if used constructively.

Orchestra counts as one days practice in my opinion, there is often little time for private practice and orchestra in on evening.

My daughter is fortunate to be taught by a very well respected conservatoire teacher. One of the first things he told her when she moved to him a couple of years ago was to think in terms of a weekly, rather than daily amount of practice, and to take one day off per week completely free from playing.
Also, before worrying about how much practice the child is doing you need to have 100% confidence in the teacher. Otherwise, the more practice is done, the harder and more demoralising it is to correct faulty technique later.

Practice has become very interesting here.
My daughter is still only 12 but she has taken complete charge of her practice. Two years ago I was required to comment on every single scale and to participate in every aspect of practice.
That has steadily reduced but now it is an almost hidden activity in our house. I do ask, pretty well every day about practice but all I get back is that it has been done. I sometimes hear piano practice because the piano is in the lounge but otherwise I rarely hear it. I go to work before she goes to school and some practice seems to occur before school, the rest seems to take place in school or straight afterwards.
Her flute teacher has just been away for 6 weeks. In the last couple of weeks before she came back I asked my daughter if her teacher would be pleased with her progress. I got a very confident yes. And she was right. Her teacher was delighted, along with her piano teacher with whom she is making amazing progress, her sax teacher and her singing teacher. She did an voluntary performance platform in January, at her teacher's request, which was deemed to be good enough to count as her assessed performance platform for this year so it isn't just a deluded teacher or four and she is up for exams in all four by July. Though thankfully that isn't going to happen. The flute teacher is saying either Grade 7 Flute or Grade 5 Piano and Grade 3 Singing. If we do the Flute then we just won't do the other exams and we will move on rather than defer them.
This week is half term and today we have other children here and doing a sleep over. I just raised the question of practice and was told very politely that she might not do any practice today but she had done a full practice every other day of the week so it wasn't a problem. I can buy that.
The Junior Conservatoire has been worth every penny for the self discipline and self belief that it has given her. I am constantly amazed by her.
So to answer your question, my 12 year old does enough, which is probably an hour a day on the flute but as others have said here and elsewhere it is more about quality than quantity. She says she does 30 mins of Piano and 30 mins of Sax and about 15 mins of singing a day too.
Dora

My 10yo who would be taking grade 6 now if it weren't for the grade 5 theory (which is so far eluding her) has recently stepped up the practice from 30 minutes to an hour which seems to be about right. We have broken this into 2 sessions, before and after Eastenders! This seems to work quite well but I always dig out something new and something old for her to play as well as what she is meant to be playing otherwise she gets bored. She doesn't practice on the day of her lesson and probably one other day in the week when she is at a friend's or out or too busy.

The new pieces are good for sightreading and the old ones good for making a nice sound where she doesn't have to concentrate on the notes but can give the bowing etc. more attention.

Piano is a different matter - she is taking grade 4 next term but practice is never more than 10 minutes 3 or 4 times a week - she hates it so much.

OK, so first thing. By she wants to pursue a pro career, does that mean SHE wants to or YOU want her to? Note that I'm not accusing you of anything. If you are forcing her to practise, she will not be able to be an amazing violinist unless she is enthusiastic herself. I emphasize that I am not a parent, I am a girl just younger than your daughter. I play of my own accord, fve hours weekends and two hours school days. It is up to her to decide.

Hope this helps!!


Allygirl

I think the starter of the thread is the person in question not their parent.

The amount of time you have to practice is probably directly linked to the amount of playing you do. During the school term my daughter does much more playing than practice at least that's how it is at the moment.

Some people, and my daughter is one of them, don't have five hours on a weekend in which to practice no matter how much they or their parent want them to.

As others have said, who is the one who wants to pursue a professional career here? Is it her that wants to pursue it? Is it you that wants her to pursue it?

Other posters are better qualified to advise on how much practice is required. However, heading towards grade 5 for the violin at the same age before dropping it like a stone when my parents ran out of patience in forcing me to continue (the same was true for a family friend who hit grade 8 before burning the instrument), I'd advise the following:

1) What is her "Plan B"? What if s/he says a few years down the line: "Mum/Dad", I don't want to/can't do this anymore." I did and got shouted at.

2) What sort of professional career does s/he want? To what extent is s/he - and you aware of the implications of this and what being a professional musician involves? (e.g working hours, competitiveness, rates of pay). There's a world of difference between being a Nigel Kennedy and a session musician on a production where you have to play every night of the week for the duration of a production.

3) What flexibility are you giving your child for other interests - or even "chillout time"?

4) How are you managing your child's and your own expectations? To what extent have you considered how you would handle a situation where your child did not succeed or meet such expectations? Do you know how the two of you would cope with "failure"?

5) What does "success" look and feel like to your child and to you?

Can anyone confirm that Violin123 was talking about themselves. That they are not a parent but the person in question in the post.

Amazing how people automatically jump to the conclusion it is the parent.

If it was the parent unless you know them personally I don't think telling them they are pushy helps.

Having now read the profile for Violin123 (who, by the way, hasn't been on the forums since 8th March), it's obvious that she was talking about herself.

I originally assumed that because this was posted in the Parents section, a parent was posting; just as I assume it's a teacher who starts a post in the Teachers section. I don't think that's at all amazing actually, but just what most people would assume!

Well it was the signature (under the brief initial post, so hard to miss) that caused me to look at the profile and then comment in post #4 that I thought the OP was talking about themselves. I was surprised that even after I commented some people were quick to jump to the wrong conclusion.

I can see that the thread may have been better palced in students. It was commented on several times that the person was talking about themselves and people still went on to accuse the parent of being pushy.

I know there are pushy parents but I don't think it's for us to judge who they maybe on the Forum. That's my real objection. Particularly in this case when there is no foundation other than one post.

BM I can't see anything wrong in your first post it was helpful whoever the poster.

Yes, it was hard to miss - in the morning - but at 1 am I evidently wasn't being very observant! It's probably partly my fault that so many people got the wrong idea, as a lot of us just read the first few posts and then add a reply.


Thanks, notmusimum. I agree with you about accusations not being helpful.

Oh, I see now. It was just in the parents section, so I immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a parent writing.

Many apologies

Surely you should do as much practise as you want to. If that's sufficient to be able to pursue a professional music career that's great, but if it isn't, your destined for a job you're going to hate, or be bad at, or both.