How much time do you spend practicing a piece until it's "passed"? It can be a single sonata movement, etude, waltz, etc. I know that it's usually different from piece to piece, but currently I think that's it's a great waste of time to practice a piece for more than 2 weeks. Is that standard too high or too low?

well, that would have to depend on the difficulty of the piece, wouldn't it? I play all sorts of pieces, but if they're just pop renditions and are of average standard, I'd usually only play them for a day or two before "archiving" them so to speak. Hm...mozart pieces and the like usually take me much longer, before I can consider them mastered. Hahaha...yep. I'm just doing some post grade 8 stuff right now to keep my standard there. =)

QUOTE (juniorpianist @ Dec 30 2004, 09:17 AM)

well, that would have to depend on the difficulty of the piece, wouldn't it?

also depends on the piece's difficulty in relation to your skills. a grade 6 pianist trying out a grade 2 piece is going to take very little time, a beginner attempting the same piece is going to struggle!

I think if a piece is taking weeks and weeks and weeks, or even months, to get some sort of handle on, it's probably too hard and should be built up to more gradually.

QUOTE

I think that's it's a great waste of time to practice a piece for more than 2 weeks. Is that standard too high or too low?

Working on grade 8 exams pieces at the moment.
Some parts it takes me a week or more to learn 4 bars...and thats just getting the notes together.

lol... yeah I think when you're at that level, you have to learn a little more patience.

thinking about it - it also depends on how long the piece is, naturally!

It also depends on how quickly you learn. Some people take weeks to master a piece, others it takes months

I have just calculated that over my life I do about 210 bars per year ! ! ! ! !
It's a strange question because the shortest thing I learned was about 20 bars the longest over 1500 so if the same standard, the one would take 75X the time of the other.

V

But in a longer and/or more difficult piece all the bars are not the same difficulty.
And there are uaually some repeated (or almost the same) bits which cuts it down a bit.

QUOTE (sbhoa @ Dec 30 2004, 04:50 PM)

But in a longer and/or more difficult piece all the bars are not the same difficulty. And there are uaually some repeated (or almost the same) bits which cuts it down a bit.

Yes and the structure of a longer piece can need more attention and a run-through takes longer. But I mean average bars. I just found the question a little strange, like how long is a piece of string.
Unable to agree with DGA's idea that more than 2 weeks practice per piece is a waste of time. I'd like to hear if his/her view changes at grade 8.

V

I agree with what everyone has said that it's not possible to say as it depends on the length and difficulty of the pieces and the standard of the player. It does, however, remain an interesting question: I often wonder how 'hard' a new piece should be to learn. For example, if someone is doing grade 6 should that mean that they can play a grade 6 piece in 6 months, 1 month, less, or somewhere in between. I'm sure there are grade 6 pianists that can learn to play pieces in a month that would take other grade 6 pianists 6 months to learn: I suppose that just shows the limitation of the exam system to judge that one is a higher standard of playing than the other; then again the person taking 6 months may play the piece much better at the end of that.

I would like to add though that if you never spend more than two weeks working on any one piece then you'll never play any pieces well....

I am working on grade 6 piano pieces. When I was doing the early grades, it would take me about a week to perfect 3 pieces. Now it takes about 5 weeks to pass 3 pieces (doing 3 pieces at a time). To perfect those three pieces would take longer - but to perfect only one piece, less time. I agree with what has already been said. "It depends" is the only real answer.

It takes me at least half a year to master the pieces i'm working on- sometimes longer for more difficult pieces (post grade 8 by the way)

QUOTE (Wyldbabi @ Dec 30 2004, 06:50 PM)

Unable to agree with DGA's idea that more than 2 weeks practice per piece is a waste of time. I'd like to hear if his/her view changes at grade 8.

lol... yeah.

also depends on what you're intending with a piece - just to be able to get your fingers round it accurately, or to be able to really play it well?

I think if it's taking too long to even learn the pieces in the first place, then they probably need building up to... when I did grade 3 piano (about a century ago ) I went into the exam room not being sure I was able to get to the end of my 3rd piece without totally messing up... not through nerves, but physically just not being able to play it. I don't think my teacher should have been entering me for that exam.

QUOTE (Wyldbabi @ Dec 30 2004, 06:50 PM)

Unable to agree with DGA's idea that more than 2 weeks practice per piece is a waste of time.  I'd like to hear if his/her view changes at grade 8.

Actually, I learned the Scarlatti D major sonata (A3?), Beethoven E minor (B3?) and Autumn Crocus in two weeks. The reason I think it's a waste is because my mother said she used to spend just two weeks on a Chopin etude, and I spent a year for just 3 Mozart sonatas! Is that a waste of time? However, I know that the more sonatas you've passed the more quickly it will be for you to finish the others (the last mozart sonata I played was K. 333, which I believe is post gr 8 if played full, and I passed it in only 3 months. I learnt Beethoven sonatas quicker, though). Well, not always.

I think that the reason I'm able to play gr 8 pieces in only a few weeks is because there's a big gap from when I was gr 7 to gr 8: I started to play much more difficult pieces. Besides, I've also learned Debussy's Arabesque No. 1, which is also a gr 8 piece but that took another 3 months.

It does also depend what you mean by being able to play them... being able to play them fantastically well, musically and with expression, or just being able to physically play them?

I don't think it's ever a waste of time... if it takes 3 months to learn one piece, then it takes 3 months. It's only a waste of time if either you loathe the piece and don't enjoy playing it even when you can, and have no reason to play it (cos if you haven't learned it for a purpose that's one thing down the drain, and if you don't enjoy it you probably won't be able to play it in a way that others will enjoy either) or if you learn to get your fingers round the notes of a piece but never actually learn to really play it, which would seem crazy to me.

... so... if you can learn a piece in 2 weeks, more power to you. But I don't think it's possible to say that spending any more than two weeks on a piece is autmatically a waste of time...

It depends on how difficult it is.........

and how many page it is......

I recently started a new piece, a section from a larger work. Basically it isn't too difficult - two weeks would polish off the bulk of it. But there's about half a dozen bars with awkward runs and very fast triplets that themselves form triplet groups against quadruplets; and some normally nice arpeggii not too fast except they're 7 against 8 and its too easy for one or the other hand to sound glitchy. Not to mention one bar that is a real blighter of a candenza.
Getting these smooth, even and accurate at the required speed will take a lot longer than 2 weeks. I practice them 2 or 3 times a day for about 20 mins at a time (longer, the practice is wasted for loss of concentration).

So, yes, it's as much about how well you play now and how well you want to be able to play something. I could rewrite the work simplified and probably get away with it. But that isn't the point.
R

The poll shows what I expected. People's demands of themselves are all different. And. The 80-20 rule applies here.


V

I voted longer than 6 months (working on pieces around DipABRSM level). It takes me about 2 months to learn the play the notes of a piece - for example it has just taken me 2 months to learn and memorise Beethoven's 1st piano concerto. But there is still a lot of work to do after I have reached this point. I decide with my teacher what I want to bring to the piece musically, and these opinions may change from month to month. Concert pianists have pieces in their repertoire for years, even decades. By returning to pieces they learnt previously, they are able to look at them with fresh insight and new ideas. For example, when I did grade 8 piano last year, I learnt the pieces almost a year prior to the exam, which is quite a long time compared with previous exams I'd done with a different teacher. During this time I was able to continually change my ideas. This is what makes music so interesting - of course you'd get bored of playing the same piece for weeks if you always played it the same way and didn't try to improve it. I think the way I trilled some notes in my List A piece (a Handel fugue) must have changed about 4 or 5 times during my preparation for the exam, until I found something that was musically satisfying.

QUOTE (Wyldbabi @ Jan 1 2005, 03:03 PM)

The 80-20 rule applies here.

80-20?

u mean normal pieces or exam pieces?if normal one, i can ''pass'' it within a week.but not perfectly played.if exam pieces i took 6 months.to make it perfect!

Lucky you. I can never get my exams pieces to the prefect level.