I was just wondering, for the rest of you DIPAbrsm Performing students, how many hours a day do you practise? I do from 4.5-6 hours, but I can't do it all at once! I do my best practising in the morning, so I go through all the difficult technical work then, and play lighter, easier pieces in the evening. What about the rest of you?

Wow that is dedication.. Do you enjoy it or is it a chore?

as a singer...you can never ever practice more than an hour....you will die if you do that....

piano and organ are fine for me....

I used to do that amount of hours too in my mid twenties. Currently, while preparing for Grade 8, I practice half an hour to 45 minutes a day. 10 minutes going through the scales, 15-20 minutes just playing my pieces through and 5 minutes playing a few Grade 8 and Diploma Sight reading pieces. I am also doing some ocassional Aural Tests in between all of this.
I am teaching myself incidentally.

Gae

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Wow that is dedication.. Do you enjoy it or is it a chore?

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Oh, I definitely enjoy it! I had no idea that there were people who practised LESS - I only have one friend who is at the same level as me, and she practises 9 hours a day!! I thought I was doing too little, LOL!

WOW! How or where do you find the time? Do you go to work or secondary school or university? I remember Itzhak Perlman (a famous violinist, not pianist) once suggested 5 hours of total concentration practice a day with plenty of short breaks in between.


Anyone else, with any other instruments, any other thoughts???

Hmmm.. well I manage about 2 hours a week (since my organ lives about 10 miles away and I'm not inclined to go over weekday evenings unless an exam is looming..)

Marcel Dupre the famous French organist claimed to practice about ten hours a day when he was coming through the ranks (excuse the organ pun there.. ) -- when I read that I thought "get a life".. !

I would counsel that the length of practice might be commensurate with how far you want to take the instrument professionally in the future. If you actually have other interests and feel you want to have a career doing something else, then throttle back a bit, no point flogging it for the sake of it.

Then again, perhaps you have to ask yourself if you have to do a huge number of hours practice a day and you are only progressing slowly, perhaps you're not cut out to be an instrumentalist in the first place? Harsh, but worth considering..

When I did mine (piano) I was trying to do an hour after work Mon-Thur, Friday night was for relaxing, then tried to do a few 45-60 minute sessions during the weekend.

Generally started with a few minutes of scales, then either detailed metronome work on pieces or run through of the whole programme depending on how things were going.

I did three hours per week for my LRSM in piano back in 2003. Hour-long sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Not much chance of doing any more - I'm very busy!

Would you say that you felt very stretched doing LRSM, or did you feel comfortable with it? In your own mind do you feel you are at FRSM standard?

The point I'm making here is you can flog yourself half to death practising if you are "working up" to a grade or diploma, but given a bit more time, experience and a relaxed attitude you can get to the happy point where you find yourself "working down" to a particular exam, and hence can have a more laid-back practice regime..

Hi, when i was preparing for my DipABRSM exam i practised a minimum of three hours in one go daily...excluding time for scales, arpeggios and warm up stuff...and you're right...4 and a half to 5 hours would be my usual daily practice, but my piano teacher always advised me to practice seriously for at least three hours daily. and i think he was right, bcuz i realised that if i stop in the middle of practising, i lose concentration, and work less effectively...but different things work for different people.
still waiting on my results

I'm on summer vacation right now, that's why I have tons of time . When I'm in school, I try to do 3 hours a day. An hour in the morning from 6-7 before school, and then a couple of hours after school. Every other day I also have a 90 minute "study hall" period, and when I don't have exams or much work to do, I get to practise in school as well.

Mrbouffant - I am planning on going to a music university and studying piano professionally. Also, I am not progressing slowly . I just want to play the best I can possibly play on this exam, that's all. I have all of my pieces almost ready to perform, but I think that slow practise and practise of all the hard bits shouldn't be given up just because the pieces are ready. In the past, I gave up the slow practise and things after the pieces were ready, and I just played through the pieces and scales, but my performance deteriorated. For me, slow practise and technical work is a necessity, no matter how ready I am for the exam. And that kind of thing takes hours a day!

When I was working for a diploma many moons ago, at one stage I had plenty of spare time (must have been school holidays or something, I was teaching round the private schools circuit at the time) and i remember towards the end telling my teacher that i had managed to do a total of about five hours a day for the last couple of weeks. She just looked at me and said "I don't see how anyone has any hope of reaching this level unless they do at least five hours a day".

Sigh. She was right too. I failed.

Liz

I practise about 3 hours on the piano and 2 on the violin and viola....sorry i'm not a performing student though...

I understand your point. At the time yes I felt very stretched. I didn't know for sure whether I was at the standard required (no regular lessons) and had to make every minute of available practice time count. It was certainly not a case of my being of a standard beyond LRSM and that it was a "working down" process. No, I was definitely working up to it and was on the learning curve right to the end.

Having taken up regular lessons since then (with a fantastic teacher), and filled some gaps in my understanding, I think I might get a higher score if I took it again now, though I'm not sure I could be in any way laid-back about it!

However, I certainly don't consider myself currently at FRSM standard at the moment, and taking that exam would be another "working up" process.

It took me four and a half years between Grade 8 and my Dip in the end. The main issue was that for the first three of those I was a university undergraduate without my own piano, other than the time I was at home, so I did on average (over the year) 30 minutes a week of practice. Once I'd finished my first degree, and started my PhD, I arranged for a couple of hours a week on a real piano. 8 months before I took my Dip though, I bought a Clavinova so I would finally have an instrument of my own to practice on. Then, I did about three hours a week practice in the run up to my DipABRSM, with around six hours a week for the last couple of weeks. So, very non-typical, but certainly not five hours a day; I don't even have five hours a day to spare....

I'd be able to do a Dip in fewer than 4 years now, though, given my improved access to a piano. I started working on one of my Dip pieces (Bach Prelude and Fugue No. 16 from WTC I) just as I got my Clavinova, and it was one of my better pieces in the exam.

Now, I practice for 40 minutes a day if I get chance, which is about 5 times a week; I'm quite happy with that at the moment. I'm starting to practice a little more though now, working on various aspects of technique (trying to get my right-hand 3-2 trills up from 144 4-notes-to-a-tick to 216, working on left hand suppleness).

My piano teacher, who is a concert pianist and learns pieces in two weeks max. told me that you need to spend 5 hours if you want to be very good. But then again, she went to a music college since she was 6 . . .
I don't do this btw, I'm a grade 8 and I used to practice the day before my lessons (about two years ago), but now I practice about half an hour everyday, which isn't good for a grade 8, but I don't have time. Sometimes I have to take days off becasue I get home late or something.

UH oh Mountain, you'll have to MAKE the time...

Our girl is nowhere near Diploma level as she's only 8 but she asked me every time, to wake her up early in the morning, so she can practise an hour be4 she goes to school. On the days, I forget she would scold me!!! "It's all your fault!" Blah blah blah...

Then at night be4 bedtime she practise again. We don't time her but we guess she takes 1.5 or 2 hours per day for practice.

I know. My house, or should I say, flat is pretty small, and everyone in my family gets up pretty late, so i can't practice in the morning. After school, I get distracted by my brothers and sisters and they hate my playing and discourage me from doing it. i knwo its bad and there's no excuse if you want to be good at it, but its difficult if your parents don't encourage it very much either.

I know. My house, or should I say, flat is pretty small, and everyone in my family gets up pretty late, so i can't practice in the morning. After school, I get distracted by my brothers and sisters and they hate my playing and discourage me from doing it. i knwo its bad and there's no excuse if you want to be good at it, but its difficult if your parents don't encourage it very much either.

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GOSH, Mountain, I really feel for you...

i usually practice anywhere between 2 - 14 hours per week, but that increases to about 7 hours per day for the few days just before an exam

Don't you find that this becomes too little (if you can call seven hours little - blimey!) too late? In the week before the exam, you run a grave risk of running yourself off the rails in worrying over little niggles. My teacher tries to get the pieces to a peak about two weeks out from the exam/concert, after which any practise is maintenance, not bug fixing (if you'll permit the software analogy).

Please forgive me if I sound harsh but who is taking the exam? You, or your teacher? It is _you_ who are getting the pieces to a peak, not your teacher. My own view is - especially for Diplomas - you cannot abdicate reponsibility to your teacher. At this point you should be forming your own opinion about technique, historical performance practice, interpretation etc.

Yes, the teacher is there to guide, but to say they get the pieces to a peak, is IMHO forgetting that you as the performer are 100% responsible for the performance in the exam and the eventual outcome....

Just my 2p worth

I play clarinet and am working towards my dip ABRSM ... where do you find the time to do 5 hours practise a day? I do about 2 hours, along with revision for my A levels, and fundraising for my mission holiday to Belarus next week ... I really dont have the time to do any more ... any suggestions? I want to be famous with the clarinet ... maybe Ill have to give up some more stuff to concentrate on it more ...

If you're that level, you probably will make it into a conservatoire or music performance course of some sort, even if not guildhall. Then you'll have the time easily enough.

liz

Blimey! It's a diploma board about diploma level work - of course it's my responsiblity- I'm afraid I assumed folk would read this as "my teacher encourages me to time my practice so that I'm confident in the pieces a good two weeks out from the exam".
Hope that clears it up!

I understood it that way...

Yeah, sorry. I'd had a few cans by the time I came across the post, which may have skewed the interpretation slightly harshly.. Apologies !

No worries

Mmmmm... beeeer.....

moving swiftly on - two hours practice a day still sounds like heaps! Don't think I ever clocked up more than an hour even when I was at school. Have to hand it to you lot - far more dedicated than me!

As this is the first time I've posted please excuse the banal nature - it's sort of in the nature of a practice post. Here goes. No one has mentioned the quality of practice. I know I can sit in front of a piano and play for two hours (if I ever had the chance as I have a baby!) and really make very little progress yet at other times 15 minutes can be so effective. I've also learned as a teacher never to assume that students know how to practise no matter what standard they are. It is one of my newer constant sources of amazement that some people ever pass exams given what they believe counts as practice! And I'm not just talking about the lower grades.

I never said my hours were not quality practise . And I know what that is, too!

you are right though, katherineb... so many musicians, of all ages and up to quite high levels, really don't understand what practice is or how to do it effectively, and too many teachers assume that students will magically know how to practice without being taught.

I totally agree.

I have read exchanges in these forums that go something like:
"I do five hours practice every day"
"You do five hours?! Oh no I only do four hours, I'm going to fail !!!"

These drive me crazy! I've also hear it asserted that it is impossible to pass a diploma on less than three hours per day. I know for certain that this is not correct (see my post earlier about my LRSM practice schedule).

I think that half an hour's practice, with a high level of concentration and purpose, is better than two hours where you are simply "waving your hands at the keyboard" and having your mind wander.

Obviously, if I had more time available I would do more practice, but I would ensure it was of high quality by stopping for a break when my concentration level drops.

I am hoping to do the DipABRSM in the winter this year. I practise the piano about 2 hours a day. Probably nearer to the diploma exam I will be practising much more.

I also play at other times of the day but this normally just for pleasure such as playing jazz or modern pop/film music.

The oboe which I am studying for DipABRSM as well doesn't always get played as regularly everyday as the piano normally about an 1 hour at a time.

It normally depends how time I have and do play in an orchestra which keeps me in practise.