I've never had a good practice habit when i was doing up to grade 7 many years ago. very often I go for lessons with little or no practice . I managed to pass the exams except the last one ... Now I'm doing grade 8 & I realised there's NOoo way I can escape the hard work & discipline involved !

So I've decided to turn over a new leaf and make it a point to practise some everyday. But I'm curious about how many hours do people practise ? (in particular grade 8 students)

Half an hour a day (Grade 3)

A good hour a day, sometimes more and I'm taking grade 7 next Tuesday!!!

I find that now I am about to take the exam, I am at such a 'readiness' to take the exam that I don't need so much practice. When I was still learning the pieces many months ago, I put in more time but now I have learn't them, I need less time to just keep them in my memory and fresh for the exam

Shelton

When I did grade 8 piano I think I was doing around 4/5 hours practice per day. Sometimes more at weekends
If you want to get back into practicing every day maybe you could try practicing in smaller sessions a few times a day and gradually increase the amount you do, or something like that......

4 -5 hours for grade 8? Good heavens!!

I've decided to have another crack at grade 7 and I am actually practising this time - at least an hour a day.

Liz

Is that four fifths of an hour or 4 to 5 hours?If it was the latter...where did the time come from?? I only do about an hour a day

Ideally about 2 hours a day.. but that doesn't always happen.
I find that, at grade 8, even without checking practice time it really does take at least 2 hours to cover all that needs doing. Especially if you count in half an hour scales and about 15 minutes on other technical excercises (Hanon at the moment).
With that and pieces and sight reading and aural it is not really possible to do everything every day on 2 hours.

WHOA! I just passed my grade 8 (114) and was lucky if I practiced 4 to 5 hours a week!

I practise from none for a whole week to 3 hours a day. I am an adult with a full time job involving horrible out-of-hours shifts.

When I know I have a very busy working week coming up I cancel my lesson because there is no point having it if I cannot find time to practise.

I'm doing my DipABRSM and I practise 4.5-6 hours a day. This is because school is over - when I have to go to school, I do 3-4 hours a day. The practise time comes from morning practises, free periods in school, lunch and break times in school, and before/after/in between my homework.

How can u practise when it is lunch and break times, don't you eat when there is lunch break time? what do u mean with free periods in school?

Curious to know

Paulara,
How much you need to practise depends on whether you want to make a career out of it or just playing for fun... whether you are a "serious" student who plays for fun but still wants to get a merit/distinction or one who is content just to scrape through with a pass.

We don't time my daughter but my guess is abt one hour before school and one hour before bedtime. She takes a short timed break in between the hour sometimes but I notice she makes up for it. She's only 8 but she has discipline of steel as it is her dream (certainly not ours!) to become a violinist.

So it can be anywhere from as short as "a good hour every day" (as shelton suggested and do) for a normal pass or 4-5 hours (like chopet) for a potential career! It has been said many times in the press from time to time during interviews that to be a prof concert pianist, 5 hours a day is the absolute minimum for advanced students! I presume that means grade 7 to conservatory level.

At what point does more practise become important? My son (11) only does very short practises 5-10mins per instrument most days. He has grade 4 cello and doing grade 3 piano imminently. At what stage will he needs to ramp up the practise time & is this a normal, gradual thing, or is it likely that he is just not really very musical and will give up at that point? I should add he does enjoy both instruments and does his practises off his own back with little or no reminding. As far as I'm aware his teachers are happy with him.

I'd feel inclined to be glad he does any practice at all. Few of my pupils did any. I myself only did an average of half an hour a week right up to and including grade 8

Liz

Lack of practice is one of the main problematic areas with any music lessons and a key reason for parents stopping their child having lessons!
Personally, I would rather a pupil have lessons without practice than stop altogether. At least they are still learning to a certain degree. I have a pupil who has never practiced a day in his life because his keyboard never moves from his Grandparent's house (where he has his lesson) and yet he is quite happy playing his favourite "Coldplay" piano pieces. Each to his own.

Gae

If his teachers are happy, AND he's happy, then THAT must be the best thing!

Our daughter started off with just 20 mins' practice last autumn when she began. Then she got better and the teacher gave her some hard stuff... then she put in 1/2 hr... and got better... he gave her harder stufff... she put in 1 hr... then he gave a bit more hard things to do like vibrato, etc ...and the list goes on.

So when I first met the teacher 2 terms later, I queried. He said it depends on the individual child. Apparently, it varies a great deal. No hard and fast rule. THE CHILD (not parents) dictates his/her own pace and progress!!!

So it looks to me like your son is doing fine as long as he's happy - He is challenged, not bored and making progress that makes him feel confident and proud of himself.

Give yourself a pat (and him, too) on the back!

As you're targeting Grade 8 students in particular: when I was working for Grade 8 I'd practise for at least an hour and a half every day, splitting it 20 minutes for each piece and half an hour for scales.

Now I've done the exam I'd say I play even more!! I don't "practise" for more than half an hour (as in sit down and work solidly at a piece/technique), but I "play" for fun - i.e. I'll just play through my favourite pieces (and there are a LOT, so I generally play for at least 2 hours a day!).

I love the piano: it's my way to relax. And believe me, with all these exams at the moment, I need to!!

Hope this is vaguely useful.

When I did Grade 8 piano, around two hours a day, at the most 3. Same for my ATCL, well, I was already teaching then, so it was more like a grab-whatever-spare-time you have and go. I certainly DID not manage 4 hours a day... that would have driven me crazy.

For my violin, I used to practice 2 hours a day, one hour in the morning and one at night for my Grade 2. But now that my teaching schedule is busier, I only managed to get in one hour a day, and I'm doing Grade 4.

I usually do no more than 2 or 3 hours in the day as any more usually achieves nothing. You're tired, saturated. As a wind player I find little and often the best way. That being said, it's more HOW you practise that counts, more than time spent.

it seems like most higher grade students have to practise about 1-2 hrs . So it shows like it's going to be ALOT of work for me!

And since I haven't been putting effort into my earlier grades , actually now I have to put in MUCH MORE to make up for the insufficient technique I had ! It's pay-back time !!!

By the way, just out of curiosity...has anyone passed grade 8 with very little practice like say an hour a week ? Any lucky people out there?

In some ways I think you are missing something here.....
There is a certain amount of stuff you need to learn and keep on top of and most people find that it needs 1 - 2 hours a day to do that. It's not a matter of... 'oh, no! I have to do 2 hours practice today'.... but more like.. 'I want to get X, Y and Z done today if I can'.
There probably are people out there who can actually cover the work in less time and those who need more time too.
If you are so concerned about counting how much time you will need to put in then why are you doing this??

I agree - it's the quality of practice that counts. Telling a child to practise 10 minutes every day could lead to the 'egg-timer' approach - play for 10 minutes then stop. A lot of children would do this without listening to what they're doing and the same mistakes will be constantly reinforced because they're just watching the clock and not really concentrating properly. 'The Practice Revolution' by Philip Johnston (of practicespot.com fame) is quite a good book for analysing the practice faults of pupils and how to tackle practice more as a task-based approach, so that practice is finished when the task for the day (e.g. learn the notes of the right hand and be able to play them 3 times in a row correctly at a slow tempo) is complete.

I actually had a parent tell me she was on her way out to buy an egg timer for her 7 year old's practice.....
I stopped her and gave her some better suggestions.

SPOT-ON, sbhoa! I agree with you, 100%. That's why we do not time our daughter. There's no point. otherwise the child might muck abt or procrastinate or drag his/her feet somehow for the hour to pass by just like that...

She does her 3 or 4 music pieces 6 times correctly after her scales and arpeggios which are played 10 times correctly and after having finished her vibrato exercise and her shifting exercise, etc. Her teacher suggested she does her shifting exercise 10 times CORRECTLY (all of which she has to self-judge/self-evaluate by listening to herself very carefully the whole time as we know nothing abt violin and cannot supervise her, anyway, due to a special needs kid at home) and so on. She's HAPPY to do this bec her thoughts are focussed on the result to which she looks fwd with a certain sense of joy and anticipation.

She is definitely NOT thinking - as I hope you are not - how much time/practice do I HAVE TO PUT IN or ENDURE to get this over and done with! To get the pass mark in this exam or to win that competition...

Where is the commitment/joy? I hope you don't feel judged but it's just a point you need to reflect on thoughtfully - WHY am I doing this?

My practice can range from anything like 20 minutes to 2 hours an night! At the moment I'm trying to get this Bach piece finished that I started in January but didn't really commit myself to (I was distracted by Debussy's 1st Arabesque....). But I'm off school at the moment so I've managed to get a solid 2hrs on it a day which means I can play it without stopping! It generally depends on the amount of time I have when I'm busy so I have to set myself targets.

Now I can start on my Grade 8 pieces and I'm expecting to have to do 1.5 -2 hours a night, just purely because of all the scales involved!! I didn't have to practice as much for clarinet because somehow it seems less difficult scale-wise than piano.

I agree with sbhoa and chocolate dog here though - It's better to say "I'm going to make sure I can play the first section of this piece slowly hands together with the right fingers" and It to take half an hour; than to spend 2 hours bashing through your pieces with no presicion, making no improvement and likely making bad habits along the way! You can make more progress in half an hour well spent than 2 hours without focus.

Yes, I agree too. It's quality not quantity.

Try setting yourself targets rather than thinking in terms of how much time.

Yes indeed. Lucky all round EXCEPT when it got to diploma level.

Specifically: half an hour a week, if the teacher was lucky, for viola grade 8 (I worked out I got that on a total, meaning a total from being an absolute beginner, of about 150 hours private practice - I only ever did three grade, 3 7 and 8, due to several school moves)

Also for grade 8 voice (again i did three grades: 7 - twice since teacher decided trinity wasn't goo enough, bah! - and 8 - plus the Trinity College performer's certificate. Very much doubt whether I averaged more than an hour a week practice even for that.

Grade 8 flute about the same I guess.

Grade 8 recorder I was probably a little better since recorder was and still is my favourite instrument and yet I had never had a lesson on it so I did need to prove something, perhaps I might have managed two hours a week on that towards the end, also for my LGSM (the only diploma I ever passed though I did at least have a teacher by then!)

It didn't work for grade seven piano though!!

Liz

Thanks for the advise and sorry to have hijacked the thread a little. I'll just let him get on with things the way they are and go with the flow. I do wonder however if anyones has ever really explained to him how to approach his practise time - I might enquire next time I see a teacher. He has a play everything through once type approach generally. Cheebles comment reminded me he does also play for fun quite a bit (probably around the same amount as he practises on average). I am still in awe of just how much practise time some of you manage - well done!

Manage?

Sorry to go off a bit on this thread but actually managing to practise for one hour is not necessarily hard. There WILL come a time when your son will ENJOY his cello or whichever his most fav instrument is, and ENJOY the music so much that he will gradually build up to an hour's practice without noticing the time! He will also do this on his own initiative, too. I have never force/prssure my daughter to practise. To her practising is FUN most days except for scales which she says is "absolutely yucky!" She hated practising her scales but her teacher (who is very good with kids) told her a story about it! So now, although she still finds doing them dead boring, she doesn't mind it so much!

Asking the teacher in front of him is a GOOD idea bec the teacher knows better and also, he respects the teacher's prof view probably more than yours.

Manage?

OOps, didn't mean manage as in the sense of 'endure' but rather in the sense of fitting it all in to an already busy life. Sorry for confusion.

What's the story her teacher told her about scales? Must tell my pupils too!!!

Some people find that allocating a set time spot in the day which everyone in the house knows is sacred to practice works.
A bit like if it's scheduled it will happen and if it's not then it might not happen.
If a child genuinely has no time to practice then maybe it's the case of parents (and child?) having a look at all the activities being done and to choose which are most important. That may or may not include learning to play an instrument.

Although I practised fanatically when I first started to play the piano (I remember being told that I couldn't play it all the time as I had to let my sister have a go ), after I'd got past grades 2 or 3 I did about 40 minutes to an hour each week (don't tell my piano teacher, she thought I did a lot more ). I took my Grade 8 piano the day after my last A-level exam and got 138.

It's probably to do with working down to each grade - instead of slogging at the pieces for hours a week, I worked on more difficult pieces before each grade; for example, before grade 8, I worked on some of Bartok's 'Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm' from Microkosmos, and 'The Man I love' and 'I've got Rhythm' from Gershwin at the piano - pieces which are now on the Dip. syllabus.

As for achieving a Dip. with 1 hour of practice a week - I tried it to build up the pieces with an hour a week's practice for about 3 years but didn't get anywhere fast After buying my own piano, and trebling the amount of practice I was doing, I passed the exam 12 months later....

I guess I could consider myself lucky. I took grade 8 piano when i was 12 and being quite a lazy student, I'd usually practise 1-2 hours a week? Of course I worked harder when the exam approached, but compared to some of you here I do seem extremely lazy. I actually got away with a 138. Couldn't believe it.

one to two hours per day

When it comes to practice its quality rather than quantity thats important. Someone who spends two hours a day 'playing through' isn't going to do as well as someone who actually practices properly for 40 minutes.

Chocolatedog, what instrument do you teach? His was an embarassing story abt a violinist that will not make sense if your students are pianists, for example.

Once I get going I can practice for 1 1/2, but it's just finding the time to sit down...I find it more interesting to practise the flute than the piano, but I can never be bothered to get it out...call me unmotivated...

I try to practise as much as I can... sometimes when I've got nothing else to do I somehow wonder onto the piano.
I usually practise (properly, for exams things and such) for about an hour each day. aBout half an hour is spent just sight-reading new pieces and other things.

About half an hour. Go over the scales, arpps, for 10 minutes or so and then the pieces.

I just practise when I can/want to. Shame I much prefer practising than doing coursework, which is why it's 11:30 PM and I'm about to start my Biology!

Amazed at the range of practice times that people have for the same grades though.

dayaaam thats a lot, i only do around 2, maybe 3 if im in a creative mood

I really cant get motivated sometimes to practise (i play the piano). I tend to just play my pieces through, each day, so bout half and hour. But then i play the piano a lot more, jsut stuff i enjoy, composing that sort of thing. I am really regretting not practising got me exam in 4 days, whoops, am upping it to 2 hours a day for the practise malarky!

now skl is out for 6 weeks im practicin as much as possible, i play all day, i have nothing better to do! wen i've got skl i practice 4 about 4 hours butrecently i can be on the piano on and off 4 maybe 8 hours! I luv playing the piano! most people wake up read a book or watch telly i play the piano, i dont really watch telly because i wud rather be playing the piano!