How much practice a day??

[bernhard]

How much practice a day? Here is the final answer:

1.      Have a specific (totally specific) aim. [by the way this is the most difficult step].

2.      Practise as much as it takes to achieve that aim. And practise that does not result in improment is not practice, it is simply another piano related activity.

3.      If after 24 hours practising (the whole day and the whole night non-stop) you have not achieved your aim you are either practising incorrectly (or not practising at all, that is you are doing piano activity, but you are not practising) or your aim is too ambitious.

4.      Anyone should be able to achieve aims in very little time (say five minutes) if they know what they are doing and if they choose their aims properly.

5.      Organise aims so that they add up, and spread them over time. In due time you will have mastered a whole piece if you are consistent in your practice (which can be just an hour a day). In other words: plan your work and work your plan.

6.      Practice does not necessarily mean time spent at the piano. In fact you can drastically reduce piano time (if you want to) by practising intelligently and efficiently. Think of the process of building a house. Knowledgeable builders will spend most of the time planning it (thinking about the house, drawing plans, making models), and then building the foundations (which will have to be carefully calculated beforehand), then putting up the building properly and finally decorating its insides.

7.      For the persons that are unfamiliar with building, all they see is the putting up of the building. And all that they talk about is the decoration. When they ask about how long is going to take to build a house? They are flabbergasted to learn that the planning and the foundation are far more important than the building and the decoration. And will take far longer.

8.      Likewise in piano practice, study and mental practice should use a far larger section of the time than the actual drilling at the piano. Ignore this at your own peril. Just like a house with proper foundations will eventually fall, hours on end at the piano without planning will at best not yield the expected results, and at worst get you injured.

9. So how much practice a day? How long is a piece of string?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[trunks]

There is no fixed rule in how long or how many sessions one should practise every day. I rarely practise more than 2 hours per session, 1 session per day. Recently I have been re-working on four Etudes by Liszt (namely 3 Etudes de Concert and Transcendental Etude No.6 - all slipped from both my memory and my fingers for almost 10 years!) and working brand-new on a couple of his other Etudes. It took me more than 3 months to get the 4 back into my fingers and memory.

But it is essential that one must set a target for a practice session, for example, to memorise a section of a piece, or to perfect a difficult passage, or to run through a recital or examination programme . . ., and is often refreshing to take occasional days of complete digression into playing other stuff without touching the actual pieces under practice, or simply take a day off the piano, perhaps once every fortnight.

[donjuan]

:-/ How much practice depends on the material you need to practice.  Chopin, in my opinion is the most difficult to practice.  Any more than 3 hours a day, and you will begin to lose infrmation you had before practicing.  

When learning new work, I will sit down for no more than an hour at a time, walk away, have a cup of tea, listen to music recordings NOT because I am too lazy to figure out melodies or rhythm, but perhaps because I need to be inspired.

When practicing the physically demanding composers - Rachmaninoff, Liszt, scriabin, etc,, I might take a day off every week or so to let my hands relax.  Upon return to the piano, work is much more productive and enjoyable.

I situations where I need to learn a piece by a given date, I count the number of bars in the piece and calculate the average number of bars I need to learn per day.  By doing this, I force myself to work in a methodical manner.  Obviously, the schedule changes depending on the difficulty of a certain bar (eg. A liszt CADENZA ).

[gkatele]

Interesting discussion about learning....

Here's an aside that may have some relevance to what we're talking about. Besides music, I have a passion for horses (started riding when I was 48). Training a horse is a matter of patience, time and, did I mention patience? To repetitively drill a task with a horse day after day will be counterproductive. It is frequently most useful to work on something for about 20 minutes, move on to another task, and then rest for the day.

Here's the interesing part:

Skip a day of training. Come back two days later and see what you can do. It will often be better than it was when you left off. Seems that the horse has to "let things sink in a bit."

Since coming back to the piano, I've found that this is also true of me. If I break my sessions up - 10 minutes here, half an hour there, nothing the next day - I seem to make better progress.

It's probably that my brain is making all kinds of new connections and synapses and they need time to work themselves into a pattern.

Just a thought.

Happy music,



George

[bernhard]

Interesting discussion about learning....

Here's an aside that may have some relevance to what we're talking about. Besides music, I have a passion for horses (started riding when I was 48). Training a horse is a matter of patience, time and, did I mention patience? To repetitively drill a task with a horse day after day will be counterproductive. It is frequently most useful to work on something for about 20 minutes, move on to another task, and then rest for the day.

Here's the interesing part:

Skip a day of training. Come back two days later and see what you can do. It will often be better than it was when you left off. Seems that the horse has to "let things sink in a bit."

Since coming back to the piano, I've found that this is also true of me. If I break my sessions up - 10 minutes here, half an hour there, nothing the next day - I seem to make better progress.

It's probably that my brain is making all kinds of new connections and synapses and they need time to work themselves into a pattern.

Just a thought.

Happy music,



George

I agree.

To paraphrase Hitchcock:

"I did not say that piano students are horses. I said that they should be treated like horses."

 

[piano88]

How much practice a day? Here is the final answer:

1.      Have a specific (totally specific) aim. [by the way this is the most difficult step].

2.      Practise as much as it takes to achieve that aim. And practise that does not result in improment is not practice, it is simply another piano related activity.

FIVE HOURS LATER.........................

8. Likewise in piano practice, study and mental practice should use a far larger section of the time than the actual drilling at the piano. Ignore this at your own peril. Just like a house with proper foundations will eventually fall, hours on end at the piano without planning will at best not yield the expected results, and at worst get you injured.

9. So how much practice a day? How long is a piece of string?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

You know, I don't understand all the fuss over this. We're all different and so do different amounts.
Just cut the crap and DO AS MUCH AS YOU NEED TO!!!!!!! Theres my quote...

[ted]

I do very little that could properly be called practice these days. I took Bernhard's first step years ago and my physical aims have always remained firm, although not particularly usual, and never separated from musical ends.

1. I want to have sufficient instantly available technique at my disposal to execute any idea which occurs to me without having to concentrate on the physical side. As my ideas are often quite complicated this demand is actually a lot more severe than it  first appears.

2. I want to be able to maintain and build a small repertoire of pieces I really like and play them reasonably well. Again, because the pieces I like are often very difficult, this objective is also harder than it sounds.

Doing things the wrong way for years taught me that grinding away all day is pretty useless for me (might be good for concert pianists - I'm not qualified to comment on them). Therefore the only physical practice I do now is a maximum of twenty minutes at the practice clavier, usually after my music at the piano and before I go to bed,  to maintain my finger technique.

To be honest, I don't know whether it is meaningful to talk about "practising" improvisation. You just do it, and it just gets better, at least subjectively (others may think differently !). All aspects of my musical being are tangled, and the concept of splitting it all into two distinct areas, "real" and "practice" is an encumbrance I can well do without.

So aside from the few minutes at the clavier I don't think I do any "practice" at all.

[chopin_girl]

I practice 3, max.4 hours a day.
And it's perfectly enough for me.
It's not that I don't get to do anything with 3 hrs a day-it's the opposite. I go on competitions, have recitals, etc etc. It's not important how LONG you practice, it's HOW you practitce.
3 hours works just fine for me. Personally, I think everyone exaggerates a little when they say they NEED to practice 9 hrs a day. But hey. That's my opinion.

[Greentea028]

I practice....2 hours a day during the summer and such. maybe an 45 minutes to an hour a day on school days. not very impressive, but if you are completely, completely focused on learning the music, instead of playing for pleasure, im sure it works.

playing that much would be effective only if you are concentrated the entire time.

My idea of practicing for long periods of time is that there's a point where practicing does no good after a certain amount of time, and it becomes brainless practicing. Breaks are needed because it lets the technique kinda soak in your brain and in your fingers. I'd suggest you play 2 hours, then take a 30 minute break, or something of that sort.

Or maybe it works for you.l

[alkanite]

In an interview with Krystian Zimerman, he mentioned he had a piano seat that would time how long he sat and how long he played.  At the end of one day, he noticed he had sat for 10 hours.

And played for 1.

'Thinking is more important than playing'.

Sounds about right from a highly refined performer.

[amybeachfan]

Hi, I'm new here.

I have a Master's in performance & I work as a freelance professional accompanist, but I also have a full time day job that does not involve playing. I have been wrestling with these issues for a couple of years: how to use my few available hours to keep my technique up, learn new pieces, rehearse & perform, and still have a few hours left to eat, sleep, and be sociable.

I used to average 7 hours a day when I was an undergrad in music school. I know becauae I counted them obsessively. Sometimes I spent 2 of them on scales & Hanon, either with a metronome going or listening to the radio news on headphones. Take my word for it, that was not helpful.

Then I had a really wonderful teacher one semester who gave me some great advice. I went to my first lesson, and he asked me to play a scale. I ripped off 4 octaves of C major really fast, hoping he'd be impressed. Then he said, "What were you trying to do?" I said, "Uh, I just played a scale." Duh. But he meant that I should decide first what tone, dynamics, voicing, rhythm, etc. I want & hear it in my mind, then play it and also hear what came out, and always know whether or not I did what I meant to do.

I tried it and found that I could accomplish way more in a shorter time. But it is a lot harder because you mind has to be completely engaged (no more listening to the radio... Exercises are like a hammer, or any tool. If you hit the nail right on, the right number of times, it is just right to hang the picture. If you hit it too much, it goes into the wall and the result is useless. If you miss the nail and smash your thumb, you were better off without the hammer. It's what you use it for, and how, that counts.

I have started getting good results for memorizing by using lots of mental imagery techniques and studying scores away from the piano. There are some good books on this. It works very well, but takes a very high amount of concentration that I can't muster very often. Still, I memorized a short piece this way in an hour, then go months without touching it and still remember every note.

I have vastly improved my sightreading by reading piano trios once a week with some friends of mine. It's great fun as a social activity, yet doesn't take away from my practicing. I'm able to read at a level much closer to my technical level than before I did chamber music. Cuts out some of those hours when you are just struggling to learn notes enough to get through a new piece.

The other things that help are exercise, sleep, good diet, yoga (or anything else that reduces tension & makes you aware of your body), and learning not to take your artistic quest quite so seriously. Yes, of course it's serious, but you should find joy and fun in it, too. Always play the music, even if you sometimes miss a note. You won't be shot or put in prison for hitting a wrong note, even if you do it onstage. I once heard Menahem Pressler and the Beaux Arts Trio perform a Mozart Trio, and when Pressler got to the last chord, he completely missed it and crunched a very obvious wrong note. They still got a standing ovation, and nobody suggested that Mr. Pressler should have spent more hours practicing.

--L., amybeachfan

[Sketchee]

This is an old thread right?  I thought I posted in it but I didn't find my reply so I guess not!

I don't really count.  I practice off and on.  I have my digital conveniently in my room beside my computer (which has the tv card so it's all purpose in here).  Whatever holds my attention at the moment is what I'm doing.  Sometimes it's a period of piano, sometimes it's computer, sometimes tv, and often enough I'm not even at home!   At school I practiced if I had down time between classes or at the end of the day.  If I'm just playing through a piece for fun, I at least try and remember a few parts that I want to improve to work on later.  Other than that I try to get things well or memorize or whatever I decided to do.  It's not about quantity but quality!   Or a quantity of quality preferably.

[Jeremy C.]

it is a little too much. i usually go for 5 hours a day. but then again, theres no such thing as too much practice

[etudes]

7-9 hours
seperate it in to 2 2 3 or 2 2 2 3 and use bernhard method to cut them in sections in 20-30 mins each
i feel completely surprise with the result in first week i try

[hodi]

How much practice a day? Here is the final answer:

1.      Have a specific (totally specific) aim. [by the way this is the most difficult step].

2.      Practise as much as it takes to achieve that aim. And practise that does not result in improment is not practice, it is simply another piano related activity.

exacly what i do

[stevie]

well my first suggestion would be to cut the crap - forget technical exercises - and learn music that will replace them - eg forget scales and arpeggios - learn alkan's op 76 no 3, forget 3rds - learn chopin and godowsky's 3rds etudes, etc etc
your technique will end up just as good, and youll be more happy cos ur playing superb music too.
this is what im in the process of doing right now.

you are a motherfunking legend

[bernhard]

you are a motherfunking legend

Very true.

[nick]

2 very interesting interviews with horowitz can be found here :

https://w1.854.telia.com/~u85420275/articles.htm

enjoy!  

Thanks Comme and that was interesting. Equally interesting was his statement that he uses presure to depress the keys, and close fingers, even in fast runs. I have video of him playing and ran it in slow motion, so I know this is not true. Fingers struck the notes as clear as day. Oh well, maybe he liked the principle and wasn't aware of it.

Nick

[stevie]

but it also must be remembered that, what worked for horowitz may not work for you, he had a very idiosyncratic technique.
but yes, it is true that in order to produce idiosyncratic/unique musical effect, you need a unique technical method of doing so.

[ail]

Chuan C. Chang in his book "Fundamentals of Piano Practice" calls it PPI (post-practice improvement). And yes we can take advantage of it by learning more than one piece at a time. Let's say we are learning pieces A, B and C. On the first day we practise A and B, the second B and C, third C and A, etc. Makes sense?

dennis lee

That does not surprise me at all. Of course I have felt it with the piano, but also with Physics, Mathematics and everything else that needs reasoning. I'm not saying that this kind of evolution will happen for and only things that have mathematical reasoning in them. I hardly can see how piano practice would qualify for that, I'm merely saying that's where I've felt it myself.
My reasoning for it is that the brain needs some downtime to acquire and incorporate the knowledge it has learnt. You may study for hours trying to learn and understand a mathematical text, but you actually need downtime to work it over trying to put the pieces in place.  This kind of understanding very seldom is immediate, little advances click now and then after a lot of study.

Poincaré, a famous mathematicion of the turn of the 19th to 20th century, once was working on a problem like mad without finding a solution for it. One day, he took a day off to go on a geological trip I guess around Paris and there, without thinking on it, the solution suddenly popped in his head. The brain took its rest to 'think' on the problem at a subconscious level and since it had already done a whole lot of work (this is actually fundamental) it was able to complete the missing links. Perhaps free from the rational mind, the brain is more creative and can test hypotheses unfettered by the restrictions, prejudices and preferences of a conscious mind.

Once, also, when I went regularly to a gym, my trained told me not to train every day. As he put it, "the muscle needs time to grow. The practice will only tell it it needs to grow, but if you are always practicing, you deny it the time it needs to rebuild itself". More, you may be doing actual damage.

I see both these mechanisms as very similar, and piano playing may well be a mix of the two.


Alex

[hiline]

I have a simple question: do you know any successful professional pianist that practises fewer than 4 hours a day? 

[bernhard]

Most of them.

(If you believe what they say in interviews, that is  )

[pianistimo]

especially if they are teaching.  but right before recitals - i think they probably practice a lot more.  must be a lot of stress - though.  time is of the essence and yet u need ur sleep,too.  i think u have to have an extreme amount of energy and ability to handle stressful situations well.

one thing i noticed about my teacher is that no second was wasted.  if he wasn't teaching, he was practicing.  efficiency.  when u have the time, u use it.  as people mature, they seem to have less time.  i think for some teachers/performers they have to make time before recitals by cancelling lessons a week before and practicing.  the very few times of a cancelled lesson - i never minded at all.  seeing a pianist like that in action is good learning - and going to a teacher's recital is just as much learning as a lesson.

[tds]

"..and going to a teacher's recital is just as much learning as a lesson." pianonut

yeah, but lots of conservatory teachers play like crap ( read: CRAP ). most won important prizes in their youth, and some still think they are a master even with little practise and slackened disciplin.

....and they talk about tenure, do that with a face like a relieved turkey, some seen with an aura of proud and guilt mixed in.

am sure your teacher dont fall into this category as u sed he eksellent, i believe u.

[pianistimo]

i don't know much about conservatory teachers, but i don't doubt that many teach such long hours that when they come up on recitals -it's a burden.  there's always a sort of trade-off with teaching.  but, the younger ones can handle it.  my teacher is relatively young - (have to ask his age but am guessing barely 30).  probably the high level of discipline is something he always had, too - which isn't that common.  usually people do just enough to get by and also get some sleep and nutrition.  when u think about it - it's not the healthiest lifestyle - but there's something about music itself that can recharge a person (especiallyif a recital goes extremely well).

every recital that i've seen my teacher play at/with/for he's always been in top form.  i think he's a perfectionist and yet plays very naturally.

[pianochild]

i practise about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours a day. But im only 15, this is plenty isnt it. I have school too.

[Kassaa]

i practise about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours a day. But im only 15, this is plenty isnt it. I have school too.

I'm 14 and on schooldays I atleast practice 2.5 hours, now, in the holidays, it's atleast 3.5 hours. Not today though, my hands hurt like hell.

[pianochild]

i think that is too much. If your 14 thats basiclyy all you night after school, if i did that, i get bak at 4, finished by half 6?? No.

[mike_lang]

I try to spend the day practicing...sometimes this may be six hours somedays, eight other days.  In any case, I don't log hours, I simply go to work for the day - just as stock traders go to the board of trade or doctors go the office/hospital.  I try to enjoy it -  I do not repeat passages mechanically for hours on end; I may learn three new pages, get up off of the bench for a minute and walk around, then review something old, maybe read through something new, and then maybe polish something that I'm going to perform.

For me, this is the advantage of tackling a lot of pieces at once.  It keeps one practicing all day.  Say, for example, I get worn out on my Beethoven sonata for the time being - I might dissect a little more Berg, or review a Chopin etude.  It really is a different mindset to say that you are going to spend the day practicing, rather than setting an amount of hours. 

I would like to suggest to everyone, or at least to those who have not yet read it, a book entitled "The Art of Practicing," by Madeline Bruser.  It really is a quick read and helped me to find new meaning in and methods of practice.  I suppose if it were to be summarized in one word, that word would be "joy."  You cannot do productively for eight hours (or four, or even one), something that you do not thoroughly enjoy, and so this book helps you to, among other things, learn to enjoy practicing.

Also, for those of you who have never tried yoga, I find that it is the perfect complement to a good practice session.

Best,
ML

[phil13]

I'm 14 and on schooldays I atleast practice 2.5 hours, now, in the holidays, it's atleast 3.5 hours. Not today though, my hands hurt like hell.

i think that is too much. If your 14 thats basiclyy all you night after school, if i did that, i get bak at 4, finished by half 6?? No.

I am 16. When I was in school, I practiced 3-4 hours a day- 2 in the morning and 1-2 in the afternoon. That left me with plenty of time to do other things.

As for the original question:

Now, I practice 6 hours a day on weekdays, 4 hours a day on weekends. It leaves me with plenty of time to do other things, I don't feel exhausted, and I feel that the time is used effectively (broken into sets of 2 hours and then further broken into half-hours or on occasion hours)

Phil

[pianochild]

I would never have time in the morning, and my mym wouldnt agree with me on it that long, i have gcse's and things

[moi_not_toi]

I was wondering how much practice is too much.  I practice about 6-9 hours a day, usually about 7 hours.  Do you think this is too much?  I don't want to damage my hand, but I it takes me this long to get through my technique and pieces.  How much do you practice?  Do you have any suggestions?

It's not too much as long as it doesn't feel like 6-7 hours to you or your hands.
One: Practicing should be fun
Two: Long practicing is unnacceptable. If it feels like a long time, stop.
        My parents tell me I have twenty mins. and it feels as if I haven't even begun before they tell me time is up.

[bernhard]

my hands hurt like hell.

And yet, they shouldn´t.

[penguinlover]

I don't log practice time, but then I am not a professional pianist.  I just practice when I can.  I tried Bernhard's methods and found them very profitable. I stumbled onto this method by accident, and found out it worked!  It reaffirmed it in my thinking when I read his posts on the subject.  Amazing things happen when you rest, and when you CAN'T practice.  Thanks Bernhard!

[bernhard]

You are welcome.

[infectedmushroom]

I practise when I really want to play the piano. Sometimes, I'm not really motivated to play the piano. On a day like that, I don't even look at the piano.

When I'm really motivated to play the piano, I can play up to 4-5 hours a day. On a day like that, I practise scales/arpeggios/octaves about 30 minutes, I play some memorized pieces for about 1 hour and the rest of the time I spend on really having fun playing the piano... Mostly improvising stuff and maybe compose a bit, I really enjoy that the most.

What I'm wondering about: if you spend up to 6-9 hours every day of practising behind the piano, do you still enjoy playing the piano then? If you spend so many time behind the piano, it's more something that you really "must" do, instead of having fun and enjoy yourself... Atleast, that's what I think.

[mike_lang]

What I'm wondering about: if you spend up to 6-9 hours every day of practising behind the piano, do you still enjoy playing the piano then? If you spend so many time behind the piano, it's more something that you really "must" do, instead of having fun and enjoy yourself...

Yes, it is still possible to enjoy this.

1) Mechanical repetition makes enjoyment for this amount of time impossible.

2) Change it up - recognize your own point of saturation.  Don't beat a dead horse into the ground.

3) Take a ten minute break every hour.

4) Let yourself breathe - 6-9 hours do not have to be 6-9 hours of fingers on the keys.  This can entail turning ideas over in your head.

5) Listen and savor each sonority when you practice slowly.  Listen for things that are impossible to hear "a tempo."

I hope this helps you to better enjoy your practice time.

Best,
ML

[hiline]

Most of them.

(If you believe what they say in interviews, that is  )

Really? What did they say exactly ? 

[bernhard]

Really? What did they say exactly ? 

Just a small sample:

Claudio Arrau:

Do you still get satisfaction from practising?

I think it’s beautiful to practise; I love to practise. On the average I do now two to three hours a day. But sometimes I am a bit lazy. Krause used to have me stay away form the piano for at least a month in the summer, so as not to get stale, and I still do it quite often. Then when I go back to the piano it’s really an event.

(David Dubal – The World of the Concert Pianist – Victor Gollancz – p. 31)

Pepito Arriola:

During most of my life my practice has never exceeded two hours a day. In this country, while on tour, I never practise more than one and one-half hours. This is not necessary, because of the concerts themselves, which keep up my technical work. I never worry about my fingers. If I can think the pieces right, my fingers will always play the notes.

(James Francis Cooke – Great Pianists on Piano Playing – Dover – p. 45–46)

Bela Davidovich:

Tell me something about how you practise.

I usually play around three hours a day, […]after each hour I make sure to take a little break even a little ten-minute one, in order not to lose my level of concentration. But for that hour between the breaks I am very concentrated. During the break I drink tea, talk on the telephone, I just completely disconnect and do something besides music. But when I work I think about nothing but music. Nothing can disturb me, nothing can distract me. I am listening to myself.

(David Dubal – The World of the Concert Pianist – Victor Gollancz – p. 126 - 127)

Glenn Gould:

These days and throughout my professional life, indeed, I’ve practised only on an if-, as- and when-needed basis, and only for the purpose of consolidating a conception of a score - never for the sake of contact with the instrument per se. I’ll give you an example. The most recent recording I’ve made as of the date of this interview is the Brahms Op. 10 - the four ballades. I recorded them three weeks ago in New York. It happens that I’d never played them before - not even sight-read them - and, apart from the Edward ballade, the first one in the sect, the one a good many of my conservatory colleagues used to essay, I’d never even heard them played until I decided to record them (what that says about my playing of piano repertoire I’ll leave for you to decide).

Now, as it happens, I made that decision about two months before the recording was done and for approximately the next six weeks I studied the score from time to time, and developed a very clear conception of how I wanted to approach the ballades. I found the last one, for example, particularly difficult, particularly hard to get a handle on. It’s very beautiful on its way - hymnal almost, and what endears it to me is that it is one of those relatively few works where Brahms lets his imagination  - a sort of stream-of-consciousness process really - prevail over his sense of design, of architecture. But for that very reason it’s difficult to bring off. I did feel at last that I had found an acceptable tempo. But as for playing them, I spent only the last two weeks at keyboard and, unlike the experiences of my youth, which I’m now hazy about, I can tell you almost exactly how much time I spent because, in recent years, I’ve taken to clocking myself at the piano - no sense in overdoing things and all that. Anyway, as is customary for me before a recording session, it averaged about one hour a day. There were a couple of occasions when I doubled that because I perhaps had to be absent for an editing session, or whatever, on the following day, but that one hour gave me he opportunity to play through the ballades twice on each occasion (they’re almost exactly half an hour in length) and think about the conceptual changes I wanted to make.

(David Dubal – The World of the Concert Pianist – Victor Gollancz – p. 180 - 183)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Kassaa]

And yet, they shouldn´t.

I don't know what it is really, the finger next to the thumb of my left hand hurts when I push the upper half of my finger back to my hand (quite difficult to explain). It doesn't hurt when I play the piano though, but I thought it was smart to take rest for a day or two.

[jazzyprof]

Glenn Gould:

But as for playing them, I spent only the last two weeks at keyboard and, unlike the experiences of my youth, which I’m now hazy about, I can tell you almost exactly how much time I spent because, in recent years, I’ve taken to clocking myself at the piano - no sense in overdoing things and all that. Anyway, as is customary for me before a recording session, it averaged about one hour a day.

I suspect that once you have acquired a technique like Glenn Gould's, its easier to maintain it by just practising one hour a day.  In his youth, a period that he is hazy about, Glenn probably practiced a lot more than that in order to acquire that technique in the first place.  It's often a lot easier to keep the girl than to woo her, to keep the wealth than to earn it.   

[bernhard]

I suspect that once you have acquired a technique like Glenn Gould's, its easier to maintain it by just practising one hour a day.  In his youth, a period that he is hazy about, Glenn probably practiced a lot more than that in order to acquire that technique in the first place.  It's often a lot easier to keep the girl than to woo her, to keep the wealth than to earn it.   

Koji once said that all these pianists lie when talking about how much practice they actually do.

[hiline]

Koji once said that all these pianists lie when talking about how much practice they actually do.

Did you mean those pianists actually practised much more? 
Anyway, I agree that the most famous pianists spent most of their practice time in their youth. When they get well-known and super busy, they just need to work limitedly in order to maintain their techniques.

[bernhard]

Did you mean those pianists actually practised much more? 
Anyway, I agree that the most famous pianists spent most of their practice time in their youth. When they get well-known and super busy, they just need to work limitedly in order to maintain their techniques.

If I understand correctly, there are two kinds of fibs pianists will tell:

1. They will tell you they practise 14 hours a day when they don´t.

2. And they will tell you they never practise when they actually do (an example that just occurred to me is of Richter, on the DVD "Richter the enigma" where he claims that he only practices 3 - 4 hours tops and some days not at all, just to be contradicted by his wife who shouts from the kitchen that he practises 12 hours every day)

Then again, it depends what one means by practice. Glenn Gould may never have practised at the piano, but he sure did a lot of mental practice (may be 14 hours a day ).

Again a pianist who says s/he never practises (e.g. Argerich) may be referring to things like Hanon and scales, and s/he is not counting work on repertory, or simply time at the piano.

Finally,  social expectations change. Once upon a time to say that one practised 12 hours a day was a motive of pride. More recently it is regarded as inefficient practice (and a definite sign of nerdiness/psychological inbalance) so a lot of pianists are ashamed of owning to long practice hours.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[buhdaporn]

Hi, everyone.
I'm a new member of this website and I want to introduce myself.
My name is Buhdaporn (Put is my nick name).
I'm in grade 9 now and I'm 15 years old.
I like playing piano very much, I spent a lot of time on it about 4-8 hrs during school break every day. And I have played piano for 4 years from grade 4-6 and grade 8-9.
I like Liszt and Chopin very much.
I want you to see my video, its on youtube

1. Tetris -

2. Black key - 

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Last is Chopin Fantasia Impromptu op.66 -

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Thank you   

[jhallam1]

I have been getting excellent results by:

(1) Playing any difficult part of a piece in all keys--also, you can do this with any exercise from Hanon, The Virtuosos Pianist, or from Czerny's The Art of Finger Dexterity, or The School of Virtuosity. 

(2) I play any of the above in what are called slow-fast, in impulses.  For example, I play and count a small section of music slowly--maybe very slowly--for four times.  Then I playand count it fast in strict time once.  Then I playand count it fast in strict time twice.  Then thrice.  Then four times.  Then Eight Times.  Then maybe Sixteen or Twenty times, unless I poop out before that. 

(3) I play with added Sixths, Fourths, or Thirds.  I especially like added Sixths.  They never get monotonous.  I do scales, Hanon Exercise Number One, chromatic scales, and anything else, as time permits, with added Sixths, Fourths, or Thirds.  Note: It takes some creativity at times, when playing with added intervals, to work out a fingering that is in compliance with the proper practices of fingering and will still work.  In fingering the Hanon Number One in Thirds, in C-Major, for example, with the Right Hand, I am currently fingering it thus:  1,3.....3,5.....Crossover to 1,3 on F and A, then.....2,4.....3,5.....Now Descending.....2,4.....1,3 Crossover to 2,4 on E ang G, then 1,3 on D and F, and then it's time to start your ascent again... and so on.  I also like to do Chromatic Scales in added Thirds and Sixths.

Also I am currently practicing the Liszt Consolation Number Three with added Sixths in the Left Hand on the arpeggii obligati.   This has brought a lot of new strength and dexterity to my Left Hand.  Trying to makethe arpeggios as legato as if they had been played in without the added Sixths is a bear.  But I think it's worth it to get to that higher level of proficiency.

I also like to have a 20 times a day rule for the more difficult sections of the more difficult pieces.   That is, I try to make sure that I get in a minimum of 20 repetitions per day for those particular sections.  My normal practice is to play one or two repetitions in each octave of the piano, in the case of some of the material I'm working on.  As I get engrossed in the music I may go on for hours and hours, if time permits.  But, on days when I have other committments, I try to at least get in my 20 reps in my top 5 most difficult areas. 

If one is also trying to hold down a job, or is also engaged in an unrelated career, the above strategies can result in faster progress, in my experience.  I'm finding as a result that I'm really getting back into shape on that Hungarian Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra!
 

[communist]

4 hours minimum. 5 on average. 6 maximum

[smiggy]

I practice about 5-6 hours a day. 1h at college, 2 hours when I get home, 2/3 later in the evening

[soitainly]

 There are all sorts of reasons here, most of them valid, on how long to practice. It really just depends on the makeup of the individual and what they are trying to achieve. Personally, I would not be able to handle 8 hours a day, it would make me ill. My attention span is more like 2 hours max at a time, less if it is intense practice. Once you reach a certain level you can probably maintain it with an hour a day or less unless you are talking about the top soloists. To continue to grow at any noticable rate, I think 2-3 hours a day is a nice attainable goal. You can spend a little more or less depending how you feel each day.

 I love music and my goal is to play the music I like. Having an enjoyable experience at playing is the key. I think this translates into players I like to hear as well, you can feel the joy they have in playing thier music. I think listening to music intently is as valuable as practicing. I consider reading, studying and even browsing the forums to be part of the music learning experience.

 If your goal is to become a concert solo classical pianist, then you may have to approach things differently. The way things are set up now it seems you must win competitions and pass auditions in order to have any real shot at "making it". You are competing against people that have the constitution to practice 8 hours a day for ten years without it taking a toll on the sanity, not to mention their physical health. But there are many more examples of burnouts than of the one in a thousand that reach any level of commercial/artistic succes.

 It scares me to read of students that pass up spring break and other major social events in thier lives just to drudge through a few more practice sessions. I just think there has to be some sense of balance if one is to be an artist, not just a piano player.

[pwla]

i practice sometimes 5 hours and sometimes 2 or 3,the point is that you should practice as long as it takes to rehearse the entire repertoire