Practice routine advice needed

[schubertiad]

I am a very-much amateur pianist, and am aiming to get into the Shanghai conservatory next year, with auditions in february. My audition pieces will be:
Chopin-Liszt My Joys song transcription (learnt)
Chopin op.25 no.5 etude (about halfway there)
Schubert sonata D.664 first mvt. (just started)
Rachmaninov etude op.33 no.2 (also just started)
Bach- either prelude from eng suite no.2 or a fantasy.

Now, up until recently i've only been able to do 2 hours practice a day, and have had frequent breaks of a week or 2 from the piano. I've decided to really get serious now, and can devote between 3-6 hours every day to practice. My question is, how to make the best use of all this time. I thought i'd better get my scales in order, which will be about 1-1.5 hours, which still gives me a long time. Would you do each piece every day? Could anyone else with this sort of practice time share their routine or any tips with me?

[daniloperusina]

Hi,
From what you describe, I'm just guessing what level you are on, and I think your suggestion is a bit of overkill.

The goal is always to be musical. You have to listen carefully to how you sound. How your scales sound, how each note you play in the pieces sound. Six hours every day, unless you are very experienced, is likely to exhaust your mind and ears, so that you'll stop listening and become mechanical. Even seasoned professionals run this risk.

Better three hours per day than six. And take one or two days off each week.
Do only a few scales each day, not all of them. Within a few months you will have been able to do all of them, and done them well.

Divide your practice time into different sessions. For example:
1. Warm up and scales
2. Learn a new section from one of the pieces; read, play, analyse, memorize
3. Rehearse a section you learned yesterday
4. Have a coffe
5. Work on technically tricky places you've already learned
6. Do longer sections from the pieces

If you have a problem in, say, bar 20, don't practice by playing from bar 1. That's a waste of time. Practice bar 20 instead!

In my opinion, you should spend most time on 2, 3 & 5. And least on 4. That's a good day's work! If you still want to go on playing, do something else. Play for fun, compose, play duets with a friend.

When it's perhaps two or three months left for the audition, you could start doing more hours. But you don't want to do an audition with severe fatigue in hands, and constant ringing in your ears.

[amelialw]

no you should not practise all of your pieces everyday. Break them up into 2 groups and alternate between them.
You should spend 1 hr on each piece and half an hour to1 hr on scales.

[schubertiad]

I know it sounds a bit much (it feels a bit much, too) but in all honesty i learn things pretty slowly. I am generally quite focused when practising, and use many of the practice methods familiar to most people on this site. The problem is that in my case, a manageable chunk is often a matter of a bar or two, meaning that i need a lot of mini sessions in order to achieve anything decent in one day. If i were to practise for, say, 2 hours, then after scales i would have around 1-1.5 hours, in which time i could perhaps do 4 or 5 sections, which would equate to about 10 bars in a day. I'm not sure that will be enough, but i also don't want to burn myself out either.

[amelialw]

why practise technique for half the time? If you want to get into the consevatory I suggest you spend more time of pieces...

[schubertiad]

I'm not spending half my time on exercises. If we take 4 hours as my average, i will be spending about 1/4 of my time doing scales etc, which at the moment are virtually non-existent. I have neglected them for too long, and can definitely feel a difference when i get back into them. Anyway, i tend to agree with daniloperusina that any more than 4 hours will be overkill. I seem to be getting diminishing returns after about 3 or 4 hours, so i might be better off saving it for the next day. Hopefully i can build up a bit of stamina over the next few months and blitz it when the audition date is looming large...

[lagin]

If it's any consolation to you, I practice 6 hours a day as well and am playing at the same level as you.  We're even learning the same Schubert sonata   Do you need scales for the audition, or do you just want to learn them?  Breaking up your pieces in groups of two and hitting everything every other day is a good idea.  First thing, I would pick your Bach right away and start learning it as it will be your most challenging piece memory wise.  Next isolate the hardest pieces and the hardest parts in each piece and make sure you spend the most time on them.  Also, take those hardest bits, like for example where the triplet figure enters on the first page of the Schubert and you have to keep your left hand very even and way under the right hand, and make sure you practice those bits every day even if you're not practicing that piece that day.  Make your warm up exercises these bits.  You can photocopy them and cut them out and paste them to a page if you get distracted easily and find yourself playing further into the piece than you intended.  These hard bits also include tricky rhymic figures, etc. 

If you can, find out what that conservatory "goes for."  What I mean, is for example, we have 2 universities where I live and one has the reputation of being impressed by fast fingers and even if you play extremely musically you can't get in without legendary technique, and the other one you can get into even if your technique isn't legendary as long as your play your pieces extremely musically.  They have a bit of a reputation like that sometimes.  Of course they want both, but sometimes the do favor the one over the other and it's good to know what their main focus will be when listening. 

And start memorizing pronto!  Oh, and as soon as you can and have even one piece ready, PERFORM PERFORM PERFORM.  For anyone - Grandpa, Mom, Teacher's friend, your friends, etc.  And most importantly tape your performances even if all's you have is an old tape recorder.  That is the best/fastest way to find any weak spots in your memory/technique and fix them.  It gets rid of your nerves alot too - the more you do it the more nerves go.  I know it's 1/2 a year away, but it's not too early to start!

[lagin]

P.S.  I worked my way up to 6 hours gradually, and don't do it all at once!  Also, the way I keep my practice productive and myself focused is to save scales and other things that don't take as much mental energy for the end of the day when my brain gets tired.  That way I'm still building technique which is productive even though I'm not thinking of a million other things like rhythm, shaping, musicality.  Scales have this of course, but not to the extent of pieces!

[amelialw]

I'm not spending half my time on exercises. If we take 4 hours as my average, i will be spending about 1/4 of my time doing scales etc, which at the moment are virtually non-existent. I have neglected them for too long, and can definitely feel a difference when i get back into them. Anyway, i tend to agree with daniloperusina that any more than 4 hours will be overkill. I seem to be getting diminishing returns after about 3 or 4 hours, so i might be better off saving it for the next day. Hopefully i can build up a bit of stamina over the next few months and blitz it when the audition date is looming large...

Sorry I misunderstood you. Yes by all means do practise 1 hour of scales per day if you feel that you need it. Scales play a very important part. I agree that you should not practise 6 hrs yet, slowly increase your practise time. I myself am currently practising min about 4 hrs and max about 5 hours a day and it does drain alot of energy. Do your chopin and rachmaninoff etudes require alot of stamina? If they don't I suggest that you pick a piece that requires strong hands, I myself use the Chopin Etude Op.10 No 5 and 8 to build up my stamina.

And start memorizing pronto!  Oh, and as soon as you can and have even one piece ready, PERFORM PERFORM PERFORM.  For anyone - Grandpa, Mom, Teacher's friend, your friends, etc.  And most importantly tape your performances even if all's you have is an old tape recorder.  That is the best/fastest way to find any weak spots in your memory/technique and fix them.  It gets rid of your nerves alot too - the more you do it the more nerves go.  I know it's 1/2 a year away, but it's not too early to start!

yes it is important to be able to memorize and learn a piece fast. And perform lots, it will help boost your confidence. As you are finishing off those pieces, you should start 1-2 more to train yourself.