How long should you practice a piece?

[sarahere]

So I was wondering how long should a piece take to be played with control (not preformence level) so that you know the piece is not too easy or too difficult for you?
And then when should you move on to another? Should all pieces get to preformence level?

[transitional]

Depends on the length. If the piece is around 4 pages, I'd say around a month to get down. Can hit as high as 6 months for pieces that are around 30 pages. But that's just my experience, I really don't have much to gauge this either. If you're just playing for enjoyment, you can easily find a good balance and do what you think is not too easy / too difficult.

It's good practice to try to get to performance level on specific pieces, and then do more difficult pieces that you don't intend to get to performance level quite yet. Mozart is really good to work on cutting down on mistakes.

[brogers70]

So I was wondering how long should a piece take to be played with control (not preformence level) so that you know the piece is not too easy or too difficult for you?
And then when should you move on to another? Should all pieces get to preformence level?

I've heard the advice that you should work on a piece that you can master in a month, one that you can master in about 3 months, and one that will take you six to twelve months. If you do that, over the course of a year you'll have worked on 10-12 pieces that are relatively easy for you, 4 that stretch you a bit, and one or two that are at or just beyond the limit of your technique.  Last year I did a recital where almost everything on the program was out towards the edge of my technical ability. This year I'm doing one where about a third of the music is pretty easy for me, only one piece is near the edge, and the rest are not totally easy but still fairly comfortable. Including a bunch of pieces that do not stress me out has made me so relaxed that my technique has improved just as a result of the lack of tension.

[transitional]

Including a bunch of pieces that do not stress me out has made me so relaxed that my technique has improved just as a result of the lack of tension.

Plus there are so many amazing pieces out there that are technically easy (lots and lots of great Schubert pieces that the notes can be sight read but there's so much within them)

[brogers70]

Plus there are so many amazing pieces out there that are technically easy (lots and lots of great Schubert pieces that the notes can be sight read but there's so much within them)

Yes, Schubert is a great example of deep music that is not technically difficult. I guess it helped that Schubert was not a particularly virtuoso pianist - supposedly he couldn't manage even the more difficult accompaniments to his Lieder, e.g. the Erlkonig.