i agree, i think too many people focus on the time aspect when what really matters is whether you did what you set out to achive or not. a truly motivated person should not care to monitor how much time theyve practiced.
@@Jwellsuhhuh there is a minimum amount of time that has to be done if you want to be a professional, because if you don't do that, your technique will go down. Just like a professional swimmer or sprinter HAS to work out / practice for hours every day, nothing to do if he feels like it or not. 3 hours every day is the minimum to keep that.
Most people including myself would practice at least an hour a day. When the pieces you play get progressively more difficult, you'd put in more time. Tracking the extra minutes past an hour is unnecessary. If you put in just an hour a day everyday for 5 years you would reach nearly 2000 hours of practice.
I use to study about 3 hours per day, then I went to university, studied music, it was very rough, I use to study then about 8-10 hours a day, it was fun in retrospective. I wouldn't be able to study that much this days if I wanted haha. Overall I learned that quality over quantity is better all the way.
When I was learning piano, I practiced about an hour a day to start with, usually split into two half-hour sessions. By the time I reached intermediate level, I was generally having two practice sessions a day of about 2 hours apiece - not because I set out to practice that long, but because that was about as long as I could sustain my interest. And I think "interest" is a better word than "concentration" because the latter implies work when practice should be a pleasure. I did occasionally practice as much as 6 hours a day, but invariably found my practice deteriorated and my ear got "stale" so that I just started bashing the keys instead of playing musically. So I think this guy is right on the money when he suggests 3-4 hours a day as the ideal. However, that would be my recommendation for piano only, not necessarily for other instruments. When I was learning classical guitar for example, I could play 10-12 hours a day without a problem. Because basically what would happen is that I would play for a couple of hours until I got sick of it and went and did something else for 15 minutes or half an hour, but would find those musical pieces just going through my head until I had to pick up the guitar again to have just "one more try" at a particular piece or section of a piece. And that "one more try" would almost invariably become another 2 hour session! But again, the point is, none of it ever felt like work, it was just something I enjoyed so much I simply couldn't put the instrument down for long!
I find this discussion extremely important. As you mentioned there are factors why the amount of hours you practice must be the best as possible. How good you study is essential, i.e., the quality and effectiveness of the time you do so. Pedagogically speaking, there is a limit of continuous study. Then, you have to split the time in certain amount of sessions per day.
I find on those rare days when I have time to sit there for hours (6 recently) my hands become fluid and seem to hit “anything”. The feeling is incredible. Yes, I get up for several 10-5 breaks. I wish I had more time for that!
I've been playing consistently for about 1.5 years now (2 years since I started but couldn't practice for about 6 months due to health issues) and I have been practicing for 3-5 hours a day. I don't time my sessions but normally I do around 1 hour of technique (scales, short and long arpeggios, chords) and 2-3 hours of repertoire. My goal is to at least get to a semi-professional level and be able to play advanced repertoire well (my dream piece is chopin's first ballade!). But so far I'm just at an intermediate level (~ABRSM grade 6). I have noticed that breaking down and spacing practice sessions is most efficient, especially when learning new repertoire. P.S. Love your videos!
Very solid and good!! Also, thanks for watching my videos :D If you want a lesson check out my fiverr (link in description usually). Im giving a lot of lessons on there these days for viewers, and I think I can help quite a lot. Cheers
Me too, I play like 4/3 hours a day for 2/3 years (now this lasts months I play 1 hour because difficult repertoire) and I play like 70/80 pieces in this time (50/60 very perfect performances and the others pieces sight reading or played like only 2 weeks)
I am a pianist and professor in France. I was practicing 6 -7 hours a day. I had so much repertoire to learn not only when I was a student but also for competitions and I needed to be more than sure of my performance abilities. I didn't want to have more stress than was necessary, and just enjoy playing, have trust that the work I had put in during practicing.
@@eXTreemator as I'm in France I don't what that means in context to musicians. I prefer to take it as a compliment 😉. Look, I understand that some people feel it's a waste of time. I'm just saying as a student and with all the competition it wasn't a waste of time. Today, I wouldn't do the same number of hours. But regularly, every day I have to do three hours. And some days more depending on the program and who is involved. I have my students at the conservatoire so, there's less time.
i dont really have time to practise piano because of high school and stuff but i REALLY enjoy it, have been playing for 9 months and can play pieces like cruel angel thesis (Ru's arrangement and the one i am most proud of), some pop songs and some classical pieces. my piano teacher seems very satisfied with my progress and i've been practising for atleast 30 minutes to up to 2 hours per day
Regular practice is essential and the advice given here is excellent. I am an amateur pianist (and composer) and, although entirely self-taught, have achieved at least level 8 of the UK graded exams system. I don't practice each day but I play, so I differentiate between pratice and playing purely for enjoyment. The result, of course, is very patchy, ad hoc progress, technically speaking. However, as a retired teacher of languages and, therefore, familiar with the theories of learning and motivation,
Absolutely fascinating! This is a vastly underserved subject that deserves much more discussion and research: Practice efficiency. So, now we know that 2:30 hrs per day is the most efficient practice time per day. How about rests in between practice. I would assume splitting the 2.5 hours into 2 parts would be more effective because the rest in between allows your subcounscious to absorb the practice. But what about 3 sessions per day? or more? And another big question is, how much can you practice a difficult section (4 measures) at once before learning efficiency starts to drop? how many times per 10minutes, per 2 hours, per 24 hours? I have a theory, that over practicing the same thing too many times in one hour is of less value than spreading it across the day or the week, due to the benefits of "spaced repetition". So, when I designate my practice pieces, I always choose 1 from each of the main composers: 1 moz, 1 bach, 1 chopin and 1 beethoven and usually no more than 1 or 2 of each of those, just to keep my learning efficiency at it's peak. I'd love to see studies on that. I would imagine a romantic piece like Chopin may activate different learning centers in the brain , than say a bach invention (thus can be more effective to practice in the same session) but that's just a hypothesis!
The violist Molly Gebrian has some brilliant TH-cam playlists about the research behind effective practice and how the brain responds to repeated stimuli.
Because I am in school and very busy, I practice half an hour a day on weekdays and 2 hours on weekends. Even though there isn't much time, I've learned ways to learn extremely efficiently and still have a little bit of time every session to work on the details of a piece (though obviously it's not much time and most of the time is spent on learning the notes). The fastest progress I did in this half an hour was learn half of the Mephisto Waltz.
@@raisa6651 I tend to look for patterns that can be found in music I've already learned. I also look at the music before I play it, knowing the harmonies would help too. The biggest part I'd say is the sight reading, practice your sight reading lots and learning new things becomes way faster.
@@SCRIABINIST thank you for sharing. I am okay at sight reading but have trouble memorizing. Sometimes i feel like this is a crutch because whenever i’d like to play the piano outside my home, but without the sheet music, i couldn’t. I rely on sight reading too much that it takes another period of time to play the piece without the notes. Any advice please? How do you approach memorizing pieces after you’ve sight read them?
If i ask my students for daily practice for 30-60min....it lands up to almost no practice.....hence i just ask for 10min daily...bcoz once u sit...u wil go on n on playing
That’s what I did with art my requirement was basically to just get a paper, pencil and let your hand draw a random line and you can stop there. No minimum time requirements just actions. Suddenly I’d spend the next 3 hours drawing just because I drew a line lol
I can often pile up to 8 hours per day that i stay in front of the piano. But i’d say 2-3 of those hours are mostly time i don’t do anything because i might be resting or checking my phone. I think if i would restrict myself to 2-3 hours and plan it all out i’d be way more efficient with my practice though.
Im am a guitarist/bassist: there were times (15 - 30 years of age) where I was practising constantly. everywhere. In the train, at the beach, in the plane. but it is only now - with familiy and kids and responsibilities - that I never ever have this amount of time to practice ever again (or until the kids are older). But it is also now that I am amazed about what one hours of pure QUALITY practice can do. Sitting right (i am always standing), listening right, good light situation, good audio situation, right amount of room temperature, a particular task you wanna work/enjoy. It is minblowing.
@@DareToWonder you have to born for Lang Lang Style. Beginn with 4 years, Take a very, very good teacher and exercise 2 hours the next two years, then 4 hours and then 6 hours.
Thank you very much for your suggestion Maybe 8 hours practice is not possible for me with my busy 10:00 - 07:00 work-life but I will try my best as much as possible ✌️❤️
I’ve been playing piano for 5 years now, I started when I was 50. For me, practicing 1 hour a day doesn’t allow me to make any progress, it’s just maintenance. Two a quality hours in the morning is the golden rule, three being too much. I just want to continuously improve a tad without ever going back.
For me there is a big difference between the instruments. I‘m playing the piano and violin. While I‘m easily able to practice 6 and more hours violin without any exhaustion I can only practice around 3 to 5 hours on the piano. I really love the piano but I notice a lot of tension after 2 to 3 hours and after that point practicing isn‘t efficient anymore. Whereas on the violin I don‘t feel any of these signs of tension or exhaustion. On violin I practice a lot more technical stuff which needs time. I couldn‘t imagine to play only 3 hours violin. After that time I just started the pieces I‘m working on. On the piano 3 hours seem to be my perfect practice time.
I rarely go over 6, which is split into 3 sessions: 2-3 hours for recital rep, 1-2 hours for long-term projects, and a 1-2 hour chunk split between technical exercises, etudes, and chamber rep.
Thanks very much! I find your hints very encouraging. I'm now trying to get back to the piano after having gotten rusty. I want to bring my repertoire back up to snuff and learn some new pieces. I had been afraid it was a hopeless task, but you've made me see that it's doable.
Great advice. This is truly appreciated. In my case, I was straining to read the music with my bifocal. Some teachers shared how they wished there was a way to reduce the eye strain for their students. But you know what? We've found a solution to our problem when we started using a piano music stand. Yes, the Grand Stand Piano Music stand brings comfort to many piano players around the world. I hope this helps.
College pianist here, wishing to jump at a professional level. I constantly time my practice in divided mini-chunks of generally 25-35 minutes, with few minutes to rest, forming big chunks of 2 hours in the room. I tend to find out that I get the most satisfied with myself after 3.5 h of PURE practice (not counting rests, improvisation, warmup, etc). after 4.5 h it just gets very tiring and I get to nowhere. I have done days of 8h just of pure practice time for 3 days straight. This is good as an experiment, but it basically kills any aspect of your life, other than your primary needs. Not sustainable even for one week, in my opinion. It's better to be constant than intense and irregular.
What you need to practice are your scales, 3rds, 6ths, octaves arpeggios, broken chords, and chord structure movement. You must practice daily. How long depends on what your are practicing. The most important thing is to practice everyday.
I subscribed I needed this advice. Have not been practicing, sometimes I do for 10 minutes only. Due to concentration is on guitar. I really do love piano. This video is so on point . Thank you I will go back practicing.
I‘ve been playing the piano for about 11 years now. In the beginning I refused to practice and ended up with about 30 minutes a week, you can‘t really complain about a child not wanting to practice can you? After about 2 years my first wave of motivation kicked in and I began practicing about 30 minutes a day. As my pieces got longer and longer, my practice sessions got longer as well. Now I‘m at a point, where I have an average of 1,5 hours a day. On weekdays I simply can‘t always find that time, because I still go to school. On the weekend I practice up to 4 hours. Anyway what I‘m trying to say is, you shouldn‘t take this schedule to serious, you still make progress even if you don‘t practice that much. As it‘s said in the video, it‘s more about practice efficiency than time you spend at the piano. Don‘t confuse playing the piano with practicing.
My professors always tell me that it is really about how well you practice and how long you practice, and I agree. I personally have a lot of work that I have to do, not only for piano lessons but also for chamber music rep or concert band or accompanying some of the vocalists at my school, so I tend to practice 4-6 hours a day just to cover everything. I did one time do 8, but it really was not that helpful, and like someone mentioned below, your ear tends to get "stale" and at that point I think you are just playing the piano versus actually learning anything. I think also you can't just sit down and say "I'm going to practice Bach for 6 hours" because you are guaranteed to get tired and lose focus and you might end up making the piece sound worse than better. I actually believe in over-practicing, as I think there is a certain amount of performing that needs to come off of instinct rather than practice. For the most part, yes, you need to practice difficult sections and the whole piece in general, but I some things like articulation or hand balance, etc. come with experience and you can often just rely on what you already know versus trying to map out every little detail, if that makes sense.
I practice 2 hours every day. I've found that I can manage this consistently. Sometimes I get excited and I want to push my practice to 3 hours. When I do, though, I end up burning out, so I try to just maintain what I call my 'daily 2'. It's the most effective way.
im almost on my first year of when i started to play and i played almost everyday for like around 3 to 6 hours a day (sometimes even more, my record is 10 hours and a half on a single day lol). my hardest achievement rn is playing the first 20 seconds of la campanella with almost no mistakes, at the normal tempo. pretty proud of that achievement
just finished the video. thanks for the advices! i want to become a professional pianist and this type of advices help me alot, the better is the efficiency, its better for me. ty
During the work week, I try to practice about an hour a day. On my days off from work, I practice throughout the day, doing multiple 15 to 20-minute sessions, I do chores in between and take breaks for some video games and some TV.
I personally started practicing 8-9 hours a day. Some parts of information provided in this video is indeed true: practicing 8 hours a day does make you tired, while your ears get weary. I have to mention that it is extremely important to make breaks. I make them personally between every hour. The duration of the break is personal, however in my opinion it shouldn't exceed 15 minutes. I personally relax for 5 minutes by staying in nature and being isolated as much as possible. This makes it easy for my brain to relax and process the information (music) I just produced / consumed. Nevertheless, not everything is applicable to every single one of us. Some people could try to exceed this amount of practice and pursue music further. It is important to take into account that it is possible mostly (if not solely) by PERFECT breaks. Just detach from reality a bit and you will be good to go :)
I practiced 8hrs a few times when aicwas studying piano, and the next day I was mentally tired. Once in a while, is fine, but not every day!! As an organ student I try to do about 3 hours or so, but I am still learning pedal technique, which is taking a while! Ingeneral for serious pianists, aim for 3-4 hour, 5 hours at the most, if you have the stamina, and you arecstill alert, not tire, etc. Takebbrakes and stretch between tasks, andcas needed, streach BEFORE you practice too!!
In the first semester of my music degree I was practicing way too much, around 6-8 hours almost daily, I wouldn't stop for more than 15 min breaks, and I wouldn't even stand from the piano bench sometimes. This surely helped me improve, but it was horrible for me and I couldn't see it back then. I practiced so much that my brain was so tired at the end that I literally forgot my repertoire during the final exam.
3:36 German Here... For those who are interested, Here is a word for word translation: The title is "relationship between the number of practice-units and the practice-effect = Penelope Effect" The y-axis shows the improvement in % corresponding to the Initial value On the x-axis said number of practice-units ist visible
Delighted to see that you’re referring to doctor Altenmüller. Everyone serious about becoming a professional musician should be following his research closely!
I started playing as a hobby 14 years ago. I liked trying my hands at the pieces I liked to listen to so much that I automatically played at least an hour almost every day if I had the chance. My repertoire and technical ability automatically got better and better without me even doing deliberate technical exercises or even having a personal teacher. I've been playing conventionally difficult pieces for years now. Practicing every day is POWERFUL. The results? I've shocked many people (when I was younger), gotten flowers and money from strangers when I played in public, got praise from highly experienced pianists who were a bit jealous, asking me why I'm not studying music, venue owners asked me to play for money when they heard me (but I was too stupid to accept their offers). But I suppose I do have the fortune that I genuinely enjoy practicing. Non-musicians might think it would get boring, but it's like the desire to play gets reset every day. At some point, such a genuine interest really does become like breathing, or eating. You can't imagine getting bored of breathing, you just can't... Shit, now I'm wondering once again if I really did make a mistake by not going to conservatory...
I can so relate! I feel the same, I will practice for 3-4 hours a day and feel done for the day but by night I’m ready for the next day to come so I can play again. Practice doesn’t feel like practice when you love it!
For me it depends on if I'm practicing a piece or learning it. It takes me some time and lots of repetition to learn more of the difficult pieces, and to get the piece into my hands and neurology. Once I've got that down, I can play the pieces and work on my interpretation and musical understanding. That usually works out to 1 hour of learning and 1 hour of playing per day. I'd play more but I have to work 8 hours day. I would play many hours a day if I could, but just because i love playing, not to achieve a time goal.
In the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell he talked about 10,000 hours to master a skill. It'd take many years to master an instrument such as flute, violin or piano. When we put in the time regularly, we'd eventually hit 10,000. When we're learning a new language, an effective approach is spaced repetition. You'd practice for a period of time such as 1 hour. Take a break and review the same material. After repeating something many times you'd learn it.
@@thepianoplayer416 Anders Ericsson debunked that "rule" in his book Peak ( it is his rule, Gladwell just used it in his book). Read it if you want to learn about deliberate practice. It is one of the best books on that subject that I have read. I love Gladwell, he is a great writer, but 10 000 hrs rule is just a catchy phrase that definitely cannot be applied to everything.
For guitar, i usually do 2 hours warmup and reading sheets, a bit unfocused, then 2 hours of actual playing. These amounts Can ramp up to 10+hours on days where i feel it and got inspiration for improv
I am a very new and inexperienced piano player (took some lessons when I was 6 or 7 but that was it), decided to try learning some piano. So far I either play until I feel like I got far enough with progress or play until I played so much I'm messing everything up lol
I definitely needed to hear this. I'm a pianist and a cellist (piano is my primary instrument) and on weekends I keep trying to practice 6 hours on the piano and 1 on the cello and I've realized that's just too much for me at least for now. Whenever I'm practicing in the evening it just isn't fun anymore, it's harder to concentrate and I'm more prone to tension in my hands. I think I'm going to reduce my piano practice to 4 hours and then keep my cello practice at 1. Hopefully it helps.
Back when I wasn't focused solely on music, I was practicing maybe only 15-30 minutes a day. Just trying to run through the scales or play a single chord. I think I had been playing for like 6 months when I came to college and started focusing solely on music. When that happened I started practicing an hour or 2 a day, and as time went on the time I spent on my instruments and craft (piano and composition mainly but also voice and guitar.) gradually increased. Nowadays I spend about 4-6 hours a day, I plan to bump it up to 8 during winter break and see how it feels. I personally don't think you should think about how long you're practicing, otherwise you'll start counting time and nothing's slower than a countdown. You'll quickly get tired and bored and unmotivated. What you want to do is develop skills and techniques which motivate you to develop more and further. For example, it took me a LONG time to develop stride technique in just one key in my left hand, but after about a month of just persistence and consistency in my practice of it, applying it to different keys and applying other musical knowledge and concepts to the technique, taking breaks whenever I felt bored or tired of listening to the sounds for sometimes 24 hours, Idk I just stopped worrying about the progress and efficiency of my practice once I started to actually see and feel more progress in real time.
I really like the fact that you took scientifically evidenced studies and extrapolated them to piano practice. I agree with your points wholeheartedly.
My teacher has actually told me about the 3 hours study!!! I highly doubt I could do everything I do in 3 hours, so I practise 6 hours. I do practise worse after a while... Its not ideal, but school keeps tightening my scheduele. In the summer I could do 8 with a 15 minute break every 1 hour, which worked like a charm.
Im starting to think we have the same teacher 😂 jokes aside, I think 8 hours ARE possible but the breaks need to be good enough to relax. However, I dont think 8 hours day after day are possible for most people. Both from a schedule and also from a concentration point.
@@PianoTechSupport Its tough... Every once in a while i take a day off or stop an hour or two short. It works for now, its been around a year since Ive started doing this, and I havent lost it...
This video is presented from a classical pianist's perspective. Also, it assumes that the musician plays piano only, not a second instrument, and is not a composer, conductor or arranger. So three hours for a professional, no excuses? How much time is required does depends on the genre/style too, and also on the individual. And if you are rehearsing/performing a lot, that might reduce some of your need to practise long hours. Professional modern musicians typically have a music business to run by themselves, plus repertoire to write or research, and this eats into potential practice time. Fortunately, they seldom need quite the same refinement of technique as classical musicians, hence fewer hours practising. I'm currently semi-professional, and playing jazz. With about 20-30 minutes per day on each of my main two instruments I can maintain the minimum level for what I do, so long as there is a gig or longer practice session every few days. In reality I practise a lot more on piano, because I'm ambitious. I use most of my (limited) trumpet practice time to refine my playing, and maintain a clear upper range. It's also important to undo any bad habits which creep in while I'm performing. We should remember too that for some genres/styles, ear training is even more critical than technical training. Applied listening is a huge and vital part of a jazz musician's preparation and ongoing training. Indeed, in the early jazz styles a modest technique is OK, even at a professional level, but the music will not flow and swing unless you are well integrated with the style and the musicians around you. That requires many thousands of hours of listening. If time seems too short, just practise a bit, as often as possible. More than once a day is ideal, but in very short sessions unless you're a professional.
you can do 3 hours a day and the other hours instead of practicing at the piano, you can work on your sight reading and theory that way you will improve both teory and practice without exhausting yourself.
thats true. its important to focus on other things too, especially when developing as a musician and when learning theory. luckily that is all long in the past for me, we had about 3 -4 years of theory and other training in uni
I try to play everyday but somedays I only play for 30 mins because I have no energy. While other days I’ll practice for 5+ hours. Just depends on how I’m feeling
Before I had to stop my music studies due to my cancer diagnosis I used to practice 3-5 hours a day. If I did 5 hours or even 6 I did 1 hour of technical exercises, half an hour sightreading and spent the rest on practicing my pieces. It was efficient, I noticed my progress and it worked fine for me! I did notice I do better progress sometimes if I stay under 4 hours of practice because the concentration can get lost after a longer amount of time. So for me the best time of practice is 3-4 hours. Sadly I can barely practice currently due to my health but I did realize even with barely any practice after some months I was suddenly vetter at some techniques even without practicing. Do you know by any chance why and how that happens? My goals are to get as good as I can. After I got my state verification as ensemble conductor in 2 years I want to start my artistic-pedagogical bachelore in classical piano and sure hope to be able to continue with all this after my treatment.
I'm really sorry to hear that. I think (if I understood your situation correctly) that the reason why you can recall your technique quickly is because "it's all there", and perhaps mental reflection and such has made a big impact on it. I also believe that a lot of technique is just a mental challenge, btw
I started learning the piano about the time COVID was declared as a pandemic (June 2020). Because of the flexible work-from-home policy I was able to practice 4+ hours a day consistently until Sep 2021, but now I'm down to 2-3 hours a day because I need to return to the in-person mode. That said, it's also impossible for me to do multiple sessions a day. Honestly my 2cent is, it's more of what/how you practice rather than how long you practice. Let me ask this question, what do you count as ``practice''? Is it only the time your hands are on the piano, or does the time spent on harmonic/musical analysis count? I don't find myself progressing less with my current 2-3 hours of practice sessions than my previous 4+ hours sessions, but I will try to *do my homework* when I don't have access to a piano. As an incompetent sightreader (I started out playing the violin, so I was used to reading only 1 line at a time), I found this helping my practice efficiency the most. I also found that setting concrete and realistic goals before each practice sessions helps a lot. I found my learning experiences extremely different for the violin and the piano. I remember when I was a kid, I got tired every 30 min, got distracted easily, and just practiced every pieces from the beginning all the time. These bad habits pretty much stay until now when I'm practicing the violin. Piano on the other hand, I never got bored, tired, or distracted even for 4-6 hours non-stop.
I practice 6 hours a day every day because I'm dying to play all of Lesit's compositions, it's a difficult six but I've managed so far Raft 2 Mazpa and Raft 6 I've been practicing for a year and a bit and I'm also studying at a music school
I really think that it depends on the amount of repertoire that you are learning. But the pressure of "I have to practice x hours daily or weekly" can be really overwhelming. Sometimes some musicians even sacrifice time of sleep for time of practice (by far, the worst decision ever). You have to accept that life is not perfect and sometimes you just don't have enough time and you have to use other resources (mental practice is great) and focus to improve quality, not quantity of practice.
Personally, I think that if one is practicing with time restraints, then the approach is wrong... Absolutely take timely breaks, and walk away from the keys AS SOON as you notice distraction creeping in, but don't use the clock! Play/practice as long as you still have inspiration and new ideas coming out. If there is nothing new on the day, do the essentials and stop. If there is a creative explosion on the day though, play through everything that comes! It may take six hours to get through, but if you take your breaks, then it's all good. I regularly practice about 5 hours a day, and the time flies by so quickly because it is fun and *_exciting_* !
I find with instruments - especially Guitar/Piano, the 10,000 myth rule heavily applies. For those that don't know what the 10,000 rule is, it's basically if you practice something a total of 10,000 hours, you'll basically be on a professional level of playing (hopefully 😅 ) after this many hours.
I know a very good pianist (and professor who I got lessons from) who wrote a book and said this rule should be changed to the "20,000" hours rule ! Might cover this topic some time haha
What these studies fail to account for is pre-existing training I.e a pianists training to be a singer or vice versa! You have a huge head start as your ear is already developed! This will reduce the time it takes to be great
I have a bad time schedule and i dont know how to read sheet music and other music stuff because i watch youtube tutorials but i need to practice a song for my school and i dont know how to learn fast
Personally, I practice for up to 30 mins. Then take the same period of time for a break. I then complete this cycle twice over an approximate 2 hour period. I achieve this by denying myself Netflix etc; :o) Don't be hard on yourself. Don't make it a chore. If you can't manage a hour or so a day, everyday, then do what you can over the course of the whole week. Try though to play *something* each day, if only a daily scale or two in a 2 minute burst [AKA the "2 minute rule"] rather than beat yourself up you didn't practice for hours every night when tired, ill, or with other commitments. That said, what's good for me will probably be useless to someone else. All I know is that conscientious, regular practice (again for me personally) is essential. But be kind to yourself. Don't set the bar too high or set yourself up for a fall. Just keep playing! Above all, "Start as you mean to go on!" as my father use to tell me... Thank you.
The most I've ever practised was 3 hrs a day this was typically done like so. 1 hr practice, 15 minutes break, another hour practise. Then at least an hour away from the piano before I came back and practiced for the last hour. Both mental and physical constraints, as well as other commitments on your time will probably determine how long you can practice each day. Sometimes less is more and personally I have doubts about the value of practicing too many hours a day especially as a beginner.
Can you tell me your opinion on 1 thing. My teacher insists that I play the octaves with fingering 1-4 on black keys and 1-5 on black keys. I'm too lazy and i play all of them 1-5, and so far it's enough for me even with quite advanced repertoire and fast passages. I can reach both "white" and "black" octaves with fingers 1-3, 1-4, 1-5 quite easily, although "black" ones are more comfortable for 1-3 and 1-4. I tried to practice with fingerings different than 1-5, and it sucks, the only situation when it probably makes sense is when you need to play them more legato, for example eb-e-f perhaps is better to play 1-3,1-4,1-5, although in a fast tempo it will be a big challenge still. What do yo think? BTW, I practice 3-4 hours a day) 1 hour for sight-reading, 0.5 for exercises, 2-2.5 for the repertoire
I played all my life with 1-5 for octaves everywhere, except if they have to be legato, then 1-3,14 or 15. Playing everything with 1-5 has never stopped me from ANY octave passage !
My goal this year was 3h/day. I’m going to end up with about 850h total so maybe 75% the way there. I’d love to do more but enjoy relaxing so we’ll see.
I practice 3 hours a day. I did 4 when I didn’t have a job that used my hands so much. Whenever I did 5-6, the next day I’d have such tired arms shoulders and wrists that I could barely do 2 hours. No clue how people do that
I have found that if I practice in the morning and then a few hours later in the afternoon, I accomplish a lot more then if I do it all in one shot. Obviously, not everyone has the time to do that. I couldn't do that either until I was retired.
I can't go for hours on end without a break. I don't think most people can. It's usually 'half hour, short break, rinse and repeat'. Eventually, the muscle memory starts to catch on and progress is made. That's definitely where it starts getting fun, when you can see and hear the development.
Started learning Piano like 7 months ago, been practicing like average 1.5-2 hours per day (also like average 2 hours of Viola practice, started at almost the same time) Obviously still very beginner, now I am practicing Rondo Alla Turca, some Bach Inventions and Haendel Passacaglia I do feel a lot of pressure since my goal is my national music school (Mexico´s Conservatory) and I started quite late (Im 16, started at 15) what tips could you all give me? Thanks a lot
@@PianoTechSupport i mean I learned op 2 no 2 1. movement and op 23 no 5 in 4 weeks xD hahaha practiced like 40h a week and performed it at my school finalexams and got 2 As Btw by that time I have been playing like since 5 years
Hi @PianoTechSupport, thanks for the video! It was really insightful. I fit into the first category as I am a beginner with less than one year. I would like to practice every day for 30 minutes (more on the weekends). While I don't want to become a professional, I do thoroughly enjoy the piano. As such, a solid technical foundation is something I think is crucial to play more advanced music. What would you recommend for a beginner? Scales and arpeggios for like 15 to 20 minutes and then use the reminder of time to work on my pieces? I would appreciate a quick reply from you!
You can combine learning technique and a new piece. As all pieces require some techniques, figure out what are needed in the piece you want to learn. It's easy to figure out, since it's that which you find difficult to perform. Maybe it's arpeggios. Then you'll spend 10-15 minutes getting better at the finger technique, and after that you'll continue learning how to play the piece. It's also exciting, as you will notice (when you get to that arpeggio part) that you can do it much better than before. :)
Hi Javon, thanks for watching my videos ! So with 30mins of time, I would say you should rotate between having days where you do scales and arpeggios for 30mins and days where you purely do repertoire. If you upgrade to an hour a day, then 15-20min of scales and exercises and rest pieces! Btw, i have a video out on the topic (how to practice efficiently)
@@jarmojapelius2026 Thanks for your reply! Yeah, every progress feels great. Crazy how a piece or parts of a piece feel impossible and then a few days/weeks it feels second nature.
What can be frustrating is when you'd like to practice a few hours a day but you systematicly get pains (elbows, fingers...) after 5-10 min of playing and you find no solution to this...
There should also be exercises to get used to an audience. Almost all pianists do their exercises alone. But when they then have to play those pieces for an exam or an audience, it can negate all efforts.
I'm a student and i want to became a pianist... in summer i play piano from 6 to 10 hours a day (i enjoy my self)... i start play piano 2 years ago. In winter i play from 3 to 4 hours a day (i go to school)
This depends on how talented you are, many pianists can practice few hours a day and play better than someone who plays 8 hours a day, 3 hours minimum maybe if you’re training to be a concert pianist or are really trying to get a career in music, otherwise I don’t think 3 hours should be minimum, it’s too much.
I find what my concentration get lower after 40 min. I just switch pieces, try practice fragments from different pieces to get my mind fresh. In day I have 3-4 sessions for 1-1.5 hour. Rest and good sleeping also very important thing to git gud.
When I was serious, I played about 4 hours a day. In retrospect, I should have been more focused and played a little less. (Not counting rehearsal or lessons of course.)
i got 9000 hrs in 6 years at about 4,5hrs a day 7days a week, now i drop to about 3 to 4hrs a day, but i feel under 15000hrs is not a very high level yet.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
New video is out on how to practice efficiently:
th-cam.com/video/KQt_cVA_Q5A/w-d-xo.html
I don't really keep track of time when practicing. I just do it until I get to the point where I'm satisfied with my progress .
would be interesting if you measured next time, just to have a reference!
i agree, i think too many people focus on the time aspect when what really matters is whether you did what you set out to achive or not. a truly motivated person should not care to monitor how much time theyve practiced.
@@Jwellsuhhuh that'd be great if other responsibilities didn't exist.
@@Jwellsuhhuh there is a minimum amount of time that has to be done if you want to be a professional, because if you don't do that, your technique will go down. Just like a professional swimmer or sprinter HAS to work out / practice for hours every day, nothing to do if he feels like it or not. 3 hours every day is the minimum to keep that.
Most people including myself would practice at least an hour a day. When the pieces you play get progressively more difficult, you'd put in more time. Tracking the extra minutes past an hour is unnecessary. If you put in just an hour a day everyday for 5 years you would reach nearly 2000 hours of practice.
I use to study about 3 hours per day, then I went to university, studied music, it was very rough, I use to study then about 8-10 hours a day, it was fun in retrospective. I wouldn't be able to study that much this days if I wanted haha. Overall I learned that quality over quantity is better all the way.
I agree a lot with all you're saying, reward yourself in between sessions, coffee, a book, etc.
When I was learning piano, I practiced about an hour a day to start with, usually split into two half-hour sessions. By the time I reached intermediate level, I was generally having two practice sessions a day of about 2 hours apiece - not because I set out to practice that long, but because that was about as long as I could sustain my interest. And I think "interest" is a better word than "concentration" because the latter implies work when practice should be a pleasure. I did occasionally practice as much as 6 hours a day, but invariably found my practice deteriorated and my ear got "stale" so that I just started bashing the keys instead of playing musically. So I think this guy is right on the money when he suggests 3-4 hours a day as the ideal.
However, that would be my recommendation for piano only, not necessarily for other instruments. When I was learning classical guitar for example, I could play 10-12 hours a day without a problem. Because basically what would happen is that I would play for a couple of hours until I got sick of it and went and did something else for 15 minutes or half an hour, but would find those musical pieces just going through my head until I had to pick up the guitar again to have just "one more try" at a particular piece or section of a piece. And that "one more try" would almost invariably become another 2 hour session! But again, the point is, none of it ever felt like work, it was just something I enjoyed so much I simply couldn't put the instrument down for long!
Far too long imo a hour a day is suffice if you are practicing correctly
Very well put, it is about keeping your interest's momentum while practicing.
I find this discussion extremely important. As you mentioned there are factors why the amount of hours you practice must be the best as possible.
How good you study is essential, i.e., the quality and effectiveness of the time you do so. Pedagogically speaking, there is a limit of continuous study. Then, you have to split the time in certain amount of sessions per day.
I find on those rare days when I have time to sit there for hours (6 recently) my hands become fluid and seem to hit “anything”. The feeling is incredible. Yes, I get up for several 10-5 breaks. I wish I had more time for that!
I've been playing consistently for about 1.5 years now (2 years since I started but couldn't practice for about 6 months due to health issues) and I have been practicing for 3-5 hours a day. I don't time my sessions but normally I do around 1 hour of technique (scales, short and long arpeggios, chords) and 2-3 hours of repertoire. My goal is to at least get to a semi-professional level and be able to play advanced repertoire well (my dream piece is chopin's first ballade!). But so far I'm just at an intermediate level (~ABRSM grade 6). I have noticed that breaking down and spacing practice sessions is most efficient, especially when learning new repertoire.
P.S. Love your videos!
Very solid and good!! Also, thanks for watching my videos :D
If you want a lesson check out my fiverr (link in description usually). Im giving a lot of lessons on there these days for viewers, and I think I can help quite a lot.
Cheers
whats the hardest piece you can play so far?
Me too, I play like 4/3 hours a day for 2/3 years (now this lasts months I play 1 hour because difficult repertoire) and I play like 70/80 pieces in this time (50/60 very perfect performances and the others pieces sight reading or played like only 2 weeks)
I am a pianist and professor in France. I was practicing 6 -7 hours a day. I had so much repertoire to learn not only when I was a student but also for competitions and I needed to be more than sure of my performance abilities. I didn't want to have more stress than was necessary, and just enjoy playing, have trust that the work I had put in during practicing.
Waste of time
@@eXTreemator maybe for you it would have been.
@@rad-guidance7 for sure. You are lumberjacks lol
@@eXTreemator as I'm in France I don't what that means in context to musicians. I prefer to take it as a compliment 😉. Look, I understand that some people feel it's a waste of time. I'm just saying as a student and with all the competition it wasn't a waste of time. Today, I wouldn't do the same number of hours. But regularly, every day I have to do three hours. And some days more depending on the program and who is involved. I have my students at the conservatoire so, there's less time.
Always have goals when practicing to make the time for practicing more effective. Scales, arpeggios, sightreading repitriore etc
i dont really have time to practise piano because of high school and stuff but i REALLY enjoy it, have been playing for 9 months and can play pieces like cruel angel thesis (Ru's arrangement and the one i am most proud of), some pop songs and some classical pieces. my piano teacher seems very satisfied with my progress and i've been practising for atleast 30 minutes to up to 2 hours per day
Nice video. This also applies to everything. Math, science, language. Always study with sessions
exactly, never go for multiple hours without breaks!
Thank you so much! 🎹🎶
Regular practice is essential and the advice given here is excellent. I am an amateur pianist (and composer) and, although entirely self-taught, have achieved at least level 8 of the UK graded exams system. I don't practice each day but I play, so I differentiate between pratice and playing purely for enjoyment. The result, of course, is very patchy, ad hoc progress, technically speaking. However, as a retired teacher of languages and, therefore, familiar with the theories of learning and motivation,
Absolutely fascinating! This is a vastly underserved subject that deserves much more discussion and research: Practice efficiency. So, now we know that 2:30 hrs per day is the most efficient practice time per day. How about rests in between practice. I would assume splitting the 2.5 hours into 2 parts would be more effective because the rest in between allows your subcounscious to absorb the practice. But what about 3 sessions per day? or more? And another big question is, how much can you practice a difficult section (4 measures) at once before learning efficiency starts to drop? how many times per 10minutes, per 2 hours, per 24 hours?
I have a theory, that over practicing the same thing too many times in one hour is of less value than spreading it across the day or the week, due to the benefits of "spaced repetition". So, when I designate my practice pieces, I always choose 1 from each of the main composers: 1 moz, 1 bach, 1 chopin and 1 beethoven and usually no more than 1 or 2 of each of those, just to keep my learning efficiency at it's peak. I'd love to see studies on that. I would imagine a romantic piece like Chopin may activate different learning centers in the brain , than say a bach invention (thus can be more effective to practice in the same session) but that's just a hypothesis!
indeed, such a big and interesting topic! and thanks for sharing your thoughts and theory! it sounds good. I dont have all the answers either 😂
The violist Molly Gebrian has some brilliant TH-cam playlists about the research behind effective practice and how the brain responds to repeated stimuli.
Because I am in school and very busy, I practice half an hour a day on weekdays and 2 hours on weekends. Even though there isn't much time, I've learned ways to learn extremely efficiently and still have a little bit of time every session to work on the details of a piece (though obviously it's not much time and most of the time is spent on learning the notes). The fastest progress I did in this half an hour was learn half of the Mephisto Waltz.
Awesome!! Keep up the good work :D
@Scriabinist can you please share details how you learn efficiently?
@@raisa6651 I tend to look for patterns that can be found in music I've already learned. I also look at the music before I play it, knowing the harmonies would help too. The biggest part I'd say is the sight reading, practice your sight reading lots and learning new things becomes way faster.
@@SCRIABINIST thank you for sharing. I am okay at sight reading but have trouble memorizing. Sometimes i feel like this is a crutch because whenever i’d like to play the piano outside my home, but without the sheet music, i couldn’t. I rely on sight reading too much that it takes another period of time to play the piece without the notes. Any advice please? How do you approach memorizing pieces after you’ve sight read them?
@@raisa6651 just start to play small pieces without looking and then piece them together then it will go
Excellent. Best advice on how long to practice. Thank you!
This is great advice. Especially part about multiple sessions.
Take the years that you play in consideration and have fun, enjoy, it should be also a creative practice
If i ask my students for daily practice for 30-60min....it lands up to almost no practice.....hence i just ask for 10min daily...bcoz once u sit...u wil go on n on playing
That’s what I did with art my requirement was basically to just get a paper, pencil and let your hand draw a random line and you can stop there. No minimum time requirements just actions. Suddenly I’d spend the next 3 hours drawing just because I drew a line lol
I can often pile up to 8 hours per day that i stay in front of the piano. But i’d say 2-3 of those hours are mostly time i don’t do anything because i might be resting or checking my phone. I think if i would restrict myself to 2-3 hours and plan it all out i’d be way more efficient with my practice though.
Thats true, and I had those days too! I think in the end 3 hours of good practice beat 7 hours of meh practice.
What do you do for a living
I’m watching this video as a trombonist but thanks for the useful advice
Im am a guitarist/bassist:
there were times (15 - 30 years of age) where I was practising constantly. everywhere. In the train, at the beach, in the plane. but it is only now - with familiy and kids and responsibilities - that I never ever have this amount of time to practice ever again (or until the kids are older). But it is also now that I am amazed about what one hours of pure QUALITY practice can do. Sitting right (i am always standing), listening right, good light situation, good audio situation, right amount of room temperature, a particular task you wanna work/enjoy. It is minblowing.
totally agree, QUALITY is everything
40 hours a day Ling Ling style!
for 40 years in a row for 40 centuries
@@DareToWonder you have to born for Lang Lang Style. Beginn with
4 years, Take a very, very good teacher and exercise 2 hours the next two years, then 4 hours and then 6 hours.
Bruh I already know how much I should practice everyday 😂 40hrs / day of course!!! Anyway the video is very good and amazing 🤩!
It depends person to person... madness passion people may can go 16 hour a days also . 🙏Thx
Exactly if i didnt have school my day would be a cycle between gym guitar and piano
Thank you very much for your suggestion
Maybe 8 hours practice is not possible for me with my busy 10:00 - 07:00 work-life but I will try my best as much as possible ✌️❤️
I’ve been playing piano for 5 years now, I started when I was 50. For me, practicing 1 hour a day doesn’t allow me to make any progress, it’s just maintenance. Two a quality hours in the morning is the golden rule, three being too much. I just want to continuously improve a tad without ever going back.
For me there is a big difference between the instruments. I‘m playing the piano and violin. While I‘m easily able to practice 6 and more hours violin without any exhaustion I can only practice around 3 to 5 hours on the piano. I really love the piano but I notice a lot of tension after 2 to 3 hours and after that point practicing isn‘t efficient anymore. Whereas on the violin I don‘t feel any of these signs of tension or exhaustion. On violin I practice a lot more technical stuff which needs time. I couldn‘t imagine to play only 3 hours violin. After that time I just started the pieces I‘m working on. On the piano 3 hours seem to be my perfect practice time.
Do you practice this amount of hours on both instruments daily?
@@jacoaction No. 3 hours on piano and about 5 hours on violin, but before auditions/competitions 6 hours.
@@paganina2330 I wish I had that much time on hand...
I rarely go over 6, which is split into 3 sessions: 2-3 hours for recital rep, 1-2 hours for long-term projects, and a 1-2 hour chunk split between technical exercises, etudes, and chamber rep.
very very good!! i like the split
@@PianoTechSupport yea I don't have time or mental capacity to go much over 6, but I need at least 4 to get everything done. Lots of work to do!
Thanks very much! I find your hints very encouraging. I'm now trying to get back to the piano after having gotten rusty. I want to bring my repertoire back up to snuff and learn some new pieces. I had been afraid it was a hopeless task, but you've made me see that it's doable.
You can do it!
Great advice. This is truly appreciated. In my case, I was straining to read the music with my bifocal. Some teachers shared how they wished there was a way to reduce the eye strain for their students. But you know what? We've found a solution to our problem when we started using a piano music stand. Yes, the Grand Stand Piano Music stand brings comfort to many piano players around the world. I hope this helps.
College pianist here, wishing to jump at a professional level. I constantly time my practice in divided mini-chunks of generally 25-35 minutes, with few minutes to rest, forming big chunks of 2 hours in the room. I tend to find out that I get the most satisfied with myself after 3.5 h of PURE practice (not counting rests, improvisation, warmup, etc). after 4.5 h it just gets very tiring and I get to nowhere.
I have done days of 8h just of pure practice time for 3 days straight. This is good as an experiment, but it basically kills any aspect of your life, other than your primary needs. Not sustainable even for one week, in my opinion. It's better to be constant than intense and irregular.
What you need to practice are your scales, 3rds, 6ths, octaves arpeggios, broken chords, and chord structure movement. You must practice daily. How long depends on what your are practicing. The most important thing is to practice everyday.
I subscribed I needed this advice. Have not been practicing, sometimes I do for 10 minutes only. Due to concentration is on guitar. I really do love piano. This video is so on point . Thank you I will go back practicing.
I‘ve been playing the piano for about 11 years now. In the beginning I refused to practice and ended up with about 30 minutes a week, you can‘t really complain about a child not wanting to practice can you? After about 2 years my first wave of motivation kicked in and I began practicing about 30 minutes a day. As my pieces got longer and longer, my practice sessions got longer as well. Now I‘m at a point, where I have an average of 1,5 hours a day. On weekdays I simply can‘t always find that time, because I still go to school. On the weekend I practice up to 4 hours.
Anyway what I‘m trying to say is, you shouldn‘t take this schedule to serious, you still make progress even if you don‘t practice that much. As it‘s said in the video, it‘s more about practice efficiency than time you spend at the piano. Don‘t confuse playing the piano with practicing.
My professors always tell me that it is really about how well you practice and how long you practice, and I agree. I personally have a lot of work that I have to do, not only for piano lessons but also for chamber music rep or concert band or accompanying some of the vocalists at my school, so I tend to practice 4-6 hours a day just to cover everything. I did one time do 8, but it really was not that helpful, and like someone mentioned below, your ear tends to get "stale" and at that point I think you are just playing the piano versus actually learning anything. I think also you can't just sit down and say "I'm going to practice Bach for 6 hours" because you are guaranteed to get tired and lose focus and you might end up making the piece sound worse than better. I actually believe in over-practicing, as I think there is a certain amount of performing that needs to come off of instinct rather than practice. For the most part, yes, you need to practice difficult sections and the whole piece in general, but I some things like articulation or hand balance, etc. come with experience and you can often just rely on what you already know versus trying to map out every little detail, if that makes sense.
I would say that practicing 5- 8 hours is still beneficial if you start early enough and get enough breaks
5 hours, I totally agree with!
Thanks so much for this. It's very helpful.
I practice 2 hours every day. I've found that I can manage this consistently. Sometimes I get excited and I want to push my practice to 3 hours. When I do, though, I end up burning out, so I try to just maintain what I call my 'daily 2'. It's the most effective way.
im almost on my first year of when i started to play and i played almost everyday for like around 3 to 6 hours a day (sometimes even more, my record is 10 hours and a half on a single day lol). my hardest achievement rn is playing the first 20 seconds of la campanella with almost no mistakes, at the normal tempo. pretty proud of that achievement
just finished the video. thanks for the advices! i want to become a professional pianist and this type of advices help me alot, the better is the efficiency, its better for me. ty
thank you, im glad it does help you out! stay tuned for a lot more videos and check my channel regularly:)
@@PianoTechSupport sure! i will be keeping an eye on your channel. tysmmm!!
Great video! I try to practice everyday for at least everyday, some days I is hours and some days just 30 minutes..
Thanks Kris!!
The quality is always more important than the quantity,.like in every discipline
During the work week, I try to practice about an hour a day. On my days off from work, I practice throughout the day, doing multiple 15 to 20-minute sessions, I do chores in between and take breaks for some video games and some TV.
I personally started practicing 8-9 hours a day. Some parts of information provided in this video is indeed true: practicing 8 hours a day does make you tired, while your ears get weary.
I have to mention that it is extremely important to make breaks. I make them personally between every hour. The duration of the break is personal, however in my opinion it shouldn't exceed 15 minutes. I personally relax for 5 minutes by staying in nature and being isolated as much as possible. This makes it easy for my brain to relax and process the information (music) I just produced / consumed.
Nevertheless, not everything is applicable to every single one of us. Some people could try to exceed this amount of practice and pursue music further. It is important to take into account that it is possible mostly (if not solely) by PERFECT breaks. Just detach from reality a bit and you will be good to go :)
Very informational, thank you
I practiced 8hrs a few times when aicwas studying piano, and the next day I was mentally tired.
Once in a while, is fine, but not every day!!
As an organ student I try to do about 3 hours or so, but I am still learning pedal technique, which is taking a while!
Ingeneral for serious pianists, aim for 3-4 hour, 5 hours at the most, if you have the stamina, and you arecstill alert, not tire, etc.
Takebbrakes and stretch between tasks, andcas needed, streach BEFORE you practice too!!
In the first semester of my music degree I was practicing way too much, around 6-8 hours almost daily, I wouldn't stop for more than 15 min breaks, and I wouldn't even stand from the piano bench sometimes. This surely helped me improve, but it was horrible for me and I couldn't see it back then. I practiced so much that my brain was so tired at the end that I literally forgot my repertoire during the final exam.
3:36 German Here... For those who are interested, Here is a word for word translation:
The title is "relationship between the number of practice-units and the practice-effect = Penelope Effect"
The y-axis shows the improvement in % corresponding to the Initial value
On the x-axis said number of practice-units ist visible
Delighted to see that you’re referring to doctor Altenmüller. Everyone serious about becoming a professional musician should be following his research closely!
Thank you, and absolutely agree!
I started playing as a hobby 14 years ago. I liked trying my hands at the pieces I liked to listen to so much that I automatically played at least an hour almost every day if I had the chance. My repertoire and technical ability automatically got better and better without me even doing deliberate technical exercises or even having a personal teacher. I've been playing conventionally difficult pieces for years now. Practicing every day is POWERFUL. The results? I've shocked many people (when I was younger), gotten flowers and money from strangers when I played in public, got praise from highly experienced pianists who were a bit jealous, asking me why I'm not studying music, venue owners asked me to play for money when they heard me (but I was too stupid to accept their offers). But I suppose I do have the fortune that I genuinely enjoy practicing. Non-musicians might think it would get boring, but it's like the desire to play gets reset every day. At some point, such a genuine interest really does become like breathing, or eating. You can't imagine getting bored of breathing, you just can't... Shit, now I'm wondering once again if I really did make a mistake by not going to conservatory...
Never is too late, go for it
I can so relate! I feel the same, I will practice for 3-4 hours a day and feel done for the day but by night I’m ready for the next day to come so I can play again. Practice doesn’t feel like practice when you love it!
Could you please elaborate why was it stupid to play music for money?
@@eklipsegirl that's not what I said, I said I was stupid because I refused
For me it depends on if I'm practicing a piece or learning it. It takes me some time and lots of repetition to learn more of the difficult pieces, and to get the piece into my hands and neurology. Once I've got that down, I can play the pieces and work on my interpretation and musical understanding. That usually works out to 1 hour of learning and 1 hour of playing per day. I'd play more but I have to work 8 hours day. I would play many hours a day if I could, but just because i love playing, not to achieve a time goal.
In the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell he talked about 10,000 hours to master a skill. It'd take many years to master an instrument such as flute, violin or piano. When we put in the time regularly, we'd eventually hit 10,000.
When we're learning a new language, an effective approach is spaced repetition. You'd practice for a period of time such as 1 hour. Take a break and review the same material. After repeating something many times you'd learn it.
@@thepianoplayer416 Anders Ericsson debunked that "rule" in his book Peak ( it is his rule, Gladwell just used it in his book). Read it if you want to learn about deliberate practice. It is one of the best books on that subject that I have read. I love Gladwell, he is a great writer, but 10 000 hrs rule is just a catchy phrase that definitely cannot be applied to everything.
For guitar, i usually do 2 hours warmup and reading sheets, a bit unfocused, then 2 hours of actual playing. These amounts Can ramp up to 10+hours on days where i feel it and got inspiration for improv
Jesus man do you not have a job, or school, or uni???
@@rudalph529 atm no, just quit my job and joined a music school so now i devote my life to it :)
@@maximebody3275 fair enough i cant wait to be a music student in college where i can soend more time jamming
Can you please link the study you cite in this video? It's very interesting and I'd like to read more. Thanks!
I am a very new and inexperienced piano player (took some lessons when I was 6 or 7 but that was it), decided to try learning some piano. So far I either play until I feel like I got far enough with progress or play until I played so much I'm messing everything up lol
I definitely needed to hear this. I'm a pianist and a cellist (piano is my primary instrument) and on weekends I keep trying to practice 6 hours on the piano and 1 on the cello and I've realized that's just too much for me at least for now. Whenever I'm practicing in the evening it just isn't fun anymore, it's harder to concentrate and I'm more prone to tension in my hands. I think I'm going to reduce my piano practice to 4 hours and then keep my cello practice at 1. Hopefully it helps.
A piano music stand might help you. It helps you play the piano comfortably. Music teachers and pianists like it very much.
Back when I wasn't focused solely on music, I was practicing maybe only 15-30 minutes a day. Just trying to run through the scales or play a single chord. I think I had been playing for like 6 months when I came to college and started focusing solely on music. When that happened I started practicing an hour or 2 a day, and as time went on the time I spent on my instruments and craft (piano and composition mainly but also voice and guitar.) gradually increased. Nowadays I spend about 4-6 hours a day, I plan to bump it up to 8 during winter break and see how it feels.
I personally don't think you should think about how long you're practicing, otherwise you'll start counting time and nothing's slower than a countdown. You'll quickly get tired and bored and unmotivated. What you want to do is develop skills and techniques which motivate you to develop more and further. For example, it took me a LONG time to develop stride technique in just one key in my left hand, but after about a month of just persistence and consistency in my practice of it, applying it to different keys and applying other musical knowledge and concepts to the technique, taking breaks whenever I felt bored or tired of listening to the sounds for sometimes 24 hours, Idk I just stopped worrying about the progress and efficiency of my practice once I started to actually see and feel more progress in real time.
I really like the fact that you took scientifically evidenced studies and extrapolated them to piano practice. I agree with your points wholeheartedly.
Thanks for watching my vid! glad you liked it :)
My teacher has actually told me about the 3 hours study!!! I highly doubt I could do everything I do in 3 hours, so I practise 6 hours. I do practise worse after a while...
Its not ideal, but school keeps tightening my scheduele. In the summer I could do 8 with a 15 minute break every 1 hour, which worked like a charm.
Im starting to think we have the same teacher 😂 jokes aside, I think 8 hours ARE possible but the breaks need to be good enough to relax. However, I dont think 8 hours day after day are possible for most people. Both from a schedule and also from a concentration point.
@@PianoTechSupport Its tough... Every once in a while i take a day off or stop an hour or two short. It works for now, its been around a year since Ive started doing this, and I havent lost it...
Try 18 hours. What you trying to do everything😂 You just can't play
This video is presented from a classical pianist's perspective. Also, it assumes that the musician plays piano only, not a second instrument, and is not a composer, conductor or arranger. So three hours for a professional, no excuses? How much time is required does depends on the genre/style too, and also on the individual. And if you are rehearsing/performing a lot, that might reduce some of your need to practise long hours.
Professional modern musicians typically have a music business to run by themselves, plus repertoire to write or research, and this eats into potential practice time. Fortunately, they seldom need quite the same refinement of technique as classical musicians, hence fewer hours practising.
I'm currently semi-professional, and playing jazz. With about 20-30 minutes per day on each of my main two instruments I can maintain the minimum level for what I do, so long as there is a gig or longer practice session every few days. In reality I practise a lot more on piano, because I'm ambitious. I use most of my (limited) trumpet practice time to refine my playing, and maintain a clear upper range. It's also important to undo any bad habits which creep in while I'm performing.
We should remember too that for some genres/styles, ear training is even more critical than technical training. Applied listening is a huge and vital part of a jazz musician's preparation and ongoing training. Indeed, in the early jazz styles a modest technique is OK, even at a professional level, but the music will not flow and swing unless you are well integrated with the style and the musicians around you. That requires many thousands of hours of listening.
If time seems too short, just practise a bit, as often as possible. More than once a day is ideal, but in very short sessions unless you're a professional.
you can do 3 hours a day and the other hours instead of practicing at the piano, you can work on your sight reading and theory that way you will improve both teory and practice without exhausting yourself.
thats true. its important to focus on other things too, especially when developing as a musician and when learning theory.
luckily that is all long in the past for me, we had about 3 -4 years of theory and other training in uni
I try to play everyday but somedays I only play for 30 mins because I have no energy. While other days I’ll practice for 5+ hours. Just depends on how I’m feeling
If you cant fit 2 1 hour sessions in a day, you should do some schedule check and priority check
True!!
Before I had to stop my music studies due to my cancer diagnosis I used to practice 3-5 hours a day. If I did 5 hours or even 6 I did 1 hour of technical exercises, half an hour sightreading and spent the rest on practicing my pieces. It was efficient, I noticed my progress and it worked fine for me! I did notice I do better progress sometimes if I stay under 4 hours of practice because the concentration can get lost after a longer amount of time. So for me the best time of practice is 3-4 hours. Sadly I can barely practice currently due to my health but I did realize even with barely any practice after some months I was suddenly vetter at some techniques even without practicing. Do you know by any chance why and how that happens?
My goals are to get as good as I can. After I got my state verification as ensemble conductor in 2 years I want to start my artistic-pedagogical bachelore in classical piano and sure hope to be able to continue with all this after my treatment.
I'm really sorry to hear that. I think (if I understood your situation correctly) that the reason why you can recall your technique quickly is because "it's all there", and perhaps mental reflection and such has made a big impact on it. I also believe that a lot of technique is just a mental challenge, btw
Hope you're feeling much better and practicing piano again soon.
1 hour per day! It’s focused. I switch topics in 5-15 minutes bursts since I’m a late beginner and don’t have very long pieces.
Thats great!! Keep it up 💪
Great video 📹 👍 thanks
I started learning the piano about the time COVID was declared as a pandemic (June 2020). Because of the flexible work-from-home policy I was able to practice 4+ hours a day consistently until Sep 2021, but now I'm down to 2-3 hours a day because I need to return to the in-person mode. That said, it's also impossible for me to do multiple sessions a day. Honestly my 2cent is, it's more of what/how you practice rather than how long you practice.
Let me ask this question, what do you count as ``practice''? Is it only the time your hands are on the piano, or does the time spent on harmonic/musical analysis count? I don't find myself progressing less with my current 2-3 hours of practice sessions than my previous 4+ hours sessions, but I will try to *do my homework* when I don't have access to a piano. As an incompetent sightreader (I started out playing the violin, so I was used to reading only 1 line at a time), I found this helping my practice efficiency the most. I also found that setting concrete and realistic goals before each practice sessions helps a lot.
I found my learning experiences extremely different for the violin and the piano. I remember when I was a kid, I got tired every 30 min, got distracted easily, and just practiced every pieces from the beginning all the time. These bad habits pretty much stay until now when I'm practicing the violin. Piano on the other hand, I never got bored, tired, or distracted even for 4-6 hours non-stop.
I practice 6 hours a day every day because I'm dying to play all of Lesit's compositions, it's a difficult six but I've managed so far Raft 2 Mazpa and Raft 6 I've been practicing for a year and a bit and I'm also studying at a music school
I really think that it depends on the amount of repertoire that you are learning. But the pressure of "I have to practice x hours daily or weekly" can be really overwhelming. Sometimes some musicians even sacrifice time of sleep for time of practice (by far, the worst decision ever). You have to accept that life is not perfect and sometimes you just don't have enough time and you have to use other resources (mental practice is great) and focus to improve quality, not quantity of practice.
Thank you
Personally, I think that if one is practicing with time restraints, then the approach is wrong...
Absolutely take timely breaks, and walk away from the keys AS SOON as you notice distraction creeping in, but don't use the clock! Play/practice as long as you still have inspiration and new ideas coming out. If there is nothing new on the day, do the essentials and stop. If there is a creative explosion on the day though, play through everything that comes! It may take six hours to get through, but if you take your breaks, then it's all good.
I regularly practice about 5 hours a day, and the time flies by so quickly because it is fun and *_exciting_* !
I find with instruments - especially Guitar/Piano, the 10,000 myth rule heavily applies.
For those that don't know what the 10,000 rule is, it's basically if you practice something a total of 10,000 hours, you'll basically be on a professional level of playing (hopefully 😅 ) after this many hours.
I know a very good pianist (and professor who I got lessons from) who wrote a book and said this rule should be changed to the "20,000" hours rule ! Might cover this topic some time haha
What these studies fail to account for is pre-existing training I.e a pianists training to be a singer or vice versa! You have a huge head start as your ear is already developed! This will reduce the time it takes to be great
I like the pomodoro technique for practicing a lot efficiently.
making me hungry 🍅
I have a bad time schedule and i dont know how to read sheet music and other music stuff because i watch youtube tutorials but i need to practice a song for my school and i dont know how to learn fast
Personally, I practice for up to 30 mins. Then take the same period of time for a break. I then complete this cycle twice over an approximate 2 hour period. I achieve this by denying myself Netflix etc; :o)
Don't be hard on yourself. Don't make it a chore.
If you can't manage a hour or so a day, everyday, then do what you can over the course of the whole week. Try though to play *something* each day, if only a daily scale or two in a 2 minute burst [AKA the "2 minute rule"] rather than beat yourself up you didn't practice for hours every night when tired, ill, or with other commitments.
That said, what's good for me will probably be useless to someone else.
All I know is that conscientious, regular practice (again for me personally) is essential. But be kind to yourself. Don't set the bar too high or set yourself up for a fall. Just keep playing!
Above all, "Start as you mean to go on!" as my father use to tell me...
Thank you.
Thank you ❤️
The most I've ever practised was 3 hrs a day this was typically done like so.
1 hr practice, 15 minutes break, another hour practise.
Then at least an hour away from the piano before I came back and practiced for the last hour.
Both mental and physical constraints, as well as other commitments on your time will probably determine how long you can practice each day.
Sometimes less is more and personally I have doubts about the value of practicing too many hours a day especially as a beginner.
Can you tell me your opinion on 1 thing. My teacher insists that I play the octaves with fingering 1-4 on black keys and 1-5 on black keys. I'm too lazy and i play all of them 1-5, and so far it's enough for me even with quite advanced repertoire and fast passages. I can reach both "white" and "black" octaves with fingers 1-3, 1-4, 1-5 quite easily, although "black" ones are more comfortable for 1-3 and 1-4. I tried to practice with fingerings different than 1-5, and it sucks, the only situation when it probably makes sense is when you need to play them more legato, for example eb-e-f perhaps is better to play 1-3,1-4,1-5, although in a fast tempo it will be a big challenge still. What do yo think?
BTW, I practice 3-4 hours a day) 1 hour for sight-reading, 0.5 for exercises, 2-2.5 for the repertoire
I played all my life with 1-5 for octaves everywhere, except if they have to be legato, then 1-3,14 or 15.
Playing everything with 1-5 has never stopped me from ANY octave passage !
@@PianoTechSupport thank you, now I can rightfully keep playing the octaves with 1-5:))))
My goal this year was 3h/day. I’m going to end up with about 850h total so maybe 75% the way there. I’d love to do more but enjoy relaxing so we’ll see.
I practice 3 hours a day. I did 4 when I didn’t have a job that used my hands so much. Whenever I did 5-6, the next day I’d have such tired arms shoulders and wrists that I could barely do 2 hours. No clue how people do that
It really gets easier if you love the piano like most of us do here
Hopefully 😂😂😂
I have found that if I practice in the morning and then a few hours later in the afternoon, I accomplish a lot more then if I do it all in one shot. Obviously, not everyone has the time to do that. I couldn't do that either until I was retired.
I can't go for hours on end without a break. I don't think most people can. It's usually 'half hour, short break, rinse and repeat'. Eventually, the muscle memory starts to catch on and progress is made. That's definitely where it starts getting fun, when you can see and hear the development.
Started learning Piano like 7 months ago, been practicing like average 1.5-2 hours per day (also like average 2 hours of Viola practice, started at almost the same time)
Obviously still very beginner, now I am practicing Rondo Alla Turca, some Bach Inventions and Haendel Passacaglia
I do feel a lot of pressure since my goal is my national music school (Mexico´s Conservatory) and I started quite late (Im 16, started at 15)
what tips could you all give me? Thanks a lot
Nutcracker suite? It's weird watching the hands move without the music.
I practice up to four hours. Sometimes I lose track of time when I play. Longer practices are typical split up.
I once practiced 12h in one day with some breaks. I had 6 cups of coffe with me xD I really improved
hard work&dedication hahaha
@@PianoTechSupport i mean I learned op 2 no 2 1. movement and op 23 no 5 in 4 weeks xD hahaha practiced like 40h a week and performed it at my school finalexams and got 2 As
Btw by that time I have been playing like since 5 years
Hi @PianoTechSupport, thanks for the video! It was really insightful. I fit into the first category as I am a beginner with less than one year. I would like to practice every day for 30 minutes (more on the weekends). While I don't want to become a professional, I do thoroughly enjoy the piano. As such, a solid technical foundation is something I think is crucial to play more advanced music. What would you recommend for a beginner? Scales and arpeggios for like 15 to 20 minutes and then use the reminder of time to work on my pieces? I would appreciate a quick reply from you!
You can combine learning technique and a new piece. As all pieces require some techniques, figure out what are needed in the piece you want to learn. It's easy to figure out, since it's that which you find difficult to perform. Maybe it's arpeggios. Then you'll spend 10-15 minutes getting better at the finger technique, and after that you'll continue learning how to play the piece. It's also exciting, as you will notice (when you get to that arpeggio part) that you can do it much better than before. :)
Hi Javon, thanks for watching my videos ! So with 30mins of time, I would say you should rotate between having days where you do scales and arpeggios for 30mins and days where you purely do repertoire. If you upgrade to an hour a day, then 15-20min of scales and exercises and rest pieces! Btw, i have a video out on the topic (how to practice efficiently)
@@jarmojapelius2026 Thanks for your reply! Yeah, every progress feels great. Crazy how a piece or parts of a piece feel impossible and then a few days/weeks it feels second nature.
@@PianoTechSupport Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! Glad I stumbled upon your channel; I will immediately take a look at that video :).
What can be frustrating is when you'd like to practice a few hours a day but you systematicly get pains (elbows, fingers...) after 5-10 min of playing and you find no solution to this...
20 minutes. 3-4 times a day is far FAR BETTER then any marathon break your hands and soul sessions
There should also be exercises to get used to an audience. Almost all pianists do their exercises alone. But when they then have to play those pieces for an exam or an audience, it can negate all efforts.
very true. I shall be making a video about how to perform in front of an audience!
@@PianoTechSupport Thanks a lot!
4am-6am and 9pm-11pm everyday. But lots of my piano time involves blunts and and bong rips so who knows
I'm a student and i want to became a pianist... in summer i play piano from 6 to 10 hours a day (i enjoy my self)... i start play piano 2 years ago. In winter i play from 3 to 4 hours a day (i go to school)
And obviously i take break between
Nooooo thats too much 🤓🤓🤓
This depends on how talented you are, many pianists can practice few hours a day and play better than someone who plays 8 hours a day, 3 hours minimum maybe if you’re training to be a concert pianist or are really trying to get a career in music, otherwise I don’t think 3 hours should be minimum, it’s too much.
I find what my concentration get lower after 40 min. I just switch pieces, try practice fragments from different pieces to get my mind fresh. In day I have 3-4 sessions for 1-1.5 hour. Rest and good sleeping also very important thing to git gud.
When I was serious, I played about 4 hours a day. In retrospect, I should have been more focused and played a little less. (Not counting rehearsal or lessons of course.)
Thank you. Does anyone know the name of the piece of music playing in the back ground it's doing my head in 😂 I can't remember what it's called
i play the clarinet and i practice 3-4 hours but i learn in a music school and 8th grade also and we have more time to practice
i got 9000 hrs in 6 years at about 4,5hrs a day 7days a week, now i drop to about 3 to 4hrs a day, but i feel under 15000hrs is not a very high level yet.
For piano and violin I practice 7 hours on week ends, and 4 hours on school days