I would be interested to know what proportion of their practice time others devote to scales and arpeggios, exercises such as Hanon and current pieces. From the beginning of the year I have analysed my practice and was surprised, not only by the fact that I did less than I thought I had but also at the proportion of time I spent on each component.

January's practice:
Exercises: 46% of total time spent
Scales: 20%
Pieces: 34%

For February I am going to try to practice pieces for at least 50% of my practice time, and I will cut down exercises a bit. Scales will remain the same. By "pieces" I mean working on sections, not playing through very often.

What do the rest of you do? If you aren't sure, try writing it down for a while. Perhaps you will be as surprised as I was.

I know this isn't the best in terms of habits, but I warm up with 5 - 10 minutes of scales. Don't do any exercises, then go straight into pieces until I just can't go anymore.

I practice Hanon 5 -10 minutes in the morning on weekdays - apart from that only pieces. If I do a scale it's the one of the piece I'm practicing.

(I think Hanon is about 5-10 % of practice time, but it varies a lot from day to day)

I have started a new and better (?) life and will only practice 2(3) pieces the next to weaks instead of 10 - 15 as I normally would...

Ragnhild

Like you, I practice too many pieces also, and I will try to concentrate my efforts more during February. My habits of the last four months remind me of the phrase "jack of all trades and master of none". Mind you, I needed lots of exercises because I was returning to the piano after thirty years' absence

I do about 10-15 min of scales. cmaj, dm,fmaj, gmaj, am

about 10 minutes of hannon 1 in cmaj dm, fmaj,gmaj, am and hannon number 6 in cmaj,and gm.

i do the octave exercise where you stretch your hands from c to c and go up and down the keyboard

i also do cmajor exercise not sure if everyone knows what it is. i do the cmaj scale, then my hands go up and down the keyboard in opposite directions then they come back to meet at c again.

then i practice 3 or 4 pieces for about half hour or so. faber and faber and alfreds don't take too much of my time. maybe 10-15 min. then i have that tchaicovsky piece takes about 10-15 min and then i have..................... you won't believe this.

that duet piece? well i play it solo now. except for a couple weeks ago when my teacher suggested we play it as a duet. bleh. I messed up as soon as we played it together so now although i play it perfectly as a solo, she's making me play it again with a ragtime rythym. in essence those who don't like soup get 2 cups. cry

Just warm up a bit with some scales and arpeggio's for 5/10 minutes then start working on my pieces. I usually have like 4 I'm working on each weak so I'll usually play each one through one or two times and then start working on sections I didn't like or can't do well enough. This takes up the bulk of my practice time, near an hour I think. I think if I didn't even spent half of my time on pieces I would fall asleep at the piano.

95%-100% pieces and that's it. 5% occasionally on piece specific technical exercises, only when needed.

I never thought about breaking down the components of my practice sessions. I do what I need to get done until my hands feel like they make listen to my commands, and then start on my pieces.

Having said that, I always start my practice with exercises of some kind. I don't dive in either and try to play them quickly. Instead I start off slowly with some Schmitt independence exercises [1], followed by a some exercises from Hanon's first book [2], and then maybe on to something by Cramer or Czerny if I feel I need more, or maybe the scales - mostly the scales starting with C and working around the Circle of Fifths.

After I've gotten my hands in shape, I concentrate my efforts on the pieces I'm working on at the time. This can vary from a half hour to more, or usually when my frustration level is at a point where I'm talking to myself.

The thing is not to worry about the quantity of your practice-components, but the quality. Anyone can slam through the exercises any old way, and then dive into their pieces with equal slop. You need to take the time to get the job don no matter how long it takes.

This is where budgeting your time comes in. When you don't have a lot of time, plan on concentrating on what's broken. In this case, I will focus on my finger independence, or the long trill in the Waldstein last movement, for example.

John

[1] After my 11-month hiatus, I spent a huge amount of time doing the Schmitt exercises very slowly. I stared with no. 37 and worked up from there. These were done very slowly and accurately, and would not go on until my fingers worked the way I needed. I always stayed as relaxed as possible, and stopped as soon as I felt any tension. These were also transposed into different keys to maximize the benefits for all the fingers.

[2] These are always done with care, and transposition as well as rhythmic and stacatto variations.

John

100% pieces -- includes intensive work on any technically difficult sections, memorization, playing through to develop an interpretation, and occasionally playing pieces I've already learned to try to maintain them. I always have a Bach piece going (the past couple of years, various prelude and fugue pairs from the WTC), and then generally two other pieces (right now, a Mozart sonata and a Chopin).

Every once in a while, I play a scale or an arpeggio just to see if I can do it. :p

I'm revsiting my practice menu as well. I have so many pieces that I'm working on and I know that I should be spending more time focusing on the troublesome sections as well as exercises. I really need to quit my day job...

John Citron, I have found the Schmitt finger independence exercises extremely useful too.

Piano again - I am sort of involved with two lovely Mozart Sonatas also - K330 an K576 - although it's too early to be able to play anything properly yet What Sonata are you working on?

loly - ha ha, your posts always make me smile. Good luck with the ragtime duet!

Maryrose, I've been working on K310 for almost a year. Actually, I started it the last time I was taking lessons, which was seven years ago or so, but didn't get very far on it then. I have all of it memorized and can play through it, but it's far from polished.

Piano again, I hope you share it with us at some point I love that one, especially the allegro maestoso.

Maryrose, I've worked a bit on the K330 myself - not at the moment, but I sure will go back to it - I ave a long way to go...

And I hope your new beautiful avatar cat has a proper Norwegian name....

Ragnhild

Actually the cat's name isn't Norwegian - it is musical: her name is Sonata.

Ok, ok - it's a beutiful name - even if I would prefer "Halling" or "Springar" , but she's maybe a sophisticated lady ?

Ragnhild