Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Daily routine?

Here is my preface - my first instrument is the trumpet. It takes much of my free time and I practice for 2 or more hours a day. Each day, I pick up the horn and go through my practice routine - lip flexibilities, technical work and etudes, some specialized work and then a range study. I study with a private instructor for thirty minutes per week and follow a particular method of learning and development.

I have about an hour a day to dedicate to the piano, and I am very interested in taking it back up (i took lessons for three or four years as a youngster, never took it very seriously) and developing, over several years, an adequate understanding of the piano and how to play. I'm not willing to cut back on my trumpet time and I don't expect the piano will be something I will ever perform on in a public type situation.

So here is my question - with my trumpet, I'm used to my daily routine. I'm used to playing every day and rarely if ever skipping a day. I imagine piano players have a similar daily routine. Where would I find more information about methods of study and how I could set up a daily routine? Are there particular methods I could investigate and then 'take it from there' in terms of setting up a routine?

The fundamentals of Piano practice are probably the most comprehensive free source for setting up a practice routine: http://www.pianofundamentals.com/

The rest you should really get from a teacher. For the pro's and con's of self-teaching vs. studying with a teacher see the various hotly debated threads in this forum as well as the Piano Teachers forum.

Oh. And welcome!

thanks for the fast reply and great resource. it seems that "well begun is half done" so I don't want to mess it up!

I'm reading through this web page. I think I need to spend more time with it to understand how it translates to a practice routine.

I am pretty positive the piano teacher I used to have taught with the "intuitive" method. How well accepted are the ideas presented on this web page?

A few are crucial and almost never debated (practicing sections as tiny as possible as often as possible).

Some have valuable ideas and get you started on thinking about important but often overlooked topics (body tension, relaxation, memorization, interpretation, finger curvature and technique in general) but are disputed in their exact details.

...And some points several knowledgeable people here disagree with (can't name any from the top of my head).