Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum So what's YOUR practice routine?

I've been playing for close to 7 years now so this gives you an idea of what I do at this stage. I have a 2-3 hour routine daily that looks like this...

30 Min -

TECHNIQUE
Scales - Grand Scale at higher tempos, and played legato, staccato, detached with various accents, and LH/RH ratios 1:3, 1:4, various articulations (finger vs. arm weight).
Hanon brought to a higher tempo - listening carefully for unevenness or legato issues
Legato/Finger independence exercises (customized routines - I can explain if anyone is interested)
Arpeggios

15-30 Min-

TUNES/PIECES FOR ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT
Chopin Etude 10/1 - I will play it and look for the slowest phrase, then I will work on that phrase extremely slowly.
Giant Steps - increase tempo and create melodic motifs or play at slower tempo with 16th notes (with metronome) -

1-2 hrs -

IMPROVISATION
Then I will play all the tunes for my next gig using a backing track (if applicable) and checking my solos against a mental checklist of current issues I want to improve on (e.g., phrasing, articulation, time, melodic structure, space, dynamics, tone, or learning a new tune).

I attempt to play all tunes with a fixed rhythm (backing track or metronome).

Then once in awhile, I'll just play.

I think maybe the people with structured practice time are proud of that fact and want to share what they do.

And the people like you and me who take things easier are not so prone to share...

I have two practice sessions a day M-F, when I practice for 30 minutes at lunch at work and then another hour when I get home. On the weekends sometimes I practice longer than that.

I try to have two pieces that I am working on at a time, one further along than the other, always with an eye on the next ABF recital.

But I hardly ever play a scale or an exercise, preferring to tackle problems as they come up while learning something new.

I do keep a collection of things to sight read - I prefer old classic show tunes and movie musicals - something totally different from the classical that I work on the rest of the time.

And my practice technique is to find the problem areas and work them to death. I also spend a lot of my time on interpretation - trying to make things sound musical.

But I don't plan ahead as if I were engineering a bridge or keep detailed records - although I do write down the total time I spend practicing each piece each day. Any more organization that that would take a lot of the fun out of it for me...

Sam

Thank you ....This is exactly how Mike starts us playing, only he calls the oompahs something else and has us only very gradually start reharmonizing them with the relative minors, which he calls something else. Getting the strong rhythmic accents down when learning these simpler progressions this way is a big help to hearing the more subtle changes later on, IMO, and why I return to them often.:)

yea thats not to say i don't spend the majority of my time reading studying or practicing music

I think some of us are a bit more "OCD" than others...
Hey, it takes all kinds to make the world go round, right?

Jazzwee, you mean to say that at 7 years of playing, I'll need 2-3 hours to practice!
Yikes! something will have to go- cooking....cleaning.....um, OK!

LOL - I play professionally so I don't think they'll pay me if I play badly

You should see guys playing for 40 years, still practicing just as much. Sorry to pass bad news...

You'll have to make a choice. How well do you want to play? If not too well, then don't worry about it.

And seeing that I don't have 8 hours to practice, I have to organize the 2-3 hours that I do have.

I don't have a planned routine for each practice either. I just sit down a the piano and work on whatever I think I need to work on, which can be learning new repertoire, improving pieces I already know, working on problem sections or slowly sightreading pieces I am less familiar with. From time to time I will go through a phase of spending large amounts of time on Hanon or Czerny but I don't make that a part of my daily practice.

As far as achieving my main goal which is to get enjoyment out of playing the piano this is what works for me. I don't know if I would have made faster progress if I spent more time playing scales but I certainly would not enjoy my practice time so much.

Hi,

Thank you for the thread.
Yes, some people have so detailed practise routines. That is amazing and congratulations if you are that steady.

My routine of every day is that I play at least 1 - 1,5 hours as a basis.

But when I have performances or recordings it often goes to performing 4-6 hours every day and so for months.

So I mostly follow a plan that I make according to the current situation.

Recently learning from note sheet without the piano starts to be more and more important part of practising.

GL
Jaak

Great stuff people. Keep those routines coming. It's all fascinating reading.

I found this short vid on Hanon exercises on youtube. Some might know this guy. I love his passion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZcWEL82mzU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

EJR: I was intrigued by your practice log. Can I ask what program are you using for that? Also, your practices BLOG has caught my interest. What are you using for that if I may ask? Thanks.

Hi ZoeCalgary,

<<Can I ask what program are you using for that? >>



It's an application I wrote. It's basically a multi-task countdown timer. You enter practice tasks and it will then run through each task in turn (when you click "Start"). The idea was to plan a study/practice session then let it take control during the practice session. When a task is complete it moves you on to the next (and gives a big banner headline to that effect). You can pause or stop tasks if needs be or save the current session and so forth.

Also, when a task is complete it writes the info (time, date,duration etc) to a log file which is available for stats/analysis.


<<your practices BLOG has caught my interest. What are you using for that if I may ask? >>

Well the blog is stock Wordpress, but one of their features is the facility to post blog entries via email. So one of the functions in the practice app is to write an email adding comments and today's study tasks (from the log).

What can I say ...I'm a nerd!

Thanks for the info EJR...I'm kind of a nerd too, that's why this caught my attention. Just the other day I was just creating a practice plan using a plain spreadsheet. Your app is much snazzier!

EJR -- but there's a line to be drawn though The minutes you took to make the list could have been used for practice. LOL.

Now I do make lists occasionally too if it's hard to remember. But usually I just write a word or two to remind me.

Hi jazzwee,

<<there's a line to be drawn >>

Lines are for crossing!

<<The minutes you took to make the list could have been used for practice>>

I considered that but because my time at the piano is limited, I need to make the most efficient use of that time. I did start off manually (by writing a list in an exercise book), but managing the practice session was tricky (deciding when to move on to the next task), the app solves that problem. Whilst there was some pump priming time when first writing the app, then it kinda grew, but I can do all this at times when I don't have access to the piano.

EJR - it's all good because I think productive practice requires a bit of planning.

I think people can improve at double or triple the rate just by setting goals at each practice session. A lot of time, we just at the piano and "play". Without a purpose, there's no "line" to cross and piano learning is just a cumulative endeavor. A million lines to cross out.

Due to the concept that we improve during sleep, I always shoot for multiple goals each practice session. Imagine, triple the improvement. 5 years instead of 15 years. That's a big deal! We don't live that long

Yes Jazzwee, I agree, not one line to cross but many. I am just starting to prep for the RCM Grade 4 exam and I realized that when I have a plan and stick to it fairly well I can hear and feel the progress being made on each item. I had pretty good practice times last week but realized I can easily get hooked into doing 1 new piece or playing around for fun and running out of critical practies time which I don't have a lot of.

So this week I decided I need a plan and after writing it all out I was glad I did. There is alot to get through each week and this keeps me focused. It doesn't mean I can't just play for fun (of course I still do). But that is now above/beyond my regular focused practice times which I do for improvement (and getting ready for exam). My main practice schedule looks something like this now:

Warm Up:
1 or 2 pages of A Dozen A Day (translates to 2-4 exercises)

Technical Studies (Scales/Triads):
1 major scale (2 octaves in legato/staccato)
Chromatic scale (1 octave)
Triads broken/solid (2 octaves)
Arpeggios (2 octaves)

Sight Reading / Ear Tests (4 Star Method):
About 15 minutes

Studies/Etudes:
2 Studies - 15-30 minutes each

Repertoire:
3 Pieces - 30 minutes each

I can't always get through the entire list when I sit to practice so having things written out and checking them off as I get through them lets me know exactly where to start again and what hasn't got any attention.

On the days that I feel my concentration is not at its best or when I have just short spurts of time I try to keep up some of the past songs I have learned, sight read a new piece of music just for fun, or work on one very specific item off the list above. And yes, then it gets a little check mark for that day! My plan is to try to get through each item above at each focused practice session (5 days per week). I'll see how it goes. So far so good.

Day 1
Morning: Classical
10 minutes - Warmups: 5 finger exercises, a couple of scale/chord exercises, a basic pedalling exercise
10 minutes - Classical piece

Night: Jazz
10 minutes - Exercise from a Jazz piano method book
10 minutes - Playing a standard from a lead sheet

Day 2
Morning: Jazz
10 minutes - Jazz exercise on chords, including inversions and broken chords
10 minutes - Jazz arrangement

Night: Jazz
10 minutes - Right Hand Harmonization playing a standard from a lead sheet

I tend to not have as much time as I'd like to practice... so when I'm short on time I tend to skip the exercises/scales/etc, and jump straight into whatever piece I'm currently working on.

I also do this when I'm really into my current song, ie more motivated to work on it than other things. That is, when I'm in that state I find it very hard to motivate myself to do anything else.

When I have more time, or when it's been too long, I put in more time on exercises... which consist mainly of some Hanon, scales, and some other finger independence and strength exercises my teacher prescribes.

I'm bumping this thread since there was so much discussion about practice in Nealsan's thread.

I wish everyone who posted had said how long they have been playing. I can just imagine your practice regimen changes as you get more experienced. As an early beginner (still less than half a year), I don't even know what some of the theory terms mean (chromatic scales? arpeggios? circles of fifths? ?????) I guess I'll get to all this one day...

I practice each morning (mon-fri) before work from ~7:15am - 8:30am.

1st: Hannon exercises for
2nd: Scales
3rd: Faber Lesson Book
4th: select pieces (currently Christmas music...switching back to Joplin after the holidays.)

and again from about 8:00pm - ~9:00pm
select pieces.

On the weekend I practice my select pieces when I have available time.....normally a couple hours sat and sun. But sometimes, I may not practice more than 15 minutes or so.