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At what point, typically, does continuing to progress start to interfere with other activities and students need to make some tough choices?

- practice the things that need work, rather than what you can already do well

Correct, but dangerous. If you only practice what needs work, you lose confidence, and you don't hear music coming out of your practice.

I would suggest rather to toggle between what most needs work (weaknesses) and laser focus on things you already do WELL.

You do the hard practice on weaknesses, but then you take some things that you have success with, things that you feel good about, and then you concentrate on a couple places that are not almost perfect. This is still "what needs work", but it has a different feel to it.

Correct, but dangerous. If you only practice what needs work, you lose confidence, and you don't hear music coming out of your practice.

I would suggest rather to toggle between what most needs work (weaknesses) and laser focus on things you already do WELL.

You do the hard practice on weaknesses, but then you take some things that you have success with, things that you feel good about, and then you concentrate on a couple places that are not almost perfect. This is still "what needs work", but it has a different feel to it.

Chopin received 1 ea Louis d'Or per lesson,




with a gold content of 0.2255 troy oz. At today's rate, that's $308 even. While gold fluctuates against major currencies, it has pretty much held it's purchasing power over the past 2,000 years.

I have been mulling this over...my kid loves to draw/read/write, my friend's daughter loves basketball, another is a Jr Oly swimmer. None of us could tell you how long they practice those skills on their own. Sure teachers and coaches are involved and we can name the lessons we paid for. But to say - she practices 90 minutes a day, 7 days a week would be unheard of unless they were parent structured minutes. The swimmer jumps in his pool, the other practices in her yard, and mine is squirreled away.

The parent would say, he is always playing around at the piano, he loves it so much. The flavor of this post does not suggest child driven joy at piano. It sounds of parent observed structure.

They are very different scenarios. A parent with a malleable child can make them practice as much as the parent insists.

For the comment of will the time get longer and longer...it will only get as long as you - the parent wants it to get. If his life is balanced with time for rest, eating, school work, friends, parks, sports, music, and day dreaming then it cannot consume his time. If you let his life get bigger in other areas, piano can only take up so much of it. If you don't, then there will be as much piano as you want.

(caveat: parent only, not a teacher)

Chopin received 1 ea Louis d'Or per lesson,




with a gold content of 0.2255 troy oz. At today's rate, that's $308 even. While gold fluctuates against major currencies, it has pretty much held it's purchasing power over the past 2,000 years.

Correct, but dangerous. If you only practice what needs work, you lose confidence, and you don't hear music coming out of your practice.

Bumping this thread as, in a quasi-experiment of sorts, I actually timed my kiddo at the piano the other day... Over the course of the afternoon and early evening, he was at the piano for over 3 hours but only practiced about half that time (it was almost exactly half, so interesting!). Talk about inefficient practice, haha! I never realized how much time he spends just stretching. Is that maybe a sign that practice is quite physically tiring for him? I asked him if he'd rather do something else (go outside, play a game, read a book, etc.), but nope!

1.5 hours is far too much practice for almost any 6-year old except for a prodigious talent.

A talented child has the same physical makeup, stamina, and needs as an untalented child the same age. In fact, he might be more sensitive and thus vulnerable, including physically, am I right?

My experience has been that a really talented child will want to spend that much time. It won't be an effort or a chore, and it will not require hardly any prodding from the parent.

As far as the physical or mental vulnerability goes, that's a myth.

So here's a question to take our minds off the price of gold:

What pieces exactly is this 6-year old playing? The OP mentioned "études". What would those be exactly? Certainly not the Op. 10. What repertoire pieces is he playing? that will tell us a lot about what is happening with him.

1.5 hours is far too much practice for almost any 6-year old except for a prodigious talent. Is this what this kid is?

Just curious...

Hi laguna_greg, he's playing through Czerny-Germer's Selected Piano Studies, as well as Tchaikovsky's Op. 39, Schumann's Op. 68, the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, and Clementi's Op. 36. I highly doubt he's a prodigy, just a kid who has a passion for music and understands that practice gets him where he wants to go with it.