Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards How much time do u spend practising ?

Originally, I created the Leitner box to manage my flashcards (scales & chords), but it morphed into my "TO DO" box.

Generally, when I sit down, I start with the first "TO DO" card in the box and work on that, moving & marking the cards as I finish them. At the end, I organize the cards so I'm ready for the next "sit-down" session.

For example, I get a take home piece each week (classical). So I'll analyze and sight-read it and then create a plan to tackle the piece. Each step in the "plan" to tackle the piece becomes a card. Last week's piece had 6 separate steps - so 6 cards. For example, the piece had an accelerating/decelerating rhythm (triplets to 16ths and back) which I wasn't playing correctly - so I made a technical exercise to practice that - and that became a card. I also created a card to practice the chord progression and cadences from the piece. And of course 1 card to play-through without stopping (slowly and then at tempo).

My jazz teacher asked me to quickly recognize all the Sus4 patterns on the keyboard - so that's a card (technical exercise). He will eventually ask me to drill the Sus4 notation - that will become a "TO DO" card. He also asked me to apply 6 different left hand patterns to a jazz song - that's a card. Then he asked me to practice that song in all keys - that became 4 separate "TO DO" cards with 3 keys per card.

Further down the box are sections for revisiting old cards in the 2nd & 3rd week and also every month. I usually do new cards M, T, THU, while old cards are on W and F.


I find this to be a very convenient way to manage practice. The cards kinda do all the work, I just need to sit down and concentrate on what I'm doing.

I practice about two hours a day. But that is after subtracting breaks, phone calls, coffee sips, and Facebook checks. I also subtracted any quarter note or longer rests, because I'm not playing during the rests. Many songs that I'm learning are not up to speed. So if I practice a song with mm of 160 at actually 40 for ten minutes, I count that as 40 minutes of practice. If I practice hands separate for ten minutes I only count it as five. So it all washes to two hours.

Unless there's nothing on TV....

~ 2 hours for technical exercises including sight reading and 1 hour for pieces dedicated for for an exam. The rest is for me

I try to keep limit for exercises, excluding things I like to play at maximal 3 hours. I don't think I can benefit anything more if I exceed this limit.

It is interesting to note the differences in practice times.

I am more of a little & often kind of person, so more likely to do 2 or 3 sessions of 10~15 mins rather than sit for 30~60 mins.

I can go for days without touching the instrument. Instead, I listen to a lot of different stuff that may be of interest to the stuff I'm going to perform. I also practice a lot in my head, going over chord changes, bass figures, runs and licks. When I finally sit down at the instrument, I have a pretty good idea of what to play or try out. For me, it saves a lot of time. When it comes to physical strength; well, I swim a lot, and when swimming, I find rhythms and grooves to match my strokes..My arms, shoulders, fingers profit a lot from the exercise, and technique that I learned during my childhood and youth (years of hard classical training) is easy to maintain.