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Hi Everyone,

Understanding that each student is different, I am curious what other teachers expect as far as practice time each week for students of different ages and levels? Does anyone have any standard expectations, say for beginners and intermediate students? Also, do you ask each song to be practiced a certain number of times or give a time limit?

Parents on the board, how long do you expect your children to practice each day, and how many times through a piece?

Hi Stephanie,

My 10 year old son practices 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.
He does not practice on the lesson day, and a day when he
has lots of homework. He practices technique twice and
other songs three times.

Good topic. I'd love to find out what other kids are doing.

My son (6.75 years old) practises 30 minutes a day, 5 or 6 times a week. He takes this fine, especially when he really likes the pieces. He practises Hanon for once or twice, and then the pieces. His teacher tends to give him lots and lots of pieces at the same time (for example right now he has 10 pieces on the list). If he practises all pieces he might only have time to play each once or twice. Sometimes I let him practise half of the pieces everyday so he can play each piece a bit more, maybe a couple times plus the trouble spots.

Sounds reasonable?

I kind of hope there are fewer assignments so my son has more time to do the "fun" stuff. He used to write his own little pieces and plays around with transposition, but hasn't got the time to do it recently.

Stephanie`

Good topic. I expect my kids (8,11, 15) to practice their instruments about 30 minutes a day, but more than clock watching, I really want them to just have the habit of doing it. I do insist on a short practice at home, shortly after the lesson to review and write down (clearly and exactly) what needs to be done. Especially for the older children this gets them focused on what needs to be done rather than so many minutes, repetitions etc. My older children play in ensembles and that is a good incentive to practice

I plan to practice for an hour a day but call it a good day when I get 45 minutes in.

I require 5 days a week practice but have no set amount of time. I write the days of the week out at the top of their assignment page and ask them to put a check in the box if they practiced that day. I used to have a "fancier" sheet for recording practice but switched to this version. I'd like to see consistent weekly practice over how much time per day and as mentioned I'd prefer the emphasis not to be put on the amount of time per day but what was practiced. I ask the students if I can tell they probably just played a piece through once or twice a day, "how did you go about practicing this over the week?" Then we talk about how to break it down for the next week. Or if a student played a piece really well, I say, "you obviously have practiced this a lot, how did you go about practicing it?" Then I praise them by saying "those are some good ways to go about practicing your pieces."

I just expect them to practice the assignment and usually write a couple extra ideas at the bottom they can add if they need more to do over the week.

For some students who tend to play the piece from beginning to end one or two times a day and say their done or those who tend to play the piece from beginning to end over and over, I write a more specific assignment like, "practice each phrase X times per day." I leave it up to the student more if they are good about practicing different ways and dividing up the piece on their own.

This is a good topic as I'm interested in how many times other teachers would require a student to practice a certain segment and how do you split up a piece, for example, do you have them practice by measure, line, phrase, or section, etc? One of my students always told me about a friend of hers taking lessons from another teacher who required the student to practice a little fraction of a piece something like 20 times. I always wonder if I'm not requiring enough repetitions per day of a certain item.

I try to practice an hour a day every day. Of course, I NEED the practice!!

Ken

I usually focus on how many times I want each item practiced by students. Usually it is something like 2-3 times each scale, 2-3 times for a short technical exercise and 5 times for a piece. If there is a tough section in the repertoire, I will usually add in some extra repetitions on the tricky section.

I do have some students though who will tend to blow through each song the required number of times at warp speed without stopping to fix anything. Because of that I have started giving parents a good idea of how long their practicing should take and what I want them to focus on. I also have a practice chart that I have my parents initial for each day practiced, and I ask for a minimum of 5 days.

Actually I am also handing out a reminder notice this week to ask parents not to initial the practice chart unless the student practices everything on the list. Lately I have had some students show up with a signed practice chart only to discover that they only practiced two of the items listed in their notebook. It is tough because I rely on the parents to sign for proper practice and in a few cases the parents will sign when proper practice doesn't take place. Of course I can tell right away whether my students have actually practiced, but then what do you do accuse the parents of lying? I am hoping my general practice reminder notice will get the point across.

My children's teacher requires 30 minutes per day for elementary students, 45 for middle school, and an hour a day for high school students. Most of these students have two lessons per week, so this practice would be 5 days per week. She asks an hour of her adultstudents also, but most of them only go to a lesson every other week.

Nancy

When my son started, at age 8, we required 30 minutes per day, seven days per week. He had no particular rules about practicing things twice or three times, because I have always worked with him in breaking pieces apart to work on separate problem measures or phrases.

In his second year his practice time went up to 45 minutes per day, but I think it moved toward an hour per day by the end of that year. The third year he practiced an hour per day as well, but it moved toward 1:15 by the end of the year. In his fourth year he started doing 1.5 hours per day, except when school work or other things intervened, though he usually did extra on the weekends.

Last year we firmly established 1.5 hours per day as the accepted minimum and he tried for 2 hours per day on the weekends. This year he has maintained the 1.5 hours per days on school days. Again there is an exception for days when other work piles up. He usually plays 2.5-3 hours per day on the weekend.

I think a regimen of this sort is essential if a student is going to make rapid progress. Having said that, rapid progess isn't absolutely essential if what you really want to do is create a person with a lifelong love of music!

Our 12 year old practices 1 hour a day during the week and 1.5 hours on weekend days. (was actually doing more before changing teachers-but that's another story) 10 year old 45min and 1hour respectively. Generally, we've gradually moved the time up according to their ability to handle it. The older could do more but I see other activities on the rise and don't want to be in a position of having to decrease the time in the coming years.

At this rate, they won't become concert pianists but they seem to be comfortable with their relationship with the piano and if they want to do more-we'll clear the decks.

It is a seven day a week thing, with the exception of very unusual other events.

It's a tricky balancing act and I haven't even hit the trying years yet so I have no idea how it will all turn out.

As a kid... my motivation is VERY high. My parents don't know much about music. My teacher suggests that I play 25 minutes per day. I try to practice 2 hours per day minimum (i'll sometimes eat lunch and run to the music room at school for 20 minutes) on the weekends, I like to get in 3 hours which usually ends up being 2 hours.

<Matt>

When I was taking lessons as a child through teenage years, all my teachers suggested 30 min. per day practice. When I went to college, just for a B.A. in Music the minimum required practice time was 5 days a week, 2 hours per day. I was so suprised. I didn't even know anyone practiced that long! If I would have realized that as a teen when I started becoming serious about a possible career in music, I would have practiced a lot more.

Also, I heard from a prof. of piano that practices about 5 hours a day when he has upcoming concerts. I was so suprised at that too. Again if I would have known when young how much those in the performance profession like concert pianists practice, I would have been practicing a lot more. I just assumed when young that everyone practiced the standard 30 minutes and that was all it took to get good at piano playing.

It's been mentioned in the thread that some students keep increasing the minutes the longer they have been studying and the more advanced their music becomes. I feel this is necessary too. I've had students that I have required a minimum of 15 - 20 min. per day when on primer and level 1 books at 7 or 8 years old. But they get used to the 20 min. requirement and 20 min. of course doesn't cut it at the intermediate levels! I think it's a good idea to require X amount more time per day for each level of difficulty and for number of years the student has been taking lessons so the student realizes this at the onset when they start lessons.

That's a good point about habituation. If students become habituated to 30 minutes per day they may resist changing that number. You may avoid future problems by letting them and their parents know right from the start that practice time increases with age and level.

In my early teens (14, 15) I was practising perhaps 45 minutes to an hour per day on my crappy Gulbransen vertical from the dark ages. Then my pushy mother (bless her) had me audition at the U. of Miami. For strange and fortuitous reasons the prof. accepted me, but the conditions included a two hour per day absolute minimum of practice. Three hours was the recommended level. At age 16 I bought into this. Part of the sweetner was a brand spanking new 5'9" grand!

That professor told me point blank later on that she regretted not getting a hold of me years earlier when there would have been a chance to change my trajectory in a major way. As it was, she worked minor miracles on me, in part because she increased my self-discipline! Practice time is KEY (pun intended).

Cheers,

David

Dorrie, your 8 yr old is probably practicing about right. But how is it possible that your 11 & 15 yr olds can practice only 30 min each? Are they just beginners?

I have found that most 3rd graders can easily focus on their practice, if someone is close by to help them focus, for 45 - 55 min daily.

Like childofparadise2002's teacher, I assign sufficient material (age and skill appropriate, of course) to keep middle school students busy for 90 minutes or more, and high schooler's for several hours daily. Most of mine report long hours on weekends, shorter hours during the week. Seems appropriate.

What many students find necessary is to break practice into multiple daily sessions. 50-55 minutes is a good solid practice block for older students.

By the way, for you to parent 3 students and still be able to squeeze in 45 minutes of practice is some sort of miricle in my book. Congratulations.

John -

My kids usually practice more - I simply won't fight to make them do more.

My little one had pretty severe ADHD and does pratice in several small bits. He was born with some congenital hand problems and his plastic surgeon recommended keyboarding lessons to improve his finger independence.

The older children do not play piano - my daughter (11) plays cello (and gets about 30 minutes a day at school in group lessons/rehersal in addition to home pratice). So she really is practicing closer to an hour a day.

My eldest did piano and cello for years and fought practice at every turn, although he loved performing and truly loves music. Finally his teacher said - practice more, or quit. So he quit. After a fallow year or so he asked for classical guitar. I found a very low key teacher and he seems to be having more fun. I am happy music is part of his life and am not tempted to push further.

I understand now as a parent, that 1) near daily practice is really necessary and 2) the closer you can get to 7-9 hours of practice a week, the better the progress seems to be. Until I played an instrument myself, I really didn't have a clue, and the information I got from their very well intentioned teachers actually was pretty useless in helping me help them practice.

I don't expect any of these kids to reach advanced levels on their instrument, but I hope they will enjoy music throughout their lifetime.


For me, John I am blessed with a need for very little sleep. And I am ruthlessly organized with my own practice. After each lesson I list goals and tasks that need to be accomplished. While I agree with you that 50 minute sessions are great, i have found that if I plan carefully, a 30 minute long session, and then 2-3 10 minute sessions can work well. It takes 10 minutes for pasta to cook - well a student at my level (about 2 years of lessons) has plenty of tasks that fit into ten minutes (review, Hanon drills, sightreading etc).

That's the key right there. It makes all the difference when parents moniter the practicing to make sure it is being done effectively. Not so much hovering over their shoulder, but at least listening from the kitchen and providing encouragement and help when necessary. Not to mention to make sure actual practicing gets done. It actually amazes me when parents don't ever listen to the practicing, which I have had a few problems with when students have digital pianos at home. I have had a talk with a few parents about the importance of listening to the practicing rather than shoving headphones at them and assuming that they are practicing properly.

My daughter's teacher does not expect a certain amount of time spent (on a clock) but a certain amount of times on each assignment. I think it's because of her age. I know she has students who practice 2 hours daily but they are 10-11 years old. In other words she will tell her to go through a new 2-octave scale (and arpeggio) hands alone 3 times, hands together 3 times (that's kinda like 9 times)...and review all other scales/arpeggios 1 time daily. Her other music varies- from 2-5 times per piece. This takes longer than 30 min. usually (especially with so many scales) and other exercises (Schmitt, Czerny) which are daily, plus there are finger exercises. Usually she has 4-6 pieces of music as well. Daughter LOVES Czerny.

Her teacher requires 5 times a week practice. But we do 7, sort of. On the lesson day she runs through every assignment 1 time- and then no practice the rest of that day/night. So, it's more like 6 days a week of true practice. This is not a pressure type of thing with her- she loves it.

I think eventually as her practice time grows in length I will break it into more than 1 period of time daily. Like,a couple of exercises and couple of pieces of music early in the day and ther rest of the exercises and music later in the day.

If she is having a bad day with a specific assignment I have her put it away for a few hours and then go back to it later. That happens once in awhile.

Now my oldest daughter (years ago)- 30 min. a day, 5 times a week...and it was a real pain to get her to put in the practice time. I still remember what a pain it was (for me)...and I don't recall her enjoying it at the time either!

20-30 minutes 5 days a week for beginners

45 minutes 5 days a week at the intermediate level

1.5-2 hours 6 days a week for advanced students

3-4 hours a day 6 days a week for high school students hoping to pursue a degree in music


In all of those, the "...days a week" clause is the more important.

Short answer- I expect what the teacher assigns her- x number of times per piece 5 times a week.

But my daughter always does more (times and days).

Looking at Kreisler's numbers was helpful- and my daughter is close to that but not exact. She's intermediate level and practices 25-40 min. daily, but usually 6 times/week.

She's such a perfectionist within herself, she would just keep practicing more and more but I usually have her stop at whatever the assignment says. If it says 3 times, then 3 times it is. She usually wants to practice far more than the assignment. At her age I feel like I need to guard her from burnout- maybe I'll wake up and realize that 'burnout' is not in her, but I still feel like I have to be on guard about it. Plus, I look at the work load she has every week in piano and I just think it's too much (of course I don't say so)...and then I watch her carry the load like it's not heavy at all. It's interesting, that's for sure.

I remember when she was evaluated last May. I asked the teacher privately, "eventually her progress will slow down as the music gets harder, right?" and the teacher shocked me with the reply "she may never slow down". I still don't grasp that but I am watching it unfold. In reality it seems like she is actually learning harder stuff faster and faster. I really don't understand it but I find it very interesting.

Then there is that school thing that sometimes gets in the way.

30 minutes practice on piano and none on French horn yesterday.