Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Is it a ok to take a practice break?

My teacher will be away for three weeks, and I feel like a kid in way, I don't feel like practicing, highly unusual for me.

My nephew (he's an organist, started piano lessons at 4 or 5) said that sometimes it's good to take a short break.

Is it a good idea to take a break - maybe three days or so? Thanks.

Sometimes if students overpractice one day they are unable to get in the mood to practice the next. However, short and concentrated practice regularly is more effective. When life intervenes and you have to take a break, three days is fine and you will return to the piano renewed and in a receptive mind. Staggering a day's rest between practice is acceptable and effective for some students. The warm-up phase is the determining factor in your practice. This comprises the scales, appreggios, preogressions and studies which form the vocabulary of playing. This is what you do regularly to keep technical control.

Taking a longer holiday should not be viewed as detrimental to piano playing. As with any work everyone needs a holiday at least once a year. After a nice holiday, you come back to work full of beans. The same thing with piano. Your positive mind and energy will be apparent in your playing. And contrary to opinion there won't be any loss of memory. You will only have to warm up as normal and you'll be back there. You need to have a healthy balanced life and a positive mental state. These are the factors of success in all endeavours not only piano.

I normally practice about 2 hours every day and the time just flies by.

Today - after scales and arpeggios. I started to go over Fur Elise at my teacher's request, than the newest Bach's 2 part invention no.4 which I really like and that's when the music almost began to sound the same - time to get away. I didn't even bother to work on Mozarts C Major Sonata another piece I really enjoy (warts and all).

I ended up putting the cover down and going out for a while. This is a first for me - my nephew once said take a break or "burn-out", so thank you for getting back. I think you are right, a few days won't make a difference in the great scheme of things.

I am in the same situation since I will be leaving town for 2 weeks. I fretted a bit because I wouldn't be able to practice while away, but my teacher eased my worries. He served in the air force for 3 years and wasn't able to practice at all during those years. He described playing to be akin with driving a car or riding a bycicle. You just don't forget how to do it.

My experience is if you practice dilgently at least 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, then it is beneficial to take a month off. Completely away from the piano. You will be amazed how refreshed you will be and your fingers will be able to play the piano even better.

Don't necessarily want to take a break but the current heat wave is really getting at me. Makes me ever so tired and especially in the evenings with windows closes so not to disturb neighbours I feel it's almost impossible to concentrate for more than 30 minutes at a time ... Do you also have the same problems? Get an air-conditioner for that?

I'm lucky and have an air conditioner, but the weather has been gloomy - hot, humid and rain. Yesterday the weather was great as it is today.

Maybe that had something to do with it, I don't know. I think it was a feeling that "I'm not getting anywhere". Yesterday I got back to practice by taking it slowly, not caring about goofs, my goal was just to get going again.

Learning to play the piano has been a dream of mine for such a long time, I'd never stop. There's so much to learn as all of you know, guess sometimes it gets to me.

Thanks everyone for your support and encouragement.

In my humble opinion, it may be more advantageous to work with your body clock and not against it. Setting a two hour regime is fine but feel free to vary it. A pianist must be ready to play at all times so if you practice only at one time you will only be a 7 o'clock pianist!

Anyway, I'm tired of the term "practice" as it is not empowering and it might be better just to say you "build technique" or something more precise and active.

I'm going to try to vary practice times. Good idea and one that I hadn't thought of.

I don't set an exact time, the time just flies by and there is some kind of inner signal that says stop. Just know that it's usually about 2 hours since I know the time when I start and stop.

I've never been a super faithful practicer like I should be so you can base my advise or what I do on that fact.

I just started taking lessons again after years of trying to keep up my skill on my own and find myself feeling the same way as my students do on practice and motivation. If I'm on the "same old pieces" too long I start feeling like I need something new to do. Or if the pieces are too easy, I get a hankering for more of a challenge. If the pieces are too difficult, I like to play through some easy stuff for a break from the frustrating stuff.


I guess what I do is whatever I am "tired of", I take a break from that and play something else. I didn't look back at your posts closely but it sounded like from what I read the other day, it is the pieces you are currently working on that were assigned by your teacher
that you may be getting tired of and need a break from. If it's certain music you need a break from, here's some of the things I do in that case or even every day anyway:

Play through or review old pieces I've done prior.

Pull out some music that is easier than my skill level that I can just sight-read half-way decent for fun. For example, I have some easy piano Disney, Children's songs, Praise and Worship, folk tunes, and arrangements of classics that I just open the book and play one, turn the page play another, skip the one's I don't really care for. I even play through some tunes out of primer books just for fun. Just about anything I can just play without a lot of work.

Or I start trying to figure out a new piece.

Then I try improvising a little or figuring out things by ear. I might figure out the melody of a favorite tune and fish around for chords that sound good with it and go from there.

Or go out and buy a new book of pieces that look interesting to you. Nothing quite motivates me like a new book.

Then I might experiment with composing.

On the current music, even if I can't get motivated, I try to do one new thing each day even if it is very small, say even add one more measure, or work out the dynamics on a portion. I might work on one section or even a couple lines or a few phrases heartily one day, then the next day another portion and the next day a different portion. Even the least little bit even if it's one phrase or one measure or little group of notes new conquered keeps one moving forward on the piece.


The other thing I do on a daily basis in practicing is for example start out with my exercises like scales and such and do that until I start getting burnt out or lose focus, then I switch to my pieces I'm working on do them until I get tired, then some easy pieces or old pieces just for fun or improvising. Then maybe after that I'd feel like going back to the pieces I'm trying to learn some more or stop. I don't look at the clock. I play 'till I get tired, stop. If it wasn't real long like 15-20 min. then I might come back to it later the same day, and do some more.

From a teacher perspective, I wouldn't mind from time to time if a student said, "I just couldn't motivate myself to practice Y, but I DID work on X, W, and Z. I'd rather have a student come to lesson having started figuring out a new piece or two on their own, having reviewed some old pieces, etc. than not having done anything because they were losing motivation on their assigned pieces. BUT, completely on the other hand, I don't think there is anything wrong with taking a complete break the entire time until your next lesson. Everyone needs a break from things from time to time. If once in a while my students said, they just needed a break from practicing that week or two, I wouldn't be unhappy so long as it was occasional and not a week to week thing.

Here's what my current teacher has recently suggested to me when I have taken more than a couple day break during the week from practice. She suggested rather than take a total break, then at least play some exercises like just simple 5 finger exercises and scales each day to keep one's technique up.

My teacher was gone two weeks recently and I took a whole week break, "when the cats away, the mice will play!"

I just think the key is VARIETY, VARIETY, VARIETY. Anything and everything you can think of as far as variety of music, variety of ways to practice a piece, variety on when you practice, etc., etc. I love that motto, "Variety is the spice of life!"

(don't feel guilty about a break, though. You are doing great to practice 2 hours a day most of the week. In college at least for a BA, not a performance degree, I was told 5 days a week, 2 hours a day minimum. At that rate, one would be taking a two day break every week. So don't knock it if you take a couple days off .)

Sara thanks for all the great ideas.

As for the pieces Mozart and Bach I actually like them, tho' I'm far from doing them justice. Not wild about Fur Elise but have been going over it since I think it would please my teacher.

I'll give some of your suggestions a whirl and take it as it comes.

I think taking a few days off now and then throughout the year is okay. I hope my last post didn't sound too staunch.
It is good to feel a little guilty about it though; this means you are dedicated to piano practice, which is a good thing. You will hopefully not have a problem starting back up practicing 2 hours every day!