practice

hello everyone

Just wondering the average amount of time most people spend practicing instruments or composing music each day. I myself practice for about an hour a day on guitar and about 20 minutes on my other instruments with in that time I sometimes work on compositions as well it all depends on how much work i have to practice that week. I'm also wondering do you think it is smarter to do one long practice/day plus 1 smaller one, or do you think it is better to do composing and practice in small dirations so your work doesn't get mixed up

let me know what you think

:) Beth

Hi Beth!

I practice viola and/or violin a total of 1 to 2 hours most days (I take days off to rest my hands), depending on which instrument I'll be using most (lately, violin).

With my singing, I warm up a little and do a bit of singing almost every day, but I don't practice much anymore. My voice is well developed, and I save it for rehearsals and performances, which are usually pretty taxing vocally. The exception is when I have something really difficult to sing that must be well prepared. Then I practice as much as is necessary to get it in my voice. It's not the same as playing an instrument, I don't think, because there is less maintenance of physical mechanics necessary.

I started composing very young (age 9), but despite constant practice at it (often to the detriment of my schoolwork), I did not start to become a competent composer until I was 15 or 16. I am now much older - I'm the oldest person on this board - and while I'm very proficient, I'm still nowhere near a master. I wasted a lot of years not composing often enough. Nowadays, I compose on average 1 to 2 hours a day, often much more. It pays off in a number of ways:

1. The flow of ideas comes easier if you don't dam it up by not composing regularly (whether what I write is actually any good or not);

2. I become more proficient and skilful the more I write (if not particularly more progressive);

3. The more I accomplish, the more confident I am as a composer.

I practice when I have time to... which unfortunately isn't that much time, given my research job and the fact that I'm going into medical school in a few weeks. I probably practice only about half an hour a day on viola and about half an hour every 2-3 days on horn; I practice piano only when I can get to a piano, which is at most once or twice a week.

Composing is also stuffed into whatever spare time I have, but it's done more in bursts. Usually I'll spend 3-4 hours composing over a period of a couple days, and then not find time to compose for a week or two. That said, the musical ideas are running for a lot more time than that... usually an idea doesn't get onto paper until it's been running in my head for quite a few hours.

I practice 2 hours a day with my guitars. One hour for classical and one hour for rock guitar. As for composing, I usually spend an hour nibbling at ideas. When I get a great Idea I spend as much time as I can working on the piece until I am done.

Practice - I practice the clarinet whenever i want usually 30 min a day up to 2 hours if anyone would like to listen. As for the double-bass i don't have one so i go every third day to school where i practise for hour and half sometimes more.

Composing - When inspired - All day every day. When not inspired - playing on the piano or clarinet or or writing harmony and counterpoints for melodies i already wrote for about 2-2.5 hours per day.

Wow! I'm kind of embarrassed because i don't practice/compose nearly as much as some of you! AHH.

I practice the piano anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours..though usually around an hour. It mostly depends on how much i feel like practicing. Because i'm self-taught, i don't have a set amount i have to practice.

On the flute, i practice much less :) because I don't enjoy it as much as piano. I used to be so diligent at practicing but, got into a bad habit last year...my band teacher didn't make us practice so i only brought it home 2 or 3 times a week and practiced for about 20 minutes...and only out of guilt. But, i'm trying to be better at practicing it. SO during this summer, I'm making myself practice 30 minutes a day every day.

Now, for composing, i usually only do it for like 10 minutes a day. But, if i have a really good idea, then i do it a lot more. I only compose when i have something to work with, ya know?

welll.....that's about it!

hmm im reading these replies noticing a lot of you can spend tw0 hours practicing while I myself find i become tired or sometimes frustrated if i practice that long because i begin to loose focus. would there be a paticular reason for this or is it because i have only just recently begun to practice for over an hour?

Beth

hmm im reading these replies noticing a lot of you can spend tw0 hours practicing while I myself find i become tired or sometimes frustrated if i practice that long because i begin to loose focus. would there be a paticular reason for this or is it because i have only just recently begun to practice for over an hour?

During the school year, I usually put about an hour into composition and half an hour to an hour into viola/violin a day. In the summer, I'll spend anywhere between an hour and four hours composing every day (at the piano and/or computer), depending on what else I'm doing and how inspired I feel. (Uh, and that's also when I develop the tendency to forget about my viola. Meant to take it out today. Didn't. Ah well.)

hmm im reading these replies noticing a lot of you can spend tw0 hours practicing while I myself find i become tired or sometimes frustrated if i practice that long because i begin to loose focus. would there be a paticular reason for this or is it because i have only just recently begun to practice for over an hour?

Beth

I'm very serious about my music and my practice its a big deal for me to become as good as the pros i just can't seem to keep up a proper practice for more than an hour/hour and a half. I have some very insteresting pieces to play so I'm sure that's not the probably my fingers rarely become sore when playing guitar anymore so i really have no clue what the problem is.

anways as you said i will try to keep myself more motivated until i figure out what else might be going wrong

Beth

What I find helpful in my practice is to use a kitchen timer to go for five minutes on one section of a piece, or one exercise, then MOVE ON. Five minutes a pop. It gives what I was working on time to sit in my mind, and when I come back to it, it actually got better WITHOUT me practicing!

Break any piece you learn into two-measure segments and spend five minutes apiece on each segment. Play it slowly, precisely the first time, and gradually speed up as you find you can play it precisely at faster speeds. Never, NEVER allow a mistake. When my theory prof made a mistake, he would stop immediately and slap his hand... though of course not in performance, only in class. If you make a mistake, go over that very note-to-note transition a few times, slower than you just tried to play it.

This approach creates natural focus. You'll make progress fast, and become very encouraged. I hope this helps! I used to have the same problem (sometimes still do), but whenever I use this tactic, it gets less monotonous and I see more progress. Try it!

I haven't practiced the piano much lately, but when I do practice it's about an hour a day. For composing, some days I don't, but I generally write music for 2-3 hours at least every other day. I've only been writing music for a year, and this rate of composition practically just started, maybe a month ago. I hope I can keep it up!

Eh...practicing...grr.

I don't practice really, except singing occasionally, when noone's home upstairs... :P

If I get an idea, I can sit at the computer for 6 hours and churn out some stuff, or I'll work on it for 30 minutes and do something unrelated. Maybe I'll get back into it, maybe I won't. I'm not about to force myself into composing, that makes it difficult and it usually produces some crappy stuff...!

Piano? Pretty much the same thing. If I sit down, I can play for the whole damn day! But once again, I'm not going to restrict myself or discipline myself. If I feel I should play something because I need to play it publicly or something, I'll practice it. But if it becomes like a 'practice', or like I'm being forced to do it, I won't do it for very long. I haaaaate practicing. But that's probably why my technique sucks!!

I'm not about to force myself into composing, that makes it difficult and it usually produces some crappy stuff...!

Yeah, same with me. However, I'm not as uptight about this as I used to be. Before, I would always wait for inspiration to strike randomly before even considering starting a piece. That meant that, while I liked virtually everything I was writing, I didn't actually write that much. I've since learned that I can come across equally valuable ideas while just playing whatever on the piano and such. Not really improv, but certainly more open-minded than before. And you get randomly inspired way more often when you do that pretty much every day (something I'm glad I've learned).

If I do force myself to come up with something new, I usually can't stand the finished piece. Then I usually get rid of it. I'm aware that it's an extremely bad idea to destroy music, so I avoid pressuring myself into generating ideas.

The question of how much to practice has been on my mind lately, and I've done some research on the web on the amount expected of university music students, since I've decided not to do such a course for various reasons, but I'm no less serious than formally educated students about music. Well, I found the follwing:

*Illinois State University: "For piano principles, a suggested minimum of 1-1 1/2 to 2 hours practice daily is advised. For piano performance majors, two to four hours practice per day is expected."

*University of Tenessee, Knoxville:"...students preparing to become organ minors, principals, or majors: 2 to 4 hours practice per day.""Organ performance majors:3-4 hours practice per day."

*Utah State Uni.: "Practice (these are minimum times. Practicing this amount is doing a minimum effort.)":"Performance majors: 3 hours a day minimum; 4 expected as the average."

I've found more from other uni's but I haven't time to type it all up. You get the idea. I couldn't find anything on how many hours composition practice are expected of composition majors, and how they are expected to balance this with instrument practice. I'd like to find out what such expectations/demands on university students are, as they're most likely well-founded on experience & research, and would therefore serve as a good model for me, a self-taught aspiring composer-performer.

I currently practice composition about 4 hours daily, and I struggle to get in 3 hours daily instrument practice. I don't find it hard at all to do that much composition, and it's not really enough for me. If I'm not "inspired" there are always plenty of technical things to practice and learn. With instrument practice, I sometimes find it easy to do a lot (about 5 or 6 hours in a day at the most), but I usually need good self-discipline to do a minimum of this physical work.

I keep track of my music practice time using two stopwatches. I set one of these to start at the beginning of a session to time the session's overall time, and the other one I use to time how long I spend on each exercise/piece. I then add up all of the time I've spent on actual practice, and compare it to the overall session time. On average these days, for every 1 hour of my session total time, I spend about 45 to 50 minutes on actual practice. I use the actual practice time totals to add up my 3 daily hours instrument practice - my session total times would be higher, but only because they include things like sipping tea, stretching, scratching, and finding books. Before I did all of this I used to waste lots of practice time such as by wandering over to the mirror and deciding to shave, or cutting my toenails. I usually don't add up my compostion practice final totals, as I don't need to push myself to do more:- time restrictions on comp. are more from the demands of being a single parent of 3 than lack of motivation to compose; I always love it, and often have to drag myself away from it at the end.

Oh, and I don't make specific demands on how much time I practice particular pieces or exercises; I just do as much as I can, listening to my instincts, and go on to the next thing, whatever I feel like doing, but keeping track of how much time I've spent on everything, and trying to be appropriately balanced.

*** Any current or ex-university composition-major students out there, PLEASE tell us how much composition practice time is expected/demanded during the course, and how this compares with how much instrument practice is required.

Of course, how much time we devote to music depends on such things as how enthusiastic and motivated we are, what our goals are, how much we need to develop & maintain our skills, how serious about & dedicated we are to music, our physical and mental condition, and how much our circumstances allow - family, work, school, etc.

Now that I've gotten busy, it's gone down to maybe 20 mins of violin or viola practice every 2-3 days, and an hour or so of composition a week, most of which is stuffed into the 10-minute breaks between lectures.

I now envy everyone who is able to find the time to practice an hour straight, because I don't think I will any time in the near future.

I practice minimum 2 hours a day with my piano. I try to practice 3 but sometimes its not possible with school and stuff. On weekends i try to practice 4-5 hours a day. I try to practice articulation, phrasing, scales, jazz chords, improvisation.

Besides the instrument, i have to study other musical disciplines like ear training, harmony, etc. I'm not very good at sight reading and that is what i would want to practice a lot more (I barely practice sight reading). As for composing it's really a matter of having the time to sit and write, and a fresh brain willing to create something interesting so i need to be relaxed. I do not create music daily but i try to, several times a week even if what i'm writing is not good.

I believe that people worry too much about practice time. Practice when you can(if you are professional musician then you should have plently of time). Don't worry if you practiced for 4 hours in a day. You should worry more if you are doing everything correctly. In my personal experience, I find that if you practice everything you have to do, you'll get that time in quickly enough.

I would also like to say that it is important for practice time to be enforced when learning an instrument just to form the habit of practicing but as you progress the time comes more naturally.

My practice time can go from under an hour to over nine!

Unfortunately I don't have a set time of practice. My composing is the same, sometimes I stay awake sleep deprived because I'm coming up with something I love and other times I get frustrated or depressed because I'm unable even to make a simple melody.

For a few months I'm going to try to keep my practice ratio about 6 hours a day.

Good luck with the 6hrs+ daily goal Wolf. Let me know how you do. Is that 6hrs for each of composition plus instrument practice (6+6=12hrs daily)? Or 3+3hrs daily, which is my set minimum per week? Re. those others who've said they object to composing other than when inspiration comes, I'd recommend researching the lives of great artists - musicians as well as artists in other mediums. You'll find that to achieve something great, regular work (and lots of it) is very important, (including for the "gifted"), even though there may be times when one does a great deal, and less at others. I've found that certain sorts of composition work requires a particular frame of mind, and there are ways of achieving this, such as walks in natural places and meditation techniques. Judith Wright said of herself that "The hunger to write grew with feeding". Henri Matisse said: "One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work. To prepare one's work is first to nourish one's feelings by studies that have a certain alalogy with the picture, and it is through this that the choice of elements can be made. It is these studies that permit the painter to free his unconscious mind." (p.107, Matisse on Art, ed. J. Flam). I've been doing such studies lately for a particular piece I'm working on by researching folk song lullabys from around the world, and writing my own "studies": lullaby-like melodies, and lullaby variations, not necessarily for the piece, but as "preparation" and "nourishment" as described by Matisse. Nourishing one's feelings leads to inspiration. Matisse says elsewhere that he took a horseride if he didn't feel like painting, and did feel like it when he returned. William Wordsworth very directly nourished his feelings to write poetry by long daily walks in nature, and Beethoven did the same, doing much composing on such walks in his pocket sketchbooks - a habit I've adopted & found works brilliantly. There's always work for an aspiring composer to do; whether we feel inspired or not is no reason to waste precious time on television or whatever. And as Matisse said, conscious work gets one into a creative state.

Well right now I'm currently unemployed so I have abundant free time. :)

When I started playing the guitar I practiced nonstop, I could during holidays and weekends wake up in the morning and just run to my guitar and play all day(sometimes night). Of course it helped and I improved alot BUT I feel I could have done the same improvements or perhaphs ehave been a better guitarplayer if I practiced less. These days I practice for 1 hour a day and I feel I am improving as much. The rest of the day I compose, study theory, counterpoint and analyse music I like.

Hi,

Daily Musical Routine

Piano Practice: 2hs

Conducting & Orchestral Studies:1hr

Improvisation (Piano - Classical):1hr

Analysis of Previously Unheard Music/ Obscure Classical Composers:1hr

Composition - Mental Composition - All the time

Writing Down Mental Compositions - 2 hrs (may vary on mood & school demands)

I hope it doesnt seem to rigid...............or mechanical

I usually play in jazz gigs every week.. so I rehearse with my band like twice a week... besides that, I have to either write or practice my guitar parts and that I work thru the week when I have time free.... Now, as a composer I do film music (independent films) and that depends on how much time they give me for the project... as a "musician" for personal reasons, I practice sightreading 4 times a week (i´ve been redusing my hours)... technical stuff i do everyday 1-2 hrs a day... Writing: counterpoint and harmony like 5 times a week but I don´t have a specific time to do them. :happy:

well, i do not have a piano but i go to my aunt's house everyday (and waste two hours' of travelling time :P ) to practise for about 2 hrs.

well, i do not have a piano but i go to my aunt's house everyday (and waste two hours' of travelling time :P ) to practise for about 2 hrs.

Hey Liszt fan,

Depending on the mode of transportation, I find that the best time to write down fragments of compositions is when travelling .... so unless your driving to your aunt's place look at your 2 hours of travelling as a blessing in disguise. :P

Akhil G.