# Musicians...How Much Do You Practice??



## OboeKnight

I always find it interesting how much time people actually spend practicing their instrument. Not counting rehearsals, just personal practice. Do you play once a week, twice, everyday? Or do you practice for hours right before a performance? With auditions looming in the distance, do you increase your time spent practicing?

Just curious  it seems that everyone has a different approach to honing their musical skills.


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## rrudolph

As a working musician with a day job (also in music, but not playing) it can be difficult to find time to practice during the week. I always try to get an hour or so in before I leave my house in the morning. In the evening, if I don't have a rehearsal, concert or students I'll do anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 3 hours (3 hours is rare, I have to admit). On the weekends, if I don't have anything scheduled I can easily go 4-6 hours each day. Since I'm a percussionist I have to practice a bunch of different instruments so it never feels like I've practiced enough!


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## OboeKnight

I make it a point to spend at least two hours a day practicing. With a major upcoming audition, I increase to a strict 3 hours a day until the audition is over. I spend about 45 minutes on scales, all major and forms of minor scales, with arpeggios, in thirds etc. And also pitch exercises (being an oboist, these are really necessary ). The remaining time is devoted to audition material and I may set aside a bit of time to review old items in my repertoire and keep them fresh.


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## Ravndal

2-5 hours every day


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## tdc

I am just an amateur musician but I used to practice guitar 3-5 hours a day, I also work two jobs and have been trying to study tonal harmony and learn piano in my free time, so I have gotten a bit burned out honestly and my playing has dropped off lately. I'm trying to get it back up. At the moment I do maybe an hour everyday. I think it often ends up being more than this though as I tend to go off into my own "world" so to speak when I practice and I often lose track of time.


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## TheBassoonist

Good question, OboeKnight. As for me, I never (rarely) go a day without practicing. I usually fit in about 2 hours or so a day of personal practice. Honestly, I don't always keep track of time though, nor do I set aside a strict schedule of how long to spend on each item of business. Usually, I practice a scale or passage of a piece until it is correct and consistent. I move on once I can put the isolated section, scales, etc. in context and feel confident and comfortable. Somedays I will spend 20 min on something, other days longer. Also, time varies depending on what I have to work on. If a big concert or audition is approaching, I definitely put in more time that normal. But I would say in general my practice time per day varies, although it is never less than an hour.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Usually two hours a day of practise (not including ensembles etc.) sometimes more.


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## Head_case

Two hours a day during weekdays. Four hours, or even six, during weekends. 

Today though I haven't touched my flute at all. I'm not a performer like Oboeknight - no doubt a fact which makes my landlord tolerate me :lol: 

I stopped doing drills and scales, and just shoot into working on a piece. At the minute, it's Delusse's flute capriccios played about 2/3rds the rhythm alternating with Andersen's virtuoso studies which are eye-boggling me and reminds me that I need to get a better bulb (damn those energy saver bulbs which only emit a 1/3rd of the original tungsten filament bulb) and I might need to photocopy it onto A3 and/or braille to be able to read it properly. Fortunately it's copyright free, as is most of the music of dead composers I enjoy playing. 

I just found a copy of Poulenc's flute sonata so I started playing this, although modern compositions with all those irritating rest bars and more appogiatura and accidentals is a very different playing experience than baroque music with its less cluttered script. I also hate playing 'standard' audition pieces. There's no fun in that anymore, so I'm really happy just to get 2 hours to create some of the most satisfying music I can.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

As a non professional muso type, about 2 or 3 times a week for a hour or two


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## Novelette

Piano: minimum 2 hours, although some days I stretch it to 4 or even 5.

Violin: consistently 1 hour a day.


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## cmudave

I really miss my student days where I was able to devote 5 to 6 hours a day on weekdays and 8 hours a day on weekends to practice. Now that I have a full-time day job, a family, a private studio as well as a recital and concert schedule, my practice is limited to about 2 hours/day usually. During the summer holidays for my studio I spend more time acquiring new repertoire and my practicing increases to around 3 hours/day on weekdays and about 4 to 5 hours on weekends.


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## cmudave

OboeKnight said:


> Or do you practice for hours right before a performance?


As a rule, I never practice a piece on my program the day of the performance. I usually warm up by playing other repertoire, usually some WTC and a few Chopin Etudes, unless they are on my program. The day before a concert, I usually play through my program once or twice at the most and then practice other repertoire. My reasoning is psychological - I am afraid that if I practice the day of the concert, I will make a mistake which will reappear in performance(this is based on prior experience). Even worse is the dreaded memory slip. Charles Rosen devotes a good bit of attention to this topic in his book "Piano Notes."


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Composition: 25 hours a day, sometimes up to 967 on weekends.


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## david johnson

now days i play for my pleasure. i practice when and what i wish.


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## MaestroViolinist

Two hours a day. Today though I did 2 hours and 45 minutes (don't know how many seconds...).


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

2 hrs 45 = perfect. I love doing good practise for exactly that amount of time. 
The school I go to restricts me too much in terms of music.


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## MaestroViolinist

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> 2 hrs 45 = perfect. I love doing good practise for exactly that amount of time.


I can't say I was doing _good_ practise for all that time, after all, I was playing my interpretation of Paganini's caprice... :lol:

Technically I'm supposed to be doing 4 hours a day. *Sigh*



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> The school I go to restricts me too much in terms of music.


I don't see why, isn't it supposed to be a special kind of school for art sort of things? They should be giving extra time to students to practise and study their chosen instrument or whatever they're doing.


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## kv466

Not often enough and certainly not daily.


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## OboeKnight

cmudave said:


> As a rule, I never practice a piece on my program the day of the performance. I usually warm up by playing other repertoire, usually some WTC and a few Chopin Etudes, unless they are on my program. The day before a concert, I usually play through my program once or twice at the most and then practice other repertoire. My reasoning is psychological - I am afraid that if I practice the day of the concert, I will make a mistake which will reappear in performance(this is based on prior experience). Even worse is the dreaded memory slip. Charles Rosen devotes a good bit of attention to this topic in his book "Piano Notes."


This makes sense. I psych myself out when I play a piece I'm about to perform right before I perform it. I play by memory a lot as well and I also have slips on occasion lol.


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## Jord

A few years ago before i started playing Piano i played guitar practicing hours almost everyday after coming home from school playing scales with a metronome for about a year, then after i started playing Piano i enjoyed it much more, i only play guitar at my guitar lesson and maybe 10 minutes if that at home every week unfortunately, and piano i usually play anywhere from half an hour to a couple of hours a day


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## Chrythes

I am not a professional, performing musician or a music student so I play when I wish to. I guess it adds up to about 2-3 hours a day, but a third of the time is just doodling on my guitar, not really practicing anything. When I play the classical guitar I just find the score/(usually)tab and practice it without any scales and other technical/theoretical stuff. My dedication is terrible so I rarely learn a piece to the end. Maybe I tend to pick pieces hat are too hard for me so I just get tried quickly. But in the long run I do tend to come back to them and continue them bit by bit. Bach's 1001 fugue is one of those pieces I've come back recently to. Also, when my nail(s) break I don't play until they grow back, when 1 or 2 nails are missing the imbalance between the sound strength is too great. 

When I play the electric guitar I just find backing tracks on Youtube and improvise. Lately I've started getting bored by my playing so I think I will start learning some scales and arpeggios to add some colour to my improvisations. I think the fact that I don't play with or for anyone is discouraging me from efficient and concentrated practice sessions.


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## Head_case

You don't use plastic or metal plectra picks?

I guess the sound is different from nails. 

I practice on the lute infrequently .... lack of teacher but sometimes I manage about 30 minutes every other day. The advantage of it, is that I can tape a strip of sellotape across the bottom/bridge and dampen the sound enough so I can play without disturbing my moaning landlord 

I like the medieval lute and cittern much better. Boy are they expensive but intuitive for me to play compared to the six string classical guitar. I was given a brilliant classical guitar by a new maker as a present and I still haven't learnt how to finger it


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## hreichgott

1 to 4 hours a day, depending on the day. 4 is for detail work, 1 is a quick run-through of everything necessary on that day. If I miss a day of practice altogether I feel all weird and rusty. Exercises every day of course. As Tony Bennett said, if you miss one day of scales, only you know; if you miss two days, everyone knows. I play professionally.

Regarding playing a piece on performance day -- my first teacher told me never to do that and I believed her. I discovered years later that it makes me feel calmer about possible mistakes, and more positively excited about performance, to practice the performance pieces on performance day. Also, for me, the first time through a piece on a given day always has a bit of "brushing off the cobwebs" quality, even if it's only been like 14 hours since the last time I played it. Short memory maybe?? And running through the pieces on the performance piano is absolutely priceless. Eliminates a lot of possible surprises.


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## PetrB

Piano (the one thing you can go at more hours without damage than any other instrument other than organ)

Several hours a day in early childhood. (after that, either because it was awful or I would 'just keep going,' I was forced to stop and go outside and 'be normal,' lol.)

Middle school, preparing to audition for an arts camp, definitely more, likely up to about four hours per anyway, at least the last hour or so 'noodling'. 

High school was an arts academy, plainly scheduled in an appointed room, minimum two scheduled, often grabbed several hours more. 

Conservatory, minimum of four, most often more.


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## Chrythes

Head_case said:


> You don't use plastic or metal plectra picks?
> 
> I guess the sound is different from nails.
> 
> I practice on the lute infrequently .... lack of teacher but sometimes I manage about 30 minutes every other day. The advantage of it, is that I can tape a strip of sellotape across the bottom/bridge and dampen the sound enough so I can play without disturbing my moaning landlord
> 
> I like the medieval lute and cittern much better. Boy are they expensive but intuitive for me to play compared to the six string classical guitar. I was given a brilliant classical guitar by a new maker as a present and I still haven't learnt how to finger it


For the classical guitar I always use nails, never tried those picks that mount on the fingers, always seemed like too much of a bother, especially if I want to play away from home. For the electrical guitar I use a pick. I tried using nails but mine are quite thin and brittle so they stress too much under those metal strings, I also cannot reach the speeds I reach with a pick. :lol:

Though the sound can be pretty interesting. I only heard Mike Oldfield playing with nails on the electrical and it has a certain quality in it. I guess the sound is more round or "wavy", quite hard to describe.

I played the flute in school and I remember really enjoying it and it went pretty well. At that time it also felt quite intuitive. I don't know, maybe in a way it resembles an imitation of a bird-song so it seems quite natural. :lol:


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## Head_case

Chrythes said:


> For the classical guitar I always use nails, never tried those picks that mount on the fingers, always seemed like too much of a bother, especially if I want to play away from home. For the electrical guitar I use a pick. I tried using nails but mine are quite thin and brittle so they stress too much under those metal strings, I also cannot reach the speeds I reach with a pick. :lol:
> 
> Though the sound can be pretty interesting. I only heard Mike Oldfield playing with nails on the electrical and it has a certain quality in it. I guess the sound is more round or "wavy", quite hard to describe.
> 
> I played the flute in school and I remember really enjoying it and it went pretty well. At that time it also felt quite intuitive. I don't know, maybe in a way it resembles an imitation of a bird-song so it seems quite natural. :lol:


My nails are useless - although I've taken to drinking milk more to try and grow thicker strong nails, I just seem to go to the toilet more.

I have some metal and plastic plectra for guitar - they add more force/strength. Maybe not so good for classical guitar. I don't practice enough on classical guitar to be able to play anything on it. The frets are so small and fiddly compared to the lute which I can play better than a guitar (although that still isn't saying very much :lol

Love the flute....the resonance of the low down under alto is just sublime. I love the deft chirpy piccolo pitch too. It's a shame that recording music technology just doesn't do flutes very much justice. I have yet to hear anything recorded on flute that makes me want to give up playing flute. It's the only way to get that full on utterly satisfying head_space resonance from a wooden flute, echoing inside, er the hollow head_space between the ears.


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## Avey

May I just propose a new question, branching off the subject:

As I watch any concerto -- live, video -- or listen to one, I can't help but always wonder -- in awe, in fact -- to how much practice the soloist has put into that single piece? As I've never seen a soloist reading music as they play, they clearly have memorized the piece. Is this something that takes months, years, a career of practice/performances? To what extent is there obvious improvisation on their part?

I'd appreciate if any classically-trained musicians -- amateur or professional -- could elaborate for me.


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## OboeKnight

Avey said:


> May I just propose a new question, branching off the subject:
> 
> As I watch any concerto -- live, video -- or listen to one, I can't help but always wonder -- in awe, in fact -- to how much practice the soloist has put into that single piece? As I've never seen a soloist reading music as they play, they clearly have memorized the piece. Is this something that takes months, years, a career of practice/performances? To what extent is there obvious improvisation on their part?
> 
> I'd appreciate if any classically-trained musicians -- amateur or professional -- could elaborate for me.


It honestly depends on the person how quickly they memorize. I know many people that really have to work at it to memorize anything musically. Luckily for myself, memorization comes naturally. After just a little while, I start to memorize a piece before I even know I've memorized it. I'm not really sure at what point it becomes etched into my memory, but it doesn't take long. Of course, it would also depend on the complexity of the piece. I've performed the Haydn Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra many times by memory. The first movement alone is around 15 minutes long. It took me a little less than a month to memorize it, but I worked on perfecting it for many months before performing. I've performed other concertos from memory with even less time, so I think I'm just a fast memoriz-er haha. I think you can memorize anything if you play it enough times. I think getting the piece flawless for performance is what takes the most time, and the memorization just happens while you practice.

The improvisation part of your question I believe is referring to the cadenza? The cadenza is the break where the orchestra stops and the soloist plays on their own for a while, usually near the end of the movement. Normally, the soloist creates their own cadenza to perform. While yes, that could be considered improv, they rehearse what they are going play so it could be considered "premeditated improv" I suppose.

Hope this helps =)


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## Avey

Amazing. That clears up a lot - thank you.

Clearly, not classically-trained here, so the cadenza portion is particularly revealing to me. I know some composers often changed these sections, or sometimes left it entirely to the player, but I'm not sure how _often _ the player is given the liberty to create their own cadenza.

Obviously, with many often-played concertos written by individuals who are no longer with us, I would assume these sections are either explicitly detailed and scribed. Or they are left to the players, who continue to modify and express as they wish in their own particular performances. Are these sections _always_ open to the player's particular improvisation, or have particular melodic/structured cadenzas been handed down through the years?

Hope that makes sense...


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## OboeKnight

Hmm...well here's an example. In Rimsky-Korsakov's _Capriccio Espagnol_, there are cadenzas written out by the composer for violin, flute, clarinet, and harp. The cadenza is written out, but the soloist may take liberty with the _way_ they play it. Stretching notes and such. That's an example of an un-improvised cadenza.

In Mozart's Oboe Concerto, the soloist creates their own cadenza at the end of the first movement. Pretty much any soloist you listen to will have a completely different cadenza that's all their own  Normally, musical ideas are taken from the piece and embellished upon, and completely new things are played as well. It showcases the range and capabilities of the instrument (and the player) If a composer wants a cadenza to be played a certain way, they will write it in. Otherwise it just says : cadenza and its left up to the performer. Certain editors may include a transcribed cadenza in the soloists part that they may choose to play instead of making their own.

Hope this clears things up a bit!


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## hreichgott

Right. Pianists tend to be a bit more conservative with cadenzas, partly because so many of the great composers for piano concertos included their own cadenzas among the possible options. Frankly, the cadenza by Beethoven for Beethoven's 3rd concerto is much better music than any of the other options including anything I could compose or improvise myself. There was really no chance of my choosing anything other than his cadenza, although I tried a few others. 

But many other options do exist. And many pianists routinely compose or improvise their own cadenzas.

Another place where performers improvise is ornamentation. Baroque and classic-period music can be ornamented in various ways -- trills and things can be added to the notes. There are better and worse ways to do this, of course, and many scores just have ornaments written in the score to make decision-making easier. 

In both these cases, improvising is actually a lot more work than learning and memorizing every note!

Don't forget, though, that performers are not usually performing pieces they only just learned. Generally, concert performers have a repertoire that they develop over the years and draw on for performances.


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## milanrehak




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## MichaelSolo

When I was playing, I used to practice (violin) 2 to 4 hours about 5 - 6 days a week, more if preparing for an audition. After an hour of scales and technological things, and an hour of etudes, you really are just warmed up enough to get to real business...

Haven't done that in many years, though. What is surprising - even now, I could recover probably 70 - 90 % of my best form after only a few days of practice. Will start in earnest when the kids grow up


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## MichaelSolo

Time it takes to master a piece depends on the, obviously, the piece and the professionalism of the performer.

A serious piece, like Shostakovich Violin concerto, could take a world-renown violinist few month to master.

A simpler concerto could be almost sight-read by a good professional with wonderful results.

Depends.


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