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Hi

There isn't really a minimum practise time, as different people progress at different speeds. The simple rule is the more you practise the better you'll get.

If you start as a complete beginner and do 20mins a day you'll make decent progress for a while, then progress will slow down and eventually you'll probably give up.

I've never really timed myself in respect of practising. The idea that say I have to do 1.5 hours a day at a set time makes it seem like a job to me. I practise and play when I feel like it these days, which is most days.

But I'm mainly not a classical pianist so I don't have a 'repertoire' of pieces, though I suppose I have a non-classical repertoire. I always play the blues everytime I sit at a Piano. And certainly when I was younger, particularly in my 20s I practised a heck of a lot to develop what limited technique I have.

Cheers

My view is that if you have to set minimums then you're not really loving piano and you're bound to quit at some point. Sorry for being blunt but that's what I believe.

I generally don't watch the clock but sometimes I have to set maximums on certain things or else I get carried and then don't have enough time to practice other thing that I want to practice.

I think you're right and that was what I was implying when I said it becomes like a job. You'll start making excuses not to practise, and then it's a downhill slope.

That said I'm sure there are some people for whom it does work, and no doubt there are many great Pianists who didn't neccessarily always enjoy the hours and hours they spent practising. But they had the will power (and time) to do it, and ultimately got their reward.

Cheers

As i understand from the blog, the minimums are not to coerce the OP to sit at the piano and practise, but to make sure that their practice is diverse.

I think the idea of other people using some relative beginner's or even intermediate's blog(I'm referring to the OP here) and their recommended practice times for various parts of piano practice makes little sense. A beginner is not qualified to make recommendations. Unless they've tried many different times for the parts of piano practice they don't really even know if what they post on their blog is best for them no less for other people.

If the general idea is that it is usefull to structure one's practice so that various activities can be performed (a little of tech work, pieces, sight reading, ....), that makes sense. How much of each and how long is something that the teacher will adjust based on the specific situation of each student.

There are many here in the ABF that are self-teaching. I hope none believe 10 min minimum working on repertoire is a sufficient minimum.

Of course, and that's why information on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt unless it comes from acknowledged experts. I think if one practices one hour, 30 minutes out of that is the bare minimum one should be working on repertoire and probably closer to 40-45 minutes.

@ Pianoloverus: And the piece that you are currently learning, is that included in repertoire or next to it?

I agree! I think, even as a more advanced student, if there is something quite specific you're trying to practice, you can make progress with short sessions as long as it's specific enough.

I would think minimums and maximums go hand in hand. You set a minimum amount of time for various aspects of what you're working on so that you can cover everything.

We tend to work on things which are easy to us if left to our own devices. I have found that setting a time limit for something hard for me, such as sight-reading, helps motivate me to push through the tiredness. I think you still need to face the mental tiredness, even if you like what you're doing. How would you tackle that?

Often what you need to do in order to improve isn't the most fun part of playing the piano. You don't really love every moment of practicing. And I think that's okay, and doesn't automatically mean that you aren't loving the piano.

Thank you for your comments, everyone! I just quickly wanted to reply to a few points.


I try to be clear that I'm documenting my own experience and progress at the piano. That includes all the false starts and walking back on stuff. It might give someone ideas on their own practice, but it certainly shouldn't be taken at face value. I think that much is obvious. That said, please read what I wrote -- this was the minimum amount of time I thought of giving to practice a particular activity, and it's by no means the maximum -- those 10 minutes could very well stretch into an hour. It's just the minimum amount of time I found in which I could complete one "practice thought" while practicing.

I think this depends on your goals. I can see situations where the time would be better spent sight-reading, or even practicing scales and technical exercises. I also never follow schedules for the most part, so what I say would probably be geared towards those on that end of the spectrum, for whom their practice is too unstructured. Having an overly structured practice regimen can also be detrimental, but I'm really not qualified to talk about that since I've never actually experienced that!

I use this book a lot (to help with performance anxiety), but I think his main point is a bit different. He does talk about sticking with one thing till it's mastered, but the key practice for him is approaching the music in an effortless, meditative state. He knows that you may only be able to keep that kind of focus for short stretches at a time (like 5 or 10 minutes), and that mastering a single thing to the point of effortless playing may take many months. If you're too eager to get to the end result, it doesn't work because it's really about practicing letting go of effort until the music becomes easy.

The rest of the practicing we do, because we have a lot of music we want and/or need to learn, doesn't count as "practice" in his sense at all. But the benefits of practicing his detached approach do carry over into playing other things.

Actually, if left to my own devices I might work on a challenging passage for any length of time until I feel it has improved. I like being challenged and solving problems. Doing easy stuff bores me.

Dealing with mental tiredness is easy - just take a break. I typically take several breaks during my practice but soon urge to get back to the bench is too strong to resist and I have to go back to practice.

If you find sight reading hard just think of it as a way to explore new music. Try playing anything you can find that's interesting even if it's too hard to sight read fluently. I often play just the opening phrase or main theme of some Chopin nocturne or Beethoven sonata, or anything else I like just to satisfy an inner craving for having that music come from under my fingers (I already know what it sounds like but want to play it myself). I wouldn't say I can sight read such music fluently but if I practice it a couple of times I can play a few bars of advanced music. Even though it's not strictly speaking sight reading I can assure you that this doing this has improved my reading by light years, and most importantly it's very fun. No need to set time minimums when you're doing something fun, right?

Repertoire includes pieces in any stage of learning.

On a given day devoting less than 50% of practice time to learning pieces might be reasonable, but on the average over a week or so it makes little sense for almost everyone. That's why highly experienced pianists on this thread like Bruce, dogperson, and seeker said basically the same thing.

I normally do not have more than 20-30 minutes daily to practice, work, family you know. Therefore I spend literally like minute or two just to warm up finger (scale, arpeggios, or some other excercises), and I go straight ahead to my repertoire.

I do not play by time, but by things I want to achieve. Not always possible.

I do not play on days when I am too tired or my head is too busy, as it's just counterproductive.

I spend literally zero minutes to warm up. I have never felt the need for it. But then, I don't play very fast.

When you get into more advanced pieces, some warm-up is better than no warm-up including stretching exercises away from the piano. The violinist Yehudi Menuhin did meditation and made his students do Yoga to get the mind & body in shape. Warm-up before playing lower level pieces not a big deal.

Playing progress is incremental. Putting in 10 minutes a day may be enough to do beginner pieces. As the pieces gets more advanced, you need to put in more time. The first 10 minutes just to sight read a piece from top to bottom. Very few people can practice 2+ hours continuously so we take breaks in between.

When we're learning a piece for a music lesson / for fun, we can take all the time we want. When we have a performance coming up, we'd practice as much as possible. There is a deadline and we need to bring the pieces up to the performance level before the event. Time is not on our side.