What is appropriaate practice time for beginner?

[sinebar]

I've been playing for 7 months now but really don't know how long I should be practicing. I usually practice about 1-1/2-2 hours a day. Is that enough? Also should practice time increase with skill level?

[kflutist]

I think your practice times are really good. My personal thoughts, and anyone feel free to correct me, but quantity of practice should come second to quality. Basically 2 hours of being frustrated will do less good than 30 minutes of focused work. Thats my thoughts.

[flutepicc06]

Kflutist has it dead on. You can play through music for 6 hours a day, but if you don't spend any of that time focusing on improving tone/technique, or learning a piece (sans mistakes, which will mean taking it slowly and isolating trouble spots as needed), then you really haven't gained much from those hours of playing. For a beginner, I would strongly encourage you to spend a solid chunk of your time on basics, such as scales (major/minor/whole tone with varying articulations) and other technical exercises, as well as on tone studies. You should mix up your routine every day (i.e. don't play the same exercises in the same order every time) to avoid getting bored, and thus zoning out. However long it takes you to do these exercises (plus whatever pieces you are currently working up) correctly is how long you should be practicing.

[Flute_star3]

I have a question about practice time too. Since it's starting to be the holidays I have a lot of music to practice for one concert. My problem is that I get carried away with my practicing and then end up not being able to get to everything even if I spend more than an hour and a half. Needless to say, other things i need to do don't get done either. I need some tips on how to keep the pieces I already know well polished, and the ones I'm learning well learned in a small amount of time. How do I keep them in my muscle memory without practicing them all everyday?

[Jaded]

I don't know that one can retain an entire repertoire constantly at performance level in any realistic sense if it is very large. One can retain skills and knowledge by reusing it on different pieces.

Even if you were able to retain a large repertoire in your head available for performance at all times, would someone your age want to be playing a work the same way five years from now that you did five years ago? I think that forgetting a little and going back to reexperience the music is a good thing if one wishes to progress.

(Take that with a grain of salt. I'm just a beginner expressing opinions that I should probably keep to myself. They're based on some comments I've heard from major conductors regarding how their perceptions of various works of music evolve. I'll leave it at that and go back to trying to get two notes in the second register of my simple system flutes to come out sounding right....)

[Flute_star3]

Jaded, you are perfectly qualified to give advice in this subject. My concert is in nine days, so this is a short term thing. Maybe I wasn't clear. Is there some way I can keep these pieces good without playing them all the way through everyday?

[atoriphile]

I mark problem passages in my music and focus on them rather than the whole piece. That's the only way I can do it since I work a full time job and don't have a lot of time to practice.

[Jaded]

Okay, my two cents worth.

I've spent years trying to persuade myself that someday I am going to reach the point where my sight reading skills and physical memory of where the notes are on a keyboard will enable me to play any piece of music from sight with a high degree of precision. I had a piano teacher decades back who could do it with any piece that he proposed I attempt. (I've never seen practice on the piano as anything other than a disappointing experience given the level of talent that I know exists in this world.)

I don't believe anyone will reach a performance level, assuming you have high standards and a desire to express the music in a unique manner, without a lot of focused practice prior to the performance. Beyond that, you can certainly develop your sight reading skills and ability to recall where to place your fingers to sound different notes and to modify notes and how they are played (arpeggios, tremolo, etc.) by simply practicing a lot of different music.

I think the most important thing is to not play works that are too difficult for you at any given time, but to always be trying to learn something new, if only on the back burner, at a somewhat higher level than you normally play. Just don't try to force the music at a higher level than you can handle, or you will sound like an amateur trying to play music that is too difficult for you.

In a nutshell, some pro's go into near isolation for a month before a performance and do nothing but practice the relevant works. That's how they stand on the stage with no sheet music and play from memory. Playing from memory creates the abilities that most people associate with a high level of performance. It replaces reading sheet music with emphasis on the method and nuances of the music.

When practice goes from a time consuming task to your favorite thing to do, you move on to the next level. You have to be willing to fully embrace that fact if you are going to move on. Once you've memorized a piece, working with it becomes part of your journey through life, as you try to perfect it, to make it resonate more with your own sensibilities, within prescribed boundaries. It becomes the doorway through which you pass to reach your own little piece of heaven. Even if you never stand on a stage, or perform at a level that brings kudos at the highest levels, no one can take that little piece of heaven away from you once you've claimed it as your own. (If you grasp this, you understand how inferior the broadcast media truly is to the study of music.)

Here's a link to a great, young pianist:

http://www.bbtrust.com/2006/fellowships ... ciute.html