Practice Time Poll

Cleartone · Post by **Cleartone** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 3:16 am

[quote] ---------------- On 3/29/2004 7:37:57 PM
<<Also I think it is great that these mothers of flutists involve
themselves with their childrens playing, however I would like to hear more from
them in this forum.>> I guess I would be one of "these
mothers". My daughter used to read and post here...she has a member
name. There is a reason she stopped posting here that I won't go into. I
started posting when I picked up the flute again after many years but will
occasionally post a question that my daughter has or can answer questions from
my daughters experience in response to a question. I was wondering why you would
like to hear more from her? Kim ---------------- [/quote] It just seems Kim that
you post a lot, and you are always talking about your daughter and I see none of
your daughters' experience. It just made me wonder a bit. I don't know what
her reasons are for not participating and I didn't mean to make you paranoid.
take care

Louisa · Post by **Louisa** » Fri May 28, 2004 5:30 pm

I think it's great if you can practice six hours a
day! Unfortunately I can't as I have three children and a husband to look
after! But I've had to up my practice time to two hours a day from one as I
really want to make a go of this and do all my exams.[:)]

SaraBeth · Post by **SaraBeth** » Sat May 29, 2004 8:44 pm

I have practiced about three hours a day for four
years (since fourth grade). I love my flute and sometimes get in trouble for
playing it too much. Is there such a thing?

flutegirl49 · Post by **flutegirl49** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:45 am

wow.. i wish i had a mother to practice playing flute with.. that would make it so much more fun!

roseanglaise · Post by **roseanglaise** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:27 pm

Louisa - I have 3 kids and hubby to fit in around practice too! Nice to find company...I guess I manage about 1hr/1h30 a day, but would love to be able to do more.
Also, I noticed the flutist/flautist issue at the beginning of the thread. I'd actually never come across the word 'flutist' until I found flute pages from the US (I'm a Brit in France). We were told at school that flutist was a spelling error pure and simple. Oh, and colour must have a u in it, of course. Guess it's just a cross-Atlantic thing!

fluteguy18 · Post by **fluteguy18** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:08 pm

I wish I werent so busy. I miss practicing. Even though I play several hours a day, very little of the time is spent actually practicing [rehearsals and such]. I do well to get an hour to an hour and a half in, on my busiest days. Other days, I get two hours of practice in, but it still doesnt feel like enough.... but again.... I am a performance major, so I love to practice and love to perform [but I am not making a stereotype, I just personally think I fit my major particularly well].

But, after this semester, I probably wont have to be in 3 large ensembles, and 2 small ensembles anymore. It will probably cut down to 2 large ensembles and 2 small ensembles. My flute professor has openly admitted that she wants desperately for her flute majors wont have to be in 3 large ensembles anymore [she is now trying to up her number of flute majors from 5 to as many as possible]. So, that will be quite a few extra practice hours for me! YAY!

sidekicker · Post by **sidekicker** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:41 am

The length of time one practices is not nearly as relevant as how one practices. Simply playing/practicing for 4-6 hours means nothing unless you are accomplishing something. In many cases, practicing that long will do nothing more than reinforce bad techniques. Many flutists who are organized in their habits, have a preconceived goal(s) for each session, and work that into a larger practice routine to gain maximum results (e.g., you probably won't set out to learn Rogrigo's Concierto Pastorale in one practice session and expect it to stick), will do just fine using 45 minutes-2 hours per day.

As a conservatory graduate student who also worked another day job, I was lucky to get 1.5 hours a day and often had to skip practicing on days that were particularly busy with work, classes, evening gigs, etc. However, each week I was still able to pull off at least one demanding etude (like Jean-Jean, advanced Andersen opus, etc.) and one (sometimes 2) complete and difficult major work in the flute repertoire (e.g., Nielsen, Prokofieff, Reinecke, etc.) for my lesson. Until the day I graduated, not once was I ever ill-prepared for a lesson. And I had a pretty strict teacher who had little (actually, none

) patience for people who showed up at lessons without a very firm grasp on whatever was on the music stand.

The trick to effective practicing is not really in the time frame one uses. It is in the plan beforehand and the focus you have while you are practicing. I always, always, had an organized plan for how I was going to learn what I needed to learn for my next lesson; I had no other choice because of time constraints. And when I was teaching I always recommended that my students sit down first and plan out what they expected to accomplish in that particular session before they played a single note. I saw dramatic and positive results with those who took the time to do this. I still practice this way even though I no longer play professionally.

SK

fluteguy18 · Post by **fluteguy18** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:07 pm

I understand, and I do practice effectively. However, I just really like to be able to spend a couple of solid hours getting a lot finished rather than a shorter practice session with still a substantial amount of work done, but not quite as much as I would like.

usually in a good practice session I spend about 20-30 minutes focusing on technique things [tone, intonation, finger technique, articulation etc. etc.] about 20 minutes on an etude, 15 minutes on a Moyse excercise or two, then a solid 45 minutes to an hour on two pieces that I am working on.

avins · Post by **avins** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:31 am

This thread has been very educational for me, gives one a good direction of how to work ..
My approach to learning /practising,anything for that matter (university . swimming , music etc) concerning time, has alwys been with time targets.
I set myself to practise the flute 2 hours daily , and 4 hours daily on weekends and days off from work, with 3-5 minutes break evey half our of practising .
About 15 minutes -long tones ,then half hour , I go through all the scales , and then pick up on one scale, more intensly ,, then 30 minute on a technical study , and then , with time left I work on some "real musical piece" , I must say that as Im quite a beginner , I am concentrating more on technique and sometimes dont even touch a musical piece. I rather leave it for the weekends when I have more time

sidekicker · Post by **sidekicker** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:16 am

Avins --

That sounds like an excellent approach. It's really difficult to cram into one day all of what life requires us to accomplish during that period. You might also look for ways to vary that routine if you can so that you don't get stuck in a practicing rut. IMO, if you only have 30 minutes to practice, it should be spent on scales and arpeggios. Even though that is not "real music", the time spent getting -- and keeping -- those under your belt at all times will allow you to learn pieces much more quickly because you will be able to focus on interpreting the music rather than getting too bogged down in its technical aspects.

SK

pied_piper · Post by **pied_piper** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:32 am

I always found it helpful to coordinate scales, studies, and musical works in the same key. For example, if you are working on a piece in the key of D, then preface that with a bit of work on the D scale and etudes in D. That seems to make a lot of sense because you develop a bit of synergy so that the scales and etudes help the musical work and vice-versa.

Obviously, it's not always possible to do this. For example, you still need to learn all the scales and musical works are less common in some of the more obscure keys like Cb.

TheScarecrow · Post by **TheScarecrow** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:48 am

I practice the oboe about two hours a day. I do longtones with a tuner for the entire range of my instrument, then I do some warm up type exercises. All my scales in major and the three minor forms with a metronome. I start and end on an 8th note with sixteenths in between, I do this at 60 beats then 100 then 120. Then I did some articulation practicing. Working on oboe single double and tripple tonguing, often times on scales. Then I find a technically difficult etude or song to work on, I like to pick a new one every couple days and get it all down well. Then I do a musically difficult peice slower peice to work on tone, phrasing, and vibrato etc. If I have time left I play just some fun but challenging music that I want to play.

On flute I practice every day, but as it is not my main instrument I do not practice as rigorously.

RoseInMisery · Post by **RoseInMisery** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 7:48 pm

Personally I practice anywhere from 30 minutes to four or five hours. It's a wacky range.

It really depends on how I'm feeling for the day and the amount of time I have to practice. If my schedule is annoyingly hectic, then I probably won't have time to break down my music measure by measure. But if I have an empty day, then maybe I will look at every measure to make sure it's all working out well.

But I won't spend the time being unproductive!

Look today for instance, I didn't feel like I could comprehend learning new things, so I just went over what I knew already and made sure it was solid.

As I've gotten older, my practice schedule has, of course, increased. Especially with college coming up. But it's not like it's a forced. I don't wake up and say, I must practice 5 hours today! I enjoy playing, so I play.

arabians207 · Post by **arabians207** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:52 pm

Not including any rehearsal at school, probably an hour every couple days or so, unfortunately.

I have too much going on and too much homework to do a lot of practicing. I also play violin so i have to practice that instrument as well. When i was getting ready for all-state auditions (violin) i was not practicing flute at all (except for maybe 30 mins before my lesson.. my teacher completely understood though, lol) i was practicing violin every spare moment. (I got first alternate BTW.. which is really good considering I've had private lessons for 4 months)

Right now im also kinda.. argh practicing as we just got done with marching band, and i just got down with all my all-state stuff. (Possibly, i may still get to play)

In the summer i was practicing probably about 2-3 hours on each instrument.. often more on flute as i was looking for new flutes so that was more reason to practice! At that time i was practicing both All-State audition stuff as well

brina · Post by **brina** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 4:49 pm

I practice every day 2-4 hours. It depends on how much time i have. First I do all the scales and a practice i don't know how to say in english (u play a low note and then just blow differently higher notes but u have to play them piano and not changing the position of your fingers). and then i play everything else.