How much should you practice?
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How much should you practice?
There’s a lot of advice out there about how much musicians should practice. How many times per week? How long per session? An hour a day? Five hours a day? Does it depend on level? Some people seem to believe that no matter how much time you spend singing or playing your instrument, you should be doing more.
So, in my considered opinion, how much should a musician practice?
Enough. LOL
Haha, Laurel, very funny. How much practice is enough?
Not too little and not too much. LOL!
Okay seriously… “Enough” really is my answer. And I really am going to define “enough” as not too little and not too much.
What does too little practice look like?
Frequent practice gaps of a day or more
Not covering all assigned material in a practice session
Not long enough to achieve a flow state
No noticeable improvement by the end of the session
Progress is not carrying over day to day
Student feels frustrated at slow progress
Weekly goals are not met
Previous knowledge or skills deteriorate
Stalling or regression of functional skills
What’s too much practice?
Physical pain from overuse of hands, fingers, voice
Tension or pain in other areas of the body, such as shoulders, jaw, back, and neck
Emotional distress, strong negative feelings towards music, practicing, and/or yourself
Mental burnout, feeling checked out
Covering so broad an amount of material at once that there’s no chance to learn any of it in depth
Over-cramming the mind and motor memory to the point that new work isn’t retained
Marathon sessions (four hours at a time without breaks is too much for any musician, at any level)
When it comes to length and type of practice, everyone has different needs and limits. Some people can practice for two hours and not overdo it. Some people can practice for half an hour and it’s too much. Some people can practice for half an hour and it’s not enough.
There’s that word again, “enough.” Enough for what?
Enough to make progress on your goals.
Your goals will be personal. There’s no one-size-fits-all standard for what you should achieve in your music study, or how quickly. Check out How long do I have to take lessons? and How soon will I see results from my music lessons? for more about setting and working towards goals in your lessons.
Aside from musical goals, there are practical needs to balance, like emotional health, physical comfort/safety, mental resources, and the need to handle your other business in life.
You should practice for as long as you can continue to make progress.
You should stop practicing when your practice stops being effective, or when you begin to experience negative results.
If there’s no way to balance your too-little and too-much concerns, then your goal is unrealistic.
For example, let’s say you’re trying to learn three new pieces per week. And let’s say that would require 15 minutes on each piece every day, a total of 45 minutes daily. But you can only concentrate for 20 minutes at a time, and most days you don’t have an opportunity to do more than one 20-minute session. That means you won’t have time to learn that many pieces. Your goal is unrealistic.
If you want to learn a long, challenging performance piece that would take you about 90 minutes a day to prepare in time for your recital, but you get painful physical tension after 45 minutes of practicing, your goal is unrealistic. (And you should probably look into Alexander Technique or another method of developing physical alignment for music-making.)
If you have four weeks to learn a four-page piece, but your brain starts to scramble after you’ve worked through four measures of music and you can’t absorb more than that per day, your goal is unrealistic.
If your piece is so challenging for you that you can’t retain almost any of what you practiced the day before, regardless of the amount of time you spend, your goal is unrealistic.
The point is, you need achievable goals, and you will have to modify or let go of goals that require more practice than you are capable of.
This is the part where I remind you to trust your teacher and follow their guidance for goals, practice methods, and everything else.
Hey! Trust your teacher! Follow your teacher’s guidance about goals and practice!
Okay but LITERALLY how much time should I practice?
FINE, I’ll give you some examples of recommended practice time for different musicians.
But first, let me explain how I’m making some of these calculations.
Several factors in practicing are going to vary for different ages, stages, and levels of commitment:
Length of practice session
Quantity of time per week
Frequency of practice
Level of supervision
Degree of challenge
Some thoughts about what that means for specific groups:
Beginners need to practice every single day, even twice a day, regardless of age.
You will forget what you already figured out if you don’t reinforce it immediately. Beginners often lose a lot of progress or regress when they skip even one day of practice. More experienced musicians, on the other hand, are more able to retain what they’ve learned in practice when they skip a day or two.
The more advanced you are, the longer your practice sessions will be.
This is partly because you’ll build up endurance, and partly because you’ll have more music to work on.
The younger the student, the shorter their practice session.
This is more about personal maturity than musical skill or interest. Little kids can only focus for five to fifteen minutes at a time. By age ten or so, we’re able to concentrate for longer, but 45 minutes is still kind of pushing it. Hour long practice sessions should only be expected for students who are teens and older.
The younger the student is, the more guidance and supervision they will need from adults at home when they practice, regardless of their level of proficiency.
Even elementary age students who have been taking lessons for years are not necessarily developmentally capable of managing their own practice schedule and methods.
Students who have more ambitious goals will have to put in more time overall.
This certainly means practicing every day, and it may also mean multiple practice sessions per day. Ambitious goals would include things like learning more difficult repertoire, playing or singing with more refined artistry, learning a great quantity of music, or learning and advancing very quickly.
More ambitious goals and stronger motivation will most likely also mean greater tolerance for challenging practice sessions.
Things like more complex theory and analysis, rigorous metronome work, very detail-oriented practice, advanced or extended techniques, and more difficult repertoire will all take more grit to get through.
A student who is strongly motivated and drawn to music may be able to handle, and benefit from, longer and more intense practice sessions - or they may not.
Personally, I was very interested in piano as a kid, and even as young as age ten or eleven, I would sometimes sit at the piano for two hours at a time - until my mom told me I had to stop and go play outside! The vast majority of kids will not be like me, and that’s not a problem. Lacking the ability to focus on music intensely and/or for an extended period of time does not necessarily indicate a lack of interest or passion.
Different people will practice differently.
What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another person with the exact same age and level and ambitions. Attention span depends on both the person and the circumstances. And everyone reacts differently to challenges and will need their own strategies to thrive in their music studies.
Every day’s practice will be different, because we have different feelings and experiences every day.
Each session, you should keep going as long as you are still getting positive results, and you should stop when you’ve accomplished all your daily goals, or when you reach a point of diminishing returns and your time and energy are not being spent effectively.
The same person won’t always need the same practice schedule.
We all change over time. Our goals will shift, our lifestyles will demand adjustments, our personalities will evolve. Musicians will always need to adjust the way they practice to fit who they are at this moment in their life.
You shouldn’t feel ashamed about your practice capabilities.
Stop “should”ing all over yourself and trying to meet perceived expectations about practice time that are not doable for you. Be realistic about when you’ve maxed out. Pushing yourself to keep playing or singing for another 30 minutes after your body is too tired or your brain is overloaded doesn’t help you learn anything. And making yourself feel bad about the way you practice doesn’t help you, either.
One more factor: Everything I’ve said so far is based on the assumption that you’re practicing to improve. But you don’t have to improve. You can practice less and merely maintain your current level. Honestly, and this is kind of a secret, musicians who have attained advanced skills can pretty much tread water at a fairly high level by practicing haphazardly only a few times a week. Ideally, you’ll set the bar a little higher than that for yourself.
Numbers, please.
OKAY. Here are my practice time suggestions for typical students with moderate to strong motivation:
Preschool or early elementary beginner: 5 - 15 minutes of guided play and listening every day
Elementary age beginner: 5 - 20 minutes of supervised practice once or twice a day
Elementary age early intermediate: 20-45 minutes daily, with minimal supervision or self-guided, at least 5 days a week
Elementary age intermediate: 30-60 minutes self-guided practice daily, at least 5 days a week
Middle school beginner: 20 - 45 minutes daily, minimally supervised, at least 5 days a week
Middle school intermediate: 30 - 75 minutes daily, at least four days a week
Middle school advanced: 45 - 90 minutes daily, at least four days a week
High school or adult beginner: 15 - 45 minutes daily
High school or adult intermediate: 45 - 60 minutes daily, at least five days a week
High school or adult advanced: 60 - 120 minutes daily, at least four days a week
My last tip: You’ll never be practicing “enough” if you aren’t practicing well. Read Do I HAVE to practice? for a deep dive on what rewarding and productive practicing looks like, and check out the Practicing category for more articles on the topic.
