Need A Piano Practising Timetable

How much time do pianists practice per day?

There is the (in)famous and ridiculously over-analyzed Ericsson study looking at musicians training at the Music Academy in Berlin. [1]Unfortunately, a google search for the figures is shockingly difficult but here is the the critical figure 2: Proportion of time practicing with the violin.If you triage the students into the ones who were really good (award winners), the ones who were good (professionals), and the ones who didn't get anywhere (music teachers), best and good students practiced a lot more than the teachers.How much? It depends on the age. The best and good students would practice 10ish hours as 10 year olds and 20-30 hours in their teens. The poor students were in the 6-10 hour range. Per day, that's roughly 3-5 hours daily vs. 1-2 hours. Knowing professional musicians that sounds like roughly the right order of magnitude. Going back to figure 2, the notable thing is that the best musicians had very structured practice times and took clear breaks. This gets into the famous line from Ericsson's study: "deliberate practice".There is also a bunch of data about pianists that I'm not willing to extract but the brief summary is that the distribution looks around the same. 10 years average 5 hours a week and a 16 year old would average 20 hours.Probably the really famous figure from this paper is this one:The best accumulate around 10,000 hours. This is the data that Malcolm Gladwell uses to justify his 10,000 hour argument in Outliers.But as mentioned, this data is highly scrutinized so take it as you will. However, anecdotally when I was practicing the piano, I played ~1 hour a day and I sucked and my significantly more gifted brother was playing ~2 hours a day. His teachers wanted him to be practicing as much as 3 hours.[1] The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

How do I schedule my piano practice?

>>How do I schedule?When I was your age, I found that when I set a schedule and blocked out certain times, I would stick with it. My normal routine was to get up at six a.m., take a shower, eat breakfast and practice at the same time. I left for school around seven thirty. After school I would practice for a few hours, go do kid stuff, eat dinner, then blow off the evening. When there was no school I’d practice from 7 - 10 then go do kids stuff. We lived on a lake so there was plenty of distraction. Eventually I secured permission and a key from the school to use the choir room and auditorium to practice so I got up at 5:30, my father dropped me off at the school on his way to work, I’d practice until homeroom and had my lunch and study halls transferred to the auditorium. In the summer, I had permission from two neighbors to practice on their pianos and three churches to practice on their organs. I would leave at nine in the morning by bike, hit the three churches and practice the same music at all three, then stop at the two neighbors’ houses for one hour each.>>What kind of habits/routines should I follow/make?For now, I think setting aside a certain block of time and never deviate from it would be good. Don’t overlook time away from the piano to run intervals, scales and songs through your head such as riding in a car or bus, lying in the sun, lying in bed, etcetera.>>How do I practice?Perfectly. It is very easy to practice bad habits and they’re difficult to break.>>>What kind of things should I pick out to practice and how?Whatever you like since you’re not taking lessons for the summer. Personally, I practiced for possibilities. Through the interlibrary loan system I borrowed hundreds of books and used them to practice sight reading. I also spent a lot of time sight transposing. I would often sit with a hymn book and sight sing all the parts to about ten hymns a day.>>>How much should I practice?There is no magic number for it is different with every person.Two other pieces of advice, listen to every record or song you can get your hands on. Read the liner notes. You don’t often find those on the internet but they often have valuable insight into the musicians and relationships. The other thing is to jam with other people. Find other instruments or singers and get together with them to make music. One jam session is worth ten practices and will show you what you have to work on. You can steal ideas from your friends and you’ll have fun.

How many hours is enough for practicing the piano every day, and is setting hours the best way to practice?

It really depends on what your goals are. Most concert pianists will tell you that they do between 3 and 5 hours per day. The world record must be held by Valentina Lisitsa who apparently does (and I'm going to spell it!)...THIRTEEN.However, it is QUALITY of practice that is most important and it is not possible for the human mind to focus for prolonged periods without a break. A friend of mine took lessons with a leading concert pianist who informed him that she did a total of 5 hours per day, but no longer than an hour at a given period. Her practice was interspersed with other activities so that she could always return mentally refreshed.What is certainly proven is that the person who does even just 1/2 an hour per day for 5 days a week will make much more progress than the person who does 2 1/2 hours just once a week. A little and often pays far greater dividends than a lot and irregularly. In other words, a schedule is vital, but it should be approached methodically: you decide what you are going to concentrate on in a particular session. My teacher always used to advise: "Resist the temptation to give yourself a concert." That can be reserved as a "treat" at the end of a genuine practice session.

I practice my piano for 15 hours every day. Is this good enough or should I practice more?

I’m going to give you my personal insight.I’m addicted to classical piano. At 12 years old, I obtained the Associate Diploma from the Royal Conservatory, Honours with Distinction. I’ve been playing the piano since I was six years old, and I didn’t even learn how to read musical scores until when I was ten years old - I was simply obsessed with the piano for as long as I can remember. Whenever I’m dealing with stress or adversity of any sort, I instinctively walk to my piano and start playing through Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, etc. All in all, I think that it’s safe to say that I frickin’ love my piano.If piano is truly your passion, then 15 hours is understandable. If you genuinely love everything about the piano, then you would lose track of time whenever you’re playing, and focus entirely on the music. However, if you’re practicing that much, then that’s definitely a concern. 15 hours is 62.5% of your day, for goodness’ sake. What about food? What about exercise? What about your social life? What about work? Remember, if you want to be a great pianist, you must live a healthy and balanced life, otherwise you’ll sound like nothing more than a well-programmed but emotionless robot when you’re performing, since great pianists play out of both inspiration and practice - you can’t sound inspired if your entire life is spent practicing robotically.I practice for around 1–2 hours every day. For me, an effective and focused one-hour practice session suffices when I do not have a lot of time. When I have more time on my hands, I like to extend my repertoire and take on a new piece. 1–2 hours might not sound like much, but it is enough if you make the most out of the time. Remember - music cannot be quantified. Practice less, and think more when you are practicing.Also, if your sole intention is to “get better” at piano, and if you don’t truly appreciate piano performance as an art, then you’re missing the point. Piano performance isn’t about speed - it’s about feeling the music.