Suppose I polled a classroom full of conservatory students and asked them, on average, how may hours they practiced each day. I’d probably see many hands up for three to four hours, quite a few who’d boast a six-hour daily grind, and presumably a handful of nutcases (none of them being pianists, of course) claiming to practice upwards of eight to ten hours a day.
In this hypothetical room I’m imagining, there’s an increasing murmuring as less and less students put their hands up for the longer practicing times.
“That guy seriously practices nine hours a day? How’s that possible?”
“I usually only get two to three hours in. Should I be doing more?”
What I find more astounding than the long hours of daily practice that most music students commit to is their emotional attachment to the quantity of something like practice, which is very qualitative in its nature. It’s as though students view practice as a commodity in which it’s desirable to get as much as possible, regardless of what kind of practice they’re getting.
Now let’s take the imaginary student claiming to practice eight hours a day and have her break down her process for us. She might say that her first hour is her warmup, a prescribed list of scales and etudes that she runs through each day. After her warmup, she may just say:
“Then I practice my rep for the rest of the day.”
To this I would ask, “Well, how do you practice?” She might list off practice techniques she uses such as slow practice, practicing small chunks before putting them together, or she may even incorporate a tuner or metronome. But it’s also quite likely that I would hear the student say, “I dunno, I just practice until I get tired, and then I take a break and practice some more. I do that until it’s time to go home and sleep.”
This is where my fascination with musicians and their almost religious commitment to long hours in the practice room turns into a legitimate concern not only for their ability to allocate time and energy efficiently, but also for their physical and emotional well-being.
I am by no means claiming that it’s impossible to practice effectively for eight hours a day, but I will put forward the hypothesis that as your practice hours increase, so does the difficulty in maintaining a high quality of mental focus and physical dexterity throughout your practice sessions. There are people out there that can remain at their best through grueling hours of practice for days and weeks on end, but I am proud to say that I am not one of them.
And for your sake, I hope that you’re not one of them either.
From a young age, the idea of practicing long hours every day never appealed to me. Most musicians would ague that they don’t love the idea either, but that they have no choice other than to practice as much or even longer than their peers in order to be competitive and have some shot at gainful employment after completing their studies.
I’m not here to tell you that you should practice less or that the quality of your practice is questionable. What I do hope to explore with you is the possibility of a practice regimen that is rooted in awareness of what one is doing and how those procedures relate to the musical goals one has in mind.
Why not just practice more?
After all, practice makes perfect, doesn’t it? If the goal is to get as good as we possibly can at playing our instruments, and practice is the method by which we hone our abilities, it would make sense that all practice is inherently good, and that we would want to practice as much as our schedules and bodies allow us to. But subscribing to this mentality involves a number of assumptions that many musicians who abide by a “the more, the better” policy may not be actively aware or considerate of.
The first assumption is that one knows how to practice, and therefore all of their practice must be effective in helping them reach their musical goals. A hard-working music student who spends hours a day grinding away in the practice rooms must know what they’re doing, right?
Just like any other discipline, there are proper and improper approaches to the work that will yield desirable or less than satisfactory results, respectively. One has to assume that their approach is the right one in order to justify the notion that all of their practice is beneficial and worthwhile.
The second assumption is that there is no limit on the amount of practice one can or should log in an afternoon, week, or month. As long as you’re getting in more hours than the next person, then you’re doing your job at staying on top and remaining competitive. This assumption leaves little or no room for considering the quality of practice one is achieving, especially when it comes to that fifth or sixth hour of practice at the end of the day. If an athlete designed their training regimen in a similar fashion, pushing as hard as they possibly could every single workout, every single day, would that lead to desirable results?
The third assumption is that logging practice hours works in the same way that punching the clock at an office job does. The more hours you work, the more payoff you get. The majority of students are conditioned from a young age to view practice this way, where the “payoff” is often in the form of affirmation from their parents or teacher for allocating so much time to their instrument. But unlike many other occupations where employees are compensated for the time they “put in”, it’s hard to think an example where a musician is directly paid for the number of hours they practice.
Adding the element of effectiveness to the practice formula
I am not here to tell you that you’re practicing too much, or that you’re practicing the wrong way. I’d only like to introduce the element of effectiveness and how it can be incorporated into your practice routine. Effectiveness is the factor in the practice formula that can be added to the time and effort we already include and increase the results exponentially. Let me show you what I mean by illustrating the most basic practice formula:
(practice) x (amount of time) = Progress
This is the traditional approach to practice, where the more practice you put in, the better the results you get. On a micro level, it’s believed that one who practices five hours a day will progress faster and further than one who only practices two hours a day. On a macro level, a student that has played their instrument for fifteen years will be superior to someone who has only played for five.
It doesn’t take much time looking around a conservatory or checking out the bios on any orchestra’s website to discover that these traditional formulas do not always ring true. There are many musicians in the world’s great orchestras who started “late”, and there are plenty of successful students at top conservatories who have social lives, so there must be more at play here than time spent in the practice room.
When we add the element of effectiveness into our formula, progress made during each hour spent practicing can be increased exponentially. This can be shown in the following formula:
(practice) x (amount of time)n = (progress)n
*where n equals the effectiveness of practice method
We can see in this second formula that the amount of progress made in any given amount of practice time can be exponentially increased by the effectiveness of one’s practice. This can allow for a lower value for the amount of time (less time practicing) while still achieving the desired amount of progress.
The above formulas are only meant to be an illustration, and increasing the effectiveness of one’s practice can be a complex and multifaceted endeavor. But it’s worth considering the possibilities unlocked when effectiveness is included in your practice plan, not just hours spent in the woodshed.
What about talent?
It might be true that some people don’t need to practice as much as others. Is it because they have some natural gift? Or is it because they are just more effective with their practice time?
The good news is, it just doesn’t matter. Suppose that inborn talent is making the playing field uneven for less gifted players, there’s still nothing that can be done about it! But anyone can reconsider their practice habits and plan for more effective use of their time. Even if the amount of time you have to practice isn’t completely in your control, how you use that time absolutely is!
Where should I start?
Effective practice, deliberate practice, mindful practice, practice awareness… there are many terms out there, and each may have slightly different definitions. But all of these concepts are routes that lead to the same destination of realizing one’s potential through the work they put in. With no shortage of literature on the subject, it can be hard to decide where to begin looking, or what to begin improving upon in one’s approach to practice.
One place to start is at the source. Begin to notice and observe your practice habits. Maybe you think you know how you practice, and maybe you already keep a practice journal. But whatever it is that you do in the practice room, begin to ask yourself:
“Is this helpful?”
This question is not meant to come from a place of judgement. It is simply a way to start the conversation with yourself about the effectiveness of your practice. You don’t always need to answer “yes, that was helpful,” or “no, that was a waste of time”. What matters is that you start to ask questions and stay curious. You might be surprised by what you discover or decide to change just by asking this one simple question!