By Laurie Niles: I'll make a confession: even when I was in music school, I never could practice six hours in one day.
And for some reason "six hours" was the number that stuck with me, as the pinnacle of practice. "Great violinists practice six hours a day," this was in my head. There are elite musicians who do practice that much, if not for their whole lives, at least for a period in their development.
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But most mere mortals have a hard time with that, even as an outlier maximum number of hours. For me, even when I was preparing for a recital or audition, three to three and a half hours was the maximum I could muster in a given day.
Now, I'm talking about practicing, not about playing. Yes, I've had orchestra days with double rehearsals and performances - many hours of playing. But that doesn't count.
Practicing is another thing. Practicing is when you are alone, working on your technique, working on your pieces, doing your repetitions. You have to carve out time for it. And it's intense: you don't get the same kinds of natural breaks as you do in a rehearsal, nor do you have the social aspect of that. It's physically demanding, and it's mentally demanding. And you can't do anything else while you are doing it, including washing the dishes, grocery shopping, caring for children, working for money, socializing with friends... If you catch my drift.
So it's not simply about whether you have the physical or mental stamina for it - although that is a big consideration. It's not just about whether you have the will power or inspiration for it - although that is another big consideration. It's also about whether or not you can set aside that much time and also do the many things you need to do to maintain your existence as a human being.
For this vote, I'm curious about your maximum practice time for a day. This is not about "how much do you practice every day" or about averages. I wanted to know, what is the maximum amount of practice that you have ever been able to do in just one day, and under what circumstances were you able to do that, inspired to do that, forced to do that, etc.
Please participate in the vote, selecting whatever is the closest to your maximum-ever practice day, and then tell us all about it in the comments.
You might also like:
- How to practice, in six steps
- 100 Days of Practice with Hilary Hahn
- Music Practice with Your Child: How to Make It Work Better
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