One of the most popular questions I get asked is:

“How many hours do you practice a day?”  

If you look at the syllabus/course-description I receive every year on the first day of studio class from my professor, it says that I should be practicing a minimum of 4 hours everyday.  You have the people who basically count every second they spend in the music building “practicing.”  You have the people who include rehearsal time in this figure.

On a given day, I spend anywhere between 4-10 hours playing violin.  Yes, it’s a wide range of hours, but it really does depend on the day, week, month, time of year, what I’m doing, etc.  The number of hours of that playing time spent practicing: probably 2-3 hours.

Yeah.  I’m short an hour from the minimum.  Does this make me a bad student?  I don’t think so.  Practicing is absolutely useless if it’s not effective.  Mindless practicing is boring.  It’s tedious.  It reenforces bad habits.  The key to effective practicing is efficiency.  Everything you do has to be deliberate.  

Every Sunday, I try to create a practice schedule for that week with the following questions in mind:
1.  What are my major priorities this week (other than violin)?  
2.  If these priorities take precedence over practicing, what can I do to make the most of the time I have? 

Let’s say that I have a mid-term this week worth 30% of my final grade and a research paper due Friday, worth 25% of my grade.  I teach 3 students this week.  I work monday evening.  My lesson is on Wednesday.  I am scheduled to perform the 3rd movement of Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in studio class, which is also on Wednesday.  In this case, my academic work is going to take precedence over violin, considering both the test and paper are worth a good chunk of my final grade for said classes.  With work added on top of this, I need to maximize the amount of practice time I have.

So in outlining my practicing, I plan the following:
Monday: 1 hour of slow rhythmic practice.  Isolate string crossings.  Slowly build tempo.  Tempo goal for the day: Quarter=120 (2 hours)
Mental practice time: 30 minutes 

Tuesday: 3 octave D major Scale - Quarter = 60.  Spiccato to détaché exercises.   Run Tchaik 3rd movement at Quarter=100.  Slow passage work in chromatic sections.   Tempo goal for the day: Quarter= 144 (2 hours)
Mental practice time: 30 minutes  

Wednesday: Before lesson - Warm up with scale.  Build tempo.  Goal: Quarter=156 (1 hour).  Before studio class performance - Warm up with scale.  Start beginning of sections in tempo.  

Going about it this way, I have a pretty clear idea of how I’m going to tackle my practice time.  I have goals in mind.  Each day I have some sort of focus.  After a certain point, the brain gets tired, usually after the first two hours of practicing.  From there, the efficiency plateaus and the practicing is no longer effective!  The addition of mental practice is important as well!  I believe that a good chunk of playing violin is mental!  Part of practicing is imagining the sound you want to achieve and figuring out how you’re going to do it!  

I used to do the 4 hour minimum.  Now, I work 10-25 hours a week, teach violin, coach chamber music, play in 4 different ensembles, do freelance work, and go to school full time!  It’s a lot harder to manage the 4 hours.  With deliberate, focused practicing, I can accomplish as much as someone who is practicing 4 hours.  

Anyways.  Something for you guys to think about and try out.  Let me know how it works out!