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A bit OT here, but I would be interested in, aside from a badge at the end of the year, a thread as to what we have accomplished and the kind of progress we made from playing daily...or is there already one that I just missed? I think it will be very encouraging for me.

Is there something like that from the previous MOYD people?

So the good thing about all the snow days here in the northwest is that I'm forced to stay indoors and practice.

There is such a thread..... Your musical goals for 2012.... it is in this forum. There was one last year too and Johan B was the thread starter...he followed up with us in Dec to get us to see if we'd met our goals! Lovely thread!

Sign me up, but with the stipulation that "some," in the "some amount of time every single day," is equivalent to 4 hours.

-Polyphasicpianist

Welcome Polyphasicpianist! My "some" is equal to two songs a day, but I usually play for 1 to 4 hours. Not bad for a beginner I think.

Actually it'd be interesting to hear what everyone elses "some time" is to them....

ok, my bare minimum requirement is 1 hour but i always really shoot more for 2 hours; on weekends / holidays, i try to get at least 3 hours each day. on most week days, i manage around 1 1/2 - 2 hours depending on the number of evening work teleconferences i have to attend. i did have a 20 minute practice day this week due to illness. spend about 1/3 time playing through or polishing existing pieces, 1/3 working the details of pieces in progress, and the remainder randomly sightreading some easier pieces (try to alternate material so i don't play the same thing within a short period of time).

gw

PPP: Four hours minimum a day? I've done 3 to 6 hours some days, but I admit, I don't think I could do it every day, much as I would like to. I already feel guilty because everyone thinks I don't have a life and never get to go out (they don't know that piano is my life )

I don't know what my shortest practice day is. Maybe today is one of them. I only practiced about 1.5 to 2 hours, because I was made to do chores that lasted the whole day, when all I wanted to do was get started and put in my daily hour quota with the piano. :~( I feel so abused.

Do you guys ever get so sick of the sight of the piano that you have to get away from it for a day or two? I've been that way in the past...maybe for 1 to 1.5 weeks. Those days, I just read a book and play computer games I worry I might not make it with MOYD because of this little trait of mine, but we'll see at the end of the year!

Hi, Please count me in ! didn't see this thread before but this is really a great idea

Olivier

I suppose there are some days where I've played for 4 hours - but certainly with a lot of breaks. I don't have the stamina to play for much more than 90 minutes at a time - and most of the time I'd say I play for about half a hour before getting up to take a break.

Daily - I try for an hour, on the weekends it is more, it varies.

I would be surprised if many of us here could get in 4 hours - or even if we had the time, that we would be physically be able to so.

OK, I was doing very very well last year from January until about June. Then everything fell apart.
We found a vacation home we wanted to buy, went to an out-of-town wedding for a week, focused on the vacation home, bought it and spent every spare minute working on it to fix it up, and . . . goodbye, piano.
But now I'm coming back. It's almost like starting over again because I've missed about 4 months, but it will be nice to try.
You'll have to put me on the excused list right away, though. The vacation home has no piano, and it's not likely to for the forseeable future.
I'll fess up when I'm there, though.
Other days, even if it's just for a short while, I'll be at the keyboard.

I missed Friday and Saturday I went to visit some friends in Austin

Speaking of practicing a certain number of hours a day, I picked up Just Practice, an iPhone app that was mentioned in one of the threads about logging your hours. It's really helpful! It makes logging time easier and more accurate.

I think I will try to join poly on his 4 hour a day endeavors as an ideal. I don't think I can do it everyday, but I will do my best. we gotta dream big and work hard!

Late starter here but from here on out, every day is a must for me. Hopefully I can make everyday from here to the end of the year.

I'm back in the saddle (that is, on the piano bench) after being out of town for a funeral and then sick a couple days.
But I must confess my "some" is nowhere near 4 hours every day (even though I'm retired and have "plenty" of time!) Some days it might be more like 4 minutes! When I get to the end of a day when I "forgot" to practice, I might just do one time through the pieces I'm working on. I really need to start keeping a log of practice time.

A teacher once said, it's better to commit to practice just 5 minutes EVERY day
than to an hour or more "when you can".
Because you can always squeeze in five minutes.
And quite often that 5 minutes will turn into an hour or more.
But on the other hand, the time will come when you won't have time for your "hours", and so you'll skip practice altogether that time. Then it will happen again, and again, and eventually you won't be practicing at all. And I know from experience in other things that he is right.

Tinman: That's a good way of putting it! The idea of putting in even just that 5 minutes actually made me feel better. For some reason, I was quite distracted today and couldn't focus on those scores. I did force myself to put in about 2 hours (it's probably less), though! I wonder if putting in 2 hours of forced mindless practice (and just flipping from page to page) is worse than 5 minutes of concentration?

What do you guys practice or do when you're tired, or bored, etc., but want to keep to your playing commitment and continue improving? Mindless exercises? Play an old score? Take a break?

I'm impressed that people manage to put in 4 hours a day at the piano. On weekdays I try to do one, and on weekends, I try to do more, but I break it up into chunks.

I've never wanted to walk away from the piano even for a single day, but there are definitely times when I have to end a practice session because I'm getting too frustrated.

If you manage to stay on the wagon, that would be quite an accomplishment!

Do you know something, thus far it hasn't been nearly as difficult as I assumed it would be. Something odd happens when you commit to 4 hours a day; namely, you (or at least I) loose that feeling of time constraint. Before, when I was doing two hours a day, I would sit down to practice and think to myself "I have to do a bit of this, and this, and this, and that," which would inevitably result in me having to stop practicing a certain thing, before I felt comfortable with it, in order to make time for something else. That is the one aspect of practicing I have never really liked since it becomes so easy to either spread yourself too thin or to waste too much time focusing on one thing at the expense of other more important things. Now I feel free to take as much time as I need, go as slow or fast as I need, and play as many or as few repetitions of something as I need.

I usually play through all the songs I know. First I do a run through of what I have memorized and then what I'm want to memorize then I get out my sheets. I don't actually focus on practice just playing. The first week of January that was almost the only thing I did because I still had family staying over for Christmas and no time for myself at all!

I only just started self teaching a couple of weeks ago. Waiting to order alfred's book but using something else for now. Often only get 15 - 30 minutes a day right now due to a baby, but hope to steadily increase that when I start to get that elusive sleep back again.

So, do I qualify to join? Think something like this will give me the extra encouragement to ensure I practice (learn) daily.