Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum I don't believe this is true

This is stated very well. I agree that it says "something" to me as well!!

I didn't watch his videos and I don't have any opinion about him, the only thing that comes to my mind is: what for? What do this people think they can achieve? Do they really think they will become concert pianists, world-class musicians? There are literally thousands of people out there who started playing the piano at 2 or 3 years old and were giving concerts with orchestras at 8. There are many more who were already accomplished pianists by his age. If you watch piano competitions, you see hundreds of talented and refined musicians that never get to win a prize. And as we speak there are millions of young people in China and South Korea that are training to become amazing pianists, and many of them succeed. And then the Russians (have you seen Shishkin in Geneva yesterday night?), and the Italians, etc.

What I mean by this is... he may hopefully manage to find some kind of job in music if that's what he really likes to do, but be a concert pianist, or even a great pop or jazz musician? Not a chance. Happens once in a million times. I wouldn't commit precious years to that, when I could have a normal life, go to university, get a good job and just play the piano as a hobby. Call me cynical - I definitely am. I don't believe in anything. Good luck to him, anyway.

For the first time I'm lost.

If "What for?" were asked by somebody who isn't learning to play an instrument, I'd get it. But if you are practising and learning piano, it doesn't make sense that you are asking why this young man is doing so as well. You might as well ask why any of us here are learning to play. I'm puzzled.

There is a kind of answer as to why he got into this. He liked the music he was hearing, wondered if he could play it, discovered he could, and after a bit he discovered he enjoyed classical music as well. He seems to be enjoying himself. To me that is reason enough.

Or are you asking why he is taking music lessons in that conservatory. Rather than why he is learning to play the piano.

The chances of him becoming a true concert pianist (touring) is virtually none. You soon hit the players who have been highly trained since they were 4 or 5 and the number of concert pianists who started before the age of 7 is incredibly high. That's irrelevant. The number of music school grads who do become concert pianists is very small anyway and yet countless thousands enter such establishments every single year. Most may aspire to being the concert superstar. I'm sure there are some who are just happy getting through the course and getting a little teaching job in a provincial town or moving on in life to do something else.

A number of people in my family circle (including close friends & associates) took music lessons or got their kids to take music lessons. I've been to 2 funeral services where the grandchildren had their trio / quartet in the background to remember grandpa during the service. 2 people were in a Suzuki music program (violin & piano) so they performed in solo recitals and are comfortable playing in small gatherings including special occasions like birthdays & weddings.

And the rest who took music lessons to the point of passing conservatory exams at an advanced level. They no longer play music and don't feel comfortable performing for anybody, even other family members. Without hearing them play live or through recordings, it is hard to judge their playing level. Assuming the ones in the family who passed music exams had at least 5 years of instructions, still doesn't explain why some people get to a level they are comfortable performing in public (in this case through video recordings on social media) and others who had music instructions for years are not at the same level.

Like learning a foreign language. There are people who took French who are not at the level of carrying a basic conversation while others are much more comfortable ordering in restaurants, asking for directions, shopping, etc. You give 2 people the same amount of time, person A is further ahead than B. I am sure both worked very hard but there are other factors in the equation in order to explain why A is getting ahead and B isn't.

I certainly find this video a little bit suspicious. But regardless, he claims he practises three hours a day. I don’t know if any of you guys practice three hours a day but I certainly don’t. So even if I compare my progress to his, I can’t really say if it’s impossible. I imagine if I started practising three hours a day my progress would skyrocket.

I've only heard of people practicing 3+ hours of day when they are conservatory-track, at the conservatory or even post-conservatory. There are some present forum members who had posted messages long ago about even practicing 6 hours a day (which leaves me wondering how they had time for school and other non-piano homework!), but then they ended up at the conservatory. There are also some PW forum members who went to the conservatory and have in the past posted about practicing 3+ hours after the conservatory, but I suppose one has that discipline from the conservatory. The rest of us are amateurs and play for fun and fun rarely includes practicing 3 hours a day. That said, this young man now headed for the conservatory, so this probably applies. The surprise is that one would decide to major in music with only one year of experience with one's primary instrument. That's pretty interesting to make a decision like that. If I were his parent, I would try to dissuade my son from an important decision made so quickly (deciding at least part of a career path in just one year).

When I started violin lessons, our teacher said that 3 hours was ideal, so that's what I aimed for. The problem with that is that it must be the right practice, based on something rightly guided. If I ever really return to this, I will have a major chore undoing and changing everything that got "practised in" that now has to get "practised out".

But yes, people do practise that amount of time and there is nothing suspicious about such a statement. In fact, when I get immersed in something and can also find the time, I can easily get absorbed and lose track of how much time I spend. If besides practising you are also thinking about what you're studying while walking or driving to work or school, and count that as "practising" you might add even more time in your calculation.

These days however I rate effective practise over lengthy practise. That can be surprisingly short for rather good overall yields.

3 hours is a fair amount. I certainly wouldn't call it excessive although for a rank beginner it no doubt is. I've heard 3 hours (and a lot more) with other instruments like violin and guitar. For serious amateurs who have the time it's not that uncommon.

Although I have no proof I'd guess that maybe 2% of amateurs practice 3 hours/day. Even if one limits it to serious amateurs(depending on one's definition of serious), I think it would be a tiny fraction, maybe 10%.

I sometimes do three hour practices, but I have the time (I'm retired). However, in those three hours I would be working on four or five different pieces, all in different stages. Working on one piece (or the same sixteen or so bars of one piece for three hours at a time would likely be counterproductive. Working for shorter periods on one piece or section, with a night's sleep in between practices, is far more effective.

Developing good, deep fundamentals takes time--time that includes plenty of practice/sleep cycles. Starting from zero and trying to cram it into a year or two of long practice days leaves me doubtful. Perhaps it can be done (the good fundamentals), but the odds are against you.

For an amateur who practices 3 hours a day, I would just wonder why they just don't go to the conservatory. For example, I know one guy who spends many many hours of his week flying his very expensive and extensive flight simulator in a virtual airline. At this point, he could go get his private pilots license and fly for real. So why doesn't he? I've asked him and he has said that he wouldn't want to fly a dinky puddle jumper (paraphrasing here). Whatever. (BTW, just a shout out to Sam S as the amateur who is going to the conservatory! Go Sam! )

According to the 2018 version of the Adult Beginner's Forum survey,

28% of us practice less than an hour a day.
56.5 % practice 1-2 hours a day
14.5% practice 2-3 hours a day
2.3% practice 3-4 hours a day
0.8% practice more than 4 hours a day.

Reported like that, it certainly sounds scientific doesn't it? But it wasn't really - 132 people responded to the survey. We do like to practice though.

As an undergraduate piano performance major at a regional state university (not a conservatory!), for the first 3 years, I'm supposed to do a minimum of 12 hours a week. For the senior year, 18 hours a week minimum. But the minimum doesn't get much done for me - I'm doing about 15 hours a week as a Junior to keep my head above water.

I have seen Freshman get in to the program without a lot of experience. Yes, there is an audition, but the teachers here are willing to work with the prospective students before they audition so they have a good chance. I've seen some of those students drop out, and others have done well. A lot depends on the major - I've seen kids start out in Piano Performance and then change to Music Education, which doesn't have the same performance requirements.

Sam

Hey Sam S, how about an update on your thread about your academic adventures. It seems like it's been a while since I've seen you post about your studies and I was wondering how things are going. Your post above just reminded me to ask you for an update. It's probably my favorite thread on PW.

Sorry for high jacking this thread.

Example: My time on PianoWorld!

I resemble that remark.

Yah, How many of those upstart twenty-somethings have their own built-in cheering section?

I don't think many people can even consistently put in 3h/day practice. People like myself are non professionals and have jobs, family responsibilities. Just coming home from work each day is already very tiring. Unless you are still in university and decided to take a year off, putting in the kind of energy & focus is hard. Even in high school I had 1 music class a day but the workload for other subjects was heavy and only allowed me to practice 1h/day at most.

The average folks who take music lessons tend to work at the speed expected by their teachers. At the end of the first year, you are expected to get to the Minuet in G & Gm from the Notebook for Anna M Bach and most students would get there in a year, maybe later but not earlier. The ones who reach a certain point in a short time are considered prodigies. Some people have a keen interest in music and would play their instrument a few hours a day. Others who may be intelligent and capable would progress at a more leisurely pace. And they would rarely attempt to learn pieces that are outside their assigned repertoire.

The case I read about 3 years ago where hard work to the extreme paid off involves a young lady (Sophie) who was pushed by her Tiger Mom (Amy Chua) the Chinese-American author to complete the entire Suzuki piano curriculum in a year. And Sophie was pushed to the point of practicing everyday until every piece was note perfect before the family had dinner. 1 wrong note was like Sophie was holding everybody up. And on vacation, Ms. Chua made sure every hotel had a piano so that her daughter could practice every day of the week without a day off. And Sophie became the youngest to perform in a solo recital at Carnegie Hall in NYC as described in Ms. Chua's book "Battle Hymns of the Tiger Mother".

I am retired and although I have quite a few other commitments I could, in theory, easily put in 3 hours every day. But I seldom manage that. I aim for 2 to 2.5 hrs of intensive practice in short sessions of between 10 and 30 mins - usually 15 to 20 - and it is usually the first hour that is most productive.

It is the quality of the practice that is most important not the overall length, though you won't progress much if you do much less than an hour a day.

OT, but I personally feel that Ms. Chua as a person of Asian heritage (though I doubt she's done more than step foot in the countries of her parent's birth), has done the most trouble for the Asian community in the US, by bringing into sharp focus for Americans and people in the West, a particularly unattractive feature of a segment of the Chinese-American community. I took particular perverse pleasure in reading about some troubles she's had recently with her employer. I judge all of this as a person who did come from the country of her claimed ethnicity, whereas it wasn't even clear her parents were more than just "born" on that country (China).

That said, for piano playing, in the end, this sort of thing may be all for the best. As some threads have indicated on PW, if asians (both in West and in Asia itself) were not buying pianos and (tiggrishly forcing their kids) play them, then perhaps the piano playing and teaching industry would be in even worse shape than it is today.