Your piano practice routine can mean the difference between progressing quickly or slowly at the piano!
But how much do you need to practice the piano in order to see results?
Today I’m answering all of your questions about piano practice based on decades of experience as a pianist and teacher.
How Much Should I Practice Piano?
The big question.
We all know practice is the way to get better at piano, but exactly how much do you need to be practicing in order to see progress?
Times have changed since I was a piano student. The days of cookie cutter rules for
practice time and high commitment demands from piano teachers is a thing of the past.
As a piano teacher, I know that I need to graciously work with a variety of students in a variety of different situations. Not everyone will be able to practice an hour a day–or even half an hour.
But because we’re moving away from this cookie cutter approach, it often means that if you ask someone: “How much should I be practicing the piano?” the answer is usually, “Well, it
depends.”
And although that is true, it’s not very helpful. Today I’m going to work past that cliche of “it depends” and I’m going to give you some clearcut formulas to try to match you (or your piano
student) with the perfect practice schedule.
And if you teach piano, this article will hopefully give you all the information you
need to help your students and answer all of those piano practice questions.
Factors That Affect Your Perfect Practice Routine
Before I give you my simple formula for calculating your ideal practice routine, here are four factors that affect your personal magic weekly practice time.
Those factors are:
- Age
- Level
- Goals
- Lifestyle
Let’s put a pin in that, and we’ll come back to those later.
The Magic Formula to Calculate Your Perfect Piano Practice Routine
We’ll start with a simple formula as a starting point to figure out your (or your students’) perfect piano practice routine.
The Perfect Practice Formula
Here’s the formula:
1. Take your weekly lesson length (so if you take 30-minute lessons, then your weekly lesson length is 30 minutes),
2. Multiply that by 1 to get the bare minimum total weekly practice minutes,
3. Multiply that by 2.5 to get the average progression rate of getting better at the piano as your total weekly practice minutes, or
4. Multiply by 5 to reach virtuoso status for fast-paced growth, moving ahead as quickly as possible.
An Example Using the Practice Formula
Let me break this down with an example.
The most common lesson length would be 30-minute weekly lessons. So let’s take that figure and plug it into the formula.
For a 30-minute lesson, if you are practicing a total of 30 minutes throughout the week that is the bare minimum to not digress, to move along at a snail’s pace, or at least keep from losing the skills that you’ve already acquired.
This could be split into 5- to 10-minute practice sessions throughout the week, adding up to a total of 30 minutes of practice time between weekly lessons.
If you want to do the average growth that I would recommend for the average student, then
take that 30 minutes, and multiply that by 2.5 to get 75. That’s the total weekly minutes of practice.
So this could look like a schedule of:
- Practicing 5 times a week at 15 minutes per practice session.
This schedule would give you a total of 75 minutes in between each lesson. For the average
student this is going to be the perfect balance of living your life and still getting good at the piano.
But if you really want to master the piano at top speed, then let’s multiply that 30 by 5.
Here we get a total of 150 minutes practiced throughout the week.
So if we break that down, you could practice:
- 7 days a week, 20 minute practice sessions
- 5 days a week, 30 minute practice sessions
Any teacher would be thrilled with a student practicing this much, but for a lot of people it is just not practical with their daily schedule. And that’s okay. But that is the top goal, let’s say.
Tracking Your Practice Minutes: Free Practice Chart
Now if you have no idea exactly how many minutes you’re practicing throughout the week, it might be helpful to do a practice audit.
I do have a free practice chart to help you track your minutes for 12 weeks to see where you’re at and what your weekly totals are.
Other Factors That Affect Your Piano Practice Routine
Remember those four factors I mentioned earlier? Now we will adjust the results of the above formula to accommodate each student’s individual needs.
Piano Practice Routine By Age
Here are some things to consider based on the age of the piano player.
Age 3-5
For ages 3, 4, and 5, I focus on days of practice, not minutes.
The reason is that long practice sessions are not necessarily helpful, productive, or fun for that age group.
However, doing something on a daily basis is really important for them. So for my young students, I usually don’t track their minutes at all. I just have them jot down how many days during the week they got to the piano, whether that’s for 1 minute or 10 minutes.
I ask parents to aim for 6 days a week, because we want to build that daily routine with that age group.
And short, untimed practice sessions are totally fine for this age group.
Now that being said, a lot of parents will have questions about how long a child should be practicing. To reassure them, I can definitely give a minimum minute goal to shoot for.
In the very first month of lessons, take the child’s age, multiply by one and that should be the daily practice session minimum.
Again, we’re not going to focus on minutes or worry about using a timer. This is just intended as a general guideline.
In their second month of lessons, we can gradually increase to their practice time to their age times 2. So for a 3-year-old student, they can start to practice about 6 minutes
or more at the piano.
For many young students that may be their max time, and that is totally fine.
In their third month, if they’re doing really well and they have a long attention span, they
could then triple their age for their daily practice session so if they are 3 years old then they could start playing up to 9 minutes. If they’re 4 years old: 12 minutes, and if they are 5 years old, up to 15 minutes. But again, this is not a requirement. It is just an option if it’s right for that youngster.
Age 6-8
Moving into the next age group: 6- to 8-year-olds.
With this age group, we are still focusing way more on days than minutes.
I’m still having these students aim for six days a week so they can build that daily routine. Again we’re doing untimed practice sessions, however, I do have a minimum guideline for those parents that are looking for the reassurance.
The minimum minute guideline for the 6- to 8-year-olds actually works exactly the same way as the 3- to 5-year-olds.
For the first month of lessons, we’re going to multiply their age by one and that’s their daily practice session. So, 6-year-olds are going to practice for 6 minutes a day to start out.
Gradually moving into the second month of lessons, we can bump that up to two times their age. So for a 6-year-old this would be 12-minute sessions.
That can be where we stop, or if they’re up for it, they can triple that in the third month and beyond.
Keep in mind that this is just a general guideline to get you in the right vicinity.
Age 9-12
The next age group is 9- to 12-year-olds.
These kiddos have a much longer attention span. They’ve been in school for a while and they’re capable of taking on more new concepts and skills, more assignments, and more books.
Age 9 is when I start to track minutes practiced. At this point, we are still focused on how many days we are practicing, but now we’re going to introduce the concept of minutes practiced each practice session. We’ll try to start to balance those out at this age group.
Our emphasis is still on getting more days of the week than not, however, we can start to observe how the patterns of the minutes practice go as their lives get busier.
At about age 9, I start to recommend 5 days a week of practice instead of 6 or 7, knowing that they’re going to have sleepovers, camps, soccer practice, and so on. But in those 5 days of practice, we’re going to introduce the concept of a minimum minute goal.
The formula remains the same, but with optional adjustments.
In the first month of lessons, they can multiply their age by one. So 9-year-olds are aiming for 9-minute practice sessions for their first month of lessons.
In the second month we’re going to bump that up, maybe to twice their age. So that would be an 18-minute practice session for 9-year-old students.
For a lot of them, that’s going to be their max practice time. But again, if they’re ready to go
the extra mile, then in the third month and beyond we can work towards tripling that.
With this formula, a 12-year-old would be looking at half-hour practice sessions, so we might not be there yet and that is totally fine. This goal would be for a very studious, ambitious student.
For most students, achieving a practice time of twice their age 5 or more days a week is great for steady progress.
Age 13+ (Teen & Adult Piano Students)
For 13 and up, our teens and adults, we do things a little bit differently.
For older students, we’re going to focus more on minutes than days because they are much more capable of, let’s say “cramming for the test” than a three-year-old would be!
So although it’s still best to have multiple days throughout the week and have our practice minutes spread out, with the busy schedule of teen and adult students, a forgiving and flexible schedule is needed.
Perhaps their piano practice routine will look a little more sporadic. They may get a 5-minute practice session here, a 40-minute practice session there–but it all adds up to the right number of minutes.
We’re still going to aim for 5 days a week but we’re going to have a lot of grace and let them have a longer or shorter practice day if as needed.
Age is not going to be relevant to our formula this time, but instead we’ll use their lesson length time. Here is the teen/adult piano practice routine calculator.
Take the lesson length in minutes.
Multiply by 1 for the first month of lessons to get the total weekly minutes practiced. So, if a student is taking 30-minute weekly lessons, they will start by aiming for 30 minutes total practiced throughout the week.
We’re going to let them split that up however they need to just as so long as those minutes get done.
These students are going to aim for doubling their lesson length as their total weekly practice in the second month of lessons. So for a 30-minute lesson student, their goal is 60 minutes of practice throughout the entire week however they want to split that up.
And if they’re really ambitious and want to move ahead at a quick pace, then they’re going to
triple their lesson length as their total minutes practiced for the week.
Other Factors That Affect Piano Practice Routine
Each individual teacher and student should also factor in the student’s level, goals, and lifestyle.
Student Level
The student’s level becomes relevant if you have an older beginner, maybe a teen or adult. They may be ready to absorb musical concepts quickly and they can sit for longer than the beginner who is 6 years old. In this case, an older beginner can bump up the practice expectations right off the bat knowing that they’re coming to piano lesson with a higher
attention span and cognitive skills that they have picked up in their lifetime.
Student Goals
A student’s goals are really going to determine their piano practice routine and how much time they carve out in their weekly schedule for piano.
If they are pursing piano as a hobby and they are really just doing this for fun then they’re going to aim for the less, maybe the bare minimum or just above.
And if they want to be a music major, or a professional musician, or they just want to progress quickly and make the most out of their lessons, then they’re going to aim for the higher side of all of the practice guidelines to get them to their goal quicker.
Student Lifestyle
The final factor is lifestyle. Sometimes, despite our best efforts and our goals, our life just gets in the way. Therefore, we need to be understanding of this with our students (or ourselves!). Everybody’s schedule is different. Everybody’s home setup and family life is different. And so, in the end, sometimes lifestyle determines how much we practice more than our heart’s desire.
Seasonal Piano Practice Chart
I hope you found this helpful as a starting place for figuring out your magic weekly practice total.
If you’re a student, remember to grab that free practice chart so you can start tracking your minutes and see where you’re at. [Scroll up for that link]
And if you are a piano teacher, check out these Piano Practice Charts for every season!
Throw a Practice Challenge in your studio to encourage and track at-home practice!
Leave a comment letting us know which formula you’ll be using! And Happy Practicing!