How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice the Violin for Best Results
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Wondering how many hours you should practice a violin for best results? In this post, discover how many hours a day you should really be practicing.
As busy adults, I am sure you don’t have eight hours a day to practice and even if you did I wouldn’t advise practicing eight hours a day.
So the answer to this question, how many hours a day should I really be practicing depends on what your goals are and what you are working towards. For example, practicing for progression, auditions, performances, recordings or maintenance, requires different time amounts. If you are retraining your left hand or your right hand, this also requires a different time amount and a different practice strategy.
Maintaining Current Skill Level
First let’s talk about maintenance, the least amount of time invested. If you don’t want to lose your current level I would suggest 30 minutes to an hour five days a week.
Practicing for Progression. Performances, Auditions or Recordings
If you are practicing for auditions, concerts, performances, or recordings depending on the difficulty level of the program and what level you are currently playing at, I would suggest two to three hours a day, six days a week with a practice rotation.
What I mean by rotation is that you’d have a specific practice program for Monday, Wednesday, Friday and a different program for Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. That way you can get everything in in only two-three hours a day, six days a week.
How much is too much
No matter what you’re aiming towards I wouldn’t advise more than three to four hours a day. Four hours is really getting on the border of too much. If you’re not able to achieve what you would like to achieve in three hours a day, I would start to analyze your practice strategy.
Practicing for more than three hours a day leads to fatigue and not focused practice sessions. Leopold Auer said, “Practice with your fingers and you’ll need all day. Practice with your mind and you’ll do as much in one and a half hours. I would definitely agree.
Itzhak Perlman Practice Formula
Another famous violinist you probably know, Itzhak Perlman advises practicing three hours a day. His practice formula is one hour on scales, one hour on etudes, and one hour on repertoire.
If you don’t have three hours a day, then break it down. For example, if you have only 30 minutes a day, 10 minutes on scales, 10 minutes on etudes, and 10 minutes on repertoire. I would have to add to that, not to say that I would disagree with the famous violinist, Itzhak Perlman but it really depends on how you are practicing those scales and how you’re practicing the etudes and how you are practicing your repertoire if you are going to see progress.
Practicing Mindfully is KEY!
You can sit and practice scales an hour a day, three hours a day, even eight hours a day and if you are practicing incorrectly you’re just going to be ingraining bad habits. If your left hand isn’t set up properly, if you’re playing with tension, if you’re playing Out Of Tune, if you’re not thinking about what you’re doing, it’s a waste of time and actually it can be even more than a waste of time, it could be impacting your violin Journey very negatively, if you’re not practicing correctly.
Violinists come to me and they say oh I’m practicing an hour on scales every day, I ask them to play the scales for me so I can see how they are playing scales. If there’s even one note Out Of Tune I know that they’re not practicing those scales correctly and if there’s no thought to the hand frame setup and no thought to the left hand, there’s no need to practice scales for an hour a day.
Don’t Practice Scales, Practice this instead!
Instead of practicing scales for an hour a day, I would start with practicing with a hand frame. Practicing between the one and four, knowing exactly the distance of one and four.
Playing octaves to know that you’re one and four and your hand frame is set up correctly and then once you work out the hand frame and do some exercises with individual fingers in the hand frame then I would suggest going to scales.
How not to practice etudes
The same with etudes. If you’re just playing the etudes from beginning to end without a metronome, without thinking exactly how you’re playing with the bow, how you are using your fingers in your bow hold, how you are getting the bow Strokes exactly correct, there’s no use in practicing etudes.
Show up to your practice sessions like work
Finally treat your practicing like work. When you show up to practice the violin, it’s good to be dressed up in a way that you would go to work.
Yes, of course, we’ve all practiced in our pajamas that’s for sure but when you are dressed up hair done, makeup done (if you wear makeup) you want to show up to your practice sessions like you would show up to work.
Show up with a mindset, show up awake and ready to go.
Maybe get a 30-minute exercise routine in before you play the violin. That helps just get those brain juices flowing so you are awake when you approach the instrument and approach your studies.
I would also highly suggest keeping track with a journal what you’re practicing and what you’re working towards, broken down within the calendar what you want to achieve by a certain date. You could do that with a regular journal or you can use one of my favorite programs ,Trello. Check out my video How to Use Trello to Organize Your Practice Sessions Here.
Now it’s time for me to get practicing.
Ciao
If you enjoyed this post and you would really desire to have more training from me in a step-by-step program to improve your violin tone, definitely check out my 12 week signature program, Gorgeous Tone Academy where you’ll find exercises, tutorials on a daily basis to get you where you want to be.
It’s a completely self-guided online program that you could start at any time. I’d be happy to see you there.
Happy Magical Practices,
Heather is a classically trained concert violinist residing in Bulgaria. She received her BM violin performance degree from CU-Boulder, studied with top teachers including Rachel Barton Pine. Heather has held leadership positions with multiple orchestras in the Greater Chicago-Milwaukee area. She has instructed millions of violinists globally via Youtube videos, online academies, group coaching and one on one sessions. Heather’s students have won multiple awards, concerto competitions, held concertmaster positions in orchestras and even performed in Carnegie Hall. Heather is an advocate of a holistic violin lifestyle – putting one’s mind, body and spirit as a violin journey priority.
Please share in the comments which above tips you will be implementing into your daily practices sessions.
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