is 2 - 4 hours a magic time?

[Trumpetstud]

My teacher tells me to practice 2-4 hrs a day with a day of rest (Sunday). I just watched a interview with Chris Botti and he said hours 7 days a week 365 days a year.

I watch a mini documentary on Juilliard music students (piano) and the magic number was every practices 2-4 hours a day.

Is there something to that? If you have the time should you practice more? Should you make time for more practice?

What say you about 7 days a week vs. taking days off?

[trickg]

I suppose it depends on what you want to do with it.

During the years I was gigging in a wedding band, if I was doing maintenance, I had a couple of streamlined sets of drills where I'd work about 45 minutes-ish on a given night. This came about because I was working a day job, father of two, doing the whole kid truffle-shuffle running them to this, that and the other, etc.

When I was in my first enlistment as an Army trumpet player, there was a time where I was doing a bit over 2 hours a night, but not constant - I'd drill pretty hard for two to three 30-minute sessions with a couple of 10-15 minute rests in between. This was after a day of rehearsals or ceremonies, or whatever. It would really depend on the day - sometimes a full day of rehearsals wiped me out pretty good and I didn't do much in the evening, especially if we had concert band in the morning and stage band in the afternoon.

Anymore I still do drill days to keep my chops from degrading, or to rebuild if I've taken some time off, but I also spend time keeping gig music fresh, or to learn it if I need to.

My answers are specific to me though - I'm early 50s, and I gig on the side, so I'm not trying to work to take the trumpet world by storm.

On another note, anyone who says they do 7-8 hours/day 365 days a year aren't giving you the whole story - they may spend that kind of time in the practice room, but they probably aren't steady getting it for 7-8 hours - it's probably closer to the 2-4 hours once all is said and done. There are a lot of ways to "practice" without actually physically playing the trumpet.
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[JoseLindE4]

The hours count has always puzzled me, since we all have slightly different definitions of hours practiced.

From maybe 16-25, I usually did 3-4 hours per day of horn in the face practice, which took all day long with some breaks for classes and rehearsals. Anything more and it would take a toll in a few days. Anything less than 2 hours a day and things would slowly decay as well. Since then, it’s mostly been 2-3 hours of time on the face practice. I’d personally agree with the sweet spot.

Concerning rest days, when I was in school, practicing all day and also doing rehearsals, a light day was often needed. Days off didn’t help but lighter days — maybe an hour or so of fundamentals — seemed to help. I had a period for a few years after having a child where I had a dedicated family day as well — no practice. Monday felt a bit stiff, but it would loosen up shortly. Now I’m on a practice streak of no missed days since sometime last summer. I like the consistency of every day. I also like the mental relief that practice and focusing brings.

Try things and see what works for you. It’s the only way to figure it out.

[Goby]

It's not about counting the hours, it's about making the hours count. What a student can accomplish in 4 hours, a professional can likely accomplish in 30 minutes. Consistency is key to developing skills, but so is recovery when dealing with the muscular embouchure required to play the trumpet. I think it's a great idea to take one day per week off, but it may or may not be necessary depending on the demands of your playing schedule. Ideally, you should spend as little time playing as possible to avoid excessive fatigue and breakdown of your technique. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't practice, it means that your practice time should be spent judiciously, and whenever alternative methods of learning can be applied, you should put the horn down (i.e. singing passages, practicing fingering with a metronome to develop your muscle memory, practicing double tonguing air patterns without the horn, etc.). The muscles of the embouchure are small, and while small muscles tend to recover quickly compared to large ones, you also have to develop the neuro-muscular connection, and overuse of this system without sufficient recovery will hamper your development or even cause your technique to regress.



There is no magic number of hours spent that will make you a virtuoso musician; the most important thing is that you are consistent and always challenging yourself, whether it's repertoire, technique, styles, or performance opportunities. Music and the ability to communicate comes from your lived experience, and spending 8 hours a day sequestered in a practice room will greatly limit your ability to connect with others and express yourself.



Lots of people like to brag about how much they practice, and it's incredibly common for successful people to exaggerate their own hard work to market their image to an audience, from musicians to CEO's. I'd take the 7-8 hours a day, 365 days a year statement with a grain of salt. The most important thing to do for your own musical development is to identify areas of weakness and consistently work towards improvement. Progress is made one step at a time, and your progress will compound on itself as long as you stay consistent.

[trickg]

[stuartissimo]

Just guessing here as I;m not a pro, but part of it could be convenience (it's about half a work day, so relatively easy to plan...5 hours would overlap into another part of the day). Also, it corresponds somewhat with the length of a performance so it would also help building endurance for that.
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[Dayton]

The 2-4 hours per day is a practical range for a serious student. It is also a fairly wide range. Where you fit into that range is self determined: What can your chops handle, where are you in the development process (building, sustaining, etc.), how lofty are your goals, and how much playing must you do outside the practice room?

If you aren't a student and/or have other major commitments, "life" also becomes a limiting factor.

Whether or not you need a rest day depends on how hard you are pushing yourself in the practice room and in rehearsals/performances. If you are prepping for a jury, audition, learning a new book...and your chops can handle seven days a week, go for it. If not, a day off can aid in development by allowing your chops time to rest, recover, and grow stronger. A day off can also help you figure out if you are over practicing. If you feel a lot better after a day off you may be pushing things too hard. Another option is a weekly mix of hard and easy/easier days.

As others have said, what and how you practice is MORE important than how long you practice (within reason). If you aren't sure how to productively fill those 2-4 hours ask your teacher to help you put together a routine: fundamentals and literature/standards.

[zaferis]

2-4 or 3-6 for a serious student striving to master the instrument/craft sounds about right.
For me, before college that was a stretch and whatever practice was happening wasn't nearly as productive. In college as a music ed major that was a goal - every day, no days off (unless the chops were super beat up - but even then some good soft practice for a short time was beneficial)
Then through my USAF Band career, I was still learning and growing as a player: 30-45 minutes minimum to stay at a level status, 2-4 hours above and beyond rehearsals and gigs to accomplish growth.
Practice can't be accomplished in one sitting, I still prefer multiple short focussed sessions: I can do a strong warm-up/routine in 30 minutes, put it down for a while, return at some point within the day and get 1-3 more practice sessions in.. even around "life".. Also very beneficial if during the short breaks, work your piano chops, site singing, theory, etc.
If you want to practice and grow, you will make the time to do it.

In reality learning is done on our own, However it's BEST if guided by a teacher or 2 or 3!!! Yes, you can do it on your own "without a teacher", and some profess they can and did. However, outside guidance will quicken your pace, build a foundation from which to grow, help you avoid traps, explore interpretations/approaches beyond your scope, and make more connections. I don't recall ever working professionally with someone that didn't have at least one strong mentor - plenty of amateurs say this, I can't say that it's not apparent in their playing or musical scope.
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[kehaulani]

What is your goal? Can you reach your goal with one hour of practice a day or do you need six? If six isn't enough for you then you need to reassess your goals. If it's one hour a day, can you use more hours to further improve? Get my drift? It's contextual.

A couple of extra points:
Don't pay any attention as to how many hours someone in a conservatory is training to be a concert pianist or violinist. These are different animals.

Philip Farkas in his Art of French Horn Playing said about four hours a day for brass players in a university setting. Once you have a follow-on playing life that will vary with your schedule and needs.

How many hours you practice as a stand-alone value can be deceptive. You have to roll into that how many hours you spend playing (not practicing). When I was in college, I played in Concert Band, Lab Band and ensembles. I probably practiced two hours on those days, but the solo/ensemble playing had a value not found in a practice room and had a value all it's own.
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[Vin DiBona]

When Mendez was not touring, he would often practice from 6:30 AM until midnight! What he said was you must rest to keep yourself fresh and undamaged.
That was Mendez.

However many hours you practice, you need to rest as much as you play.
Herseth would practice in 45 minute stretches with 15 minutes off.

There is no exact formula, but you need to not burn yourself out in a practice session. Work hard, but work smart.

R. Tomasek

[Billy B]

[Trumpetstud]

Not really sure what ur point is Billy. It’s just a question.

[Jaw04]

Some great players take 1 day a week off, like Nicholas Payton. Other players take a long stretch off each year. Others play every day for years. You have to find what works for you. Definitely you need to put time in, but just like strength training there is a lot of variation in methods that you will need to explore, experiment with, and see what works best for you. This will change over time. There's no one magic number for everyone.

EDIT: By the way, I think many college trumpet players are fried all the time. Meaning, they are abusing their chops constantly. They are in rehearsals, lessons, and practicing roughly 2 hours a day. And they are overblowing and not playing in a sustainable way and are making their problems worse. They take a few days off and suddenly sound better. If you sound better the less you practice, that means you are playing in a harmful way.

I got way better after college, when I learned how to play efficiently and practice softly. Now I can practice more and/or rehearse/gig and not feel beat up.

[spitvalve]

When I was young (high school and college) and aspiring to make a living with the trumpet, I practiced 2-4 hours per day in addition to my school ensembles. When I got a cruise ship gig and we were playing two shows and a dance set every night seven nights per week, I still tried for the first few weeks to keep up my 2-hour routine during the day. I eventually realized that was really dumb because my chops were usually fried before the night was over.

I finally learned that thirty minutes of fundamentals was enough daily practice to offset two or three hours of show and dance music and it was only then that I could finish the night as strong as I started.

There is no magic number of hours. What matters most is what and how you practice and it's going to be different for everyone depending on their needs and their skill set. A weekend warrior or someone who just plays in a community band might make more time for personal practice during the week; a full-time working professional may just have a maintenance routine.
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[stuartissimo]

[Steve A]

I really don't like prescriptive practice time numbers. There's no doubt that most of the players we all look up to spent many hours a day practicing for long stretches during their peak developmental periods (and some of them never stopped marathon practice), but I think that when most people try to duplicate that, they copy the hours, but not the purposefulness or the readiness to dedicate that kind of time.

Someone who's fundamentally really solid, and sees their goal clearly, and how to get to it who puts in lots of hours might move forward very quickly, but when most people do that, they just end up beating themselves up, and playing tired for long, pointless stretches. It can be really tempting to treat it as a "proof" that you're doing everything right by putting in lots of hours, but I think the kind of work that's required to fix most of the problems that most players have is slow, mentally tiring, and not something you can productively do for 4 hours a day, at least not when they start doing that kind of work. (And, in fact, focusing on the number of hours is probably leading people off the path towards what they really need.)