how much do you practice ?

[pepper]

on average i try and get in a good hour or so a day. if i had less commitments this would probably be closer to three or four.

[Razzy]

Three hours a day, though in the winter my motivation tends to diminish and plus I'm rehearsing more than ever before, so that's a factor that cuts down on practice time.

[BlueNote]

1-2 hrs is good for me. At school, I spend my lunch time in the practice room, and a good hr and a 1/2 at home.

[Vortex]

'Till I get tired, however long that is (could be from an hour to 8 hours).

[BrassaxMan5]

wow, you people practice a lot. I try to get in at least an hour total for both instruments.

[Rayjo]

Maybe I should practice an hour a day, but I find it hard. I practice like half an hour a day on average. I don't know about you guys, but school and sports leaves me tired out.

[Razzy]

I do school, sports, work out 2 hours every other day, have a part-time job, and play in about 9 school bands with rehearsals constantly. And I still find time to practice 3 hours a day. Just cut out the tv, videogames, internet, or whatever else it is that wastes your time and it's easy. :lol:

[Bill Mecca]

Not nearly enough, but then I'm a dad with wife, 4 young children, 2 hour daily commute, day job, part time enterprises, re-modeling a house, other personal stuff going on, and a re-forming band so a lot of time is spent learning new tunes and no soundproof are to play after the kids are in bed. If I get 3 hours a week I consider myself lucky.

;-)

[Razzy]

Wow, I respect you for that bill. I was just trying to show that an involved school kid can find time to practice 3 hours a day. Yours... is quite a different story! :lol:

[Saxturtle]

Billmecca: Me too! Subtract one kid, add Engineering night school two nights a week. I just finished wall-tiling/grouting one bathroom so my wifey's getting this faraway look in her eye every time she goes into the kitchen...

How to keep the wife happy about SAX expenditures? Just tell her:
'IT COULD BE A MOTORCYCLE!!!'

[Rayjo]

ok let's see, with three hours of practice time that gives me hmmm, half an hour for dinner, and half an hour for homework, then it's off to bed. I'm sorry, I can pull off one hour, but not three.

[Warder60]

My practicing is like Rayjo.. usually can only barely get time to practice in.

I'm sure if you went through this list here one could find something like people that play professionaly practice the most, followed by for stress relief or hobbiests, followed by playing for fun.

[cooky_manau]

Like some others - A wife, kids (*2), a career, a dog, a tiny bit of sport. My old music teacher told me to keep a log and try to average 45 minutes per day of actual playing the sax.

Rehursals with the band dont count, neither does playing around with a guitar or playing with music on the computer. Neither does playing favourite tunes on the sax. We are talking scales, improv, timing, rythm, long tones etc as practice that counts towards the average.

So keeping a log for the past 11 weeks (including the Christmas break) shows that I am averaging around 35 minutes per day of actual contact time on the sax practicing to improve my technique.

NOT ENOUGH............sigh

On the same topic of practice, any clues on how to practice sight reading quickly. You know, your playing your peice in the band (T. Sax 2) and you have several bars of 16th and triplet note runs at 150 to 190 BPM. You havnt seen the music before. What do I practice to be able to read and play and not make a hash of the whole thing???


Cheers

[MB-913]

We can see all have limit time to work woth our instrument.

It is fact we all don't have much time to praice lijke the artist (before he became to be artist). But we need to think a good routine "How to contribute our limit time to get BEST result". Anybody have suggestion? Can give an example for a 2 hours practice session routine + Your personal approach.

PS: I think everybody can give their rontine very easy : 10 minutes Long-tone, 10 minutes for over-tone & Altissimo, 30 minutes for scale & patterns, 10 minutes fro Chord, 20 minutes to play song, 10 minutes for improvisation/transcribed solo....etc. However, what is your approach? I give an Example of Approach meaning:

EXAMPLE:
30 mintues for all important scale (Major, Minor, Pentatonic, Blues, Dimished, Dominatnt).
If not enough time to work on all 12 keys in 30 mintues, then pick up 2 Main/Most common keys (C & G, or D & F, or G & Bb) + One difficult key (C#, or F#, or AB) on one day. Next day work on other 2 Main keys + another difficult key.


Above approach is what I'm using everyday. I appreciate if more suggestion. I consider a good routine + appropriated approach is very important. Which make us to learn faster, avoid boring & receive best result in our limited time.

[ShadowSlicers]

I find that working two keys really hard a day pays off. I'll do let's c# and B-flat, try to do one sharp key and a flat. The I do their minors and go from there. I have different routines for Jazz and classical, in jazz I do more scale and pattern work, in classical I do more of an etude style thing with lots of longtones. This doesn't mean much becuase I usually go off on some tagent while working I get it done though It all helps.

I try to practice 20-24 hours a week. I always do at least 16. Yet, I'm still in highschool so I have more time on me hands.

[BobMac]

There are two models of scheduling practice that I've seen in my time. Herb Alpert once did a book for kid trumpet players in which he said the key was to make it an essential part of the day, like eating. Personally, he kept up the routine in spite of a fairly involving day job. He said that when he didn't practise, he felt like he hadn't brushed his teeth.

The other trick I've found is to retreat into practise. Practise the way that some people drink, and most of us watch TV: when you can't remember one single bloody thing that happened all day, you've done enough, and it's time to go to bed....


rm

[Agent27]

I try to put in 6 hours a day. 3 2 hour practice sessions. I usually get tired around 2 hours 45 minutes so I keep myself fresh by limiting myself to two hour sessions. I normally spend one session working on technique, another session working on pieces, and the last one on improvisation.

Sometimes I can't get 6 hours in but I always get at least 3.

[Eulipion2]

I used to put in at least two hours a day...now, I haven't practiced my classical jury material in at least three weeks...Argh! :x

[saxysai]

I get in about 3 hours a day. Saturdays, usually quite a bit more.

[schnibs]

depends, usually at college in can get in about 2/3 hours with all the practice rooms being booked etc, but on holidays and weekends usually get between 3 and 6 hours

[tophatcane]

i almost hate to say it...but i practice whenever i feel like playing. if i'm not in the mood i don't force myself. sometimes days might pass during which i don't pick up the horn. when i do 'practice' i generally improvise until i've had enough (versus working on material). i just hope that as my ideas become more complex the technique will follow. my playing (which of course will always have room for improvement) doesn't seem to suffer or atrophy as the result of an irregular regimen. if anything it just feels like i am picking up where i left off.

[BrassaxMan5]

what really counts is not how much you practice, but how well you practice.

[professorofsax]

I've created an article on practicing. If interested, check it out on my web site. you can find the article under saxophone topics. Hope it is helpful.

[chayjazz]

When I have the time and/or in the mood, I try to get in 3 to 6 hours a day. But during my High School and College years, I was doing 4 hours a day come rain or come shine.

[Ian]

I'd be interested to know how much practicing can be achieved by people who hold down a different full time job. I often work 11 hours a day, and if I get in 6 hours of practicing a week am elated. I also have 3 kids etc etc......!

[chrispotterfanatic]

25 hours a day like trane

i found his time-slower-downer-for-jazz-cats-machine-to=increase-hippness

and i go back in time and he teaches me lessons

right now im looking over his shoulder as he writes the head to 26-2

[saxman124578]

I play 3 full hours at school, then i go to work.....I get home at about 8:00....I can usually practice then for 3 hours (if i don't work, it's usually 5)...i get to bed at 11:30....sometimes i can't put my horn down and i once played till 2:00 on a school night. This would not be possible if everyone in my house didn't get home until 11:00 or so!

Here's a hint for more practice time (and is what i have done): Stop everything else, t.v., "most" video games, computer etc.... but the thing that freed me up the most was.....I stopped caring about school, i do about B work now and am improving like crazy on sax...that's all you gotta do.

[Martin Williams]

Lets just say that I dont get enough practice time, at least not as much as I would like. Wishfully, I would practice around 2-3 hours a day, but sometimes Im lucky if I get that much time in a week

Martin

[jazzybat]

i practice till i am tired.. ussually 1-3 hours... it really depends... or sometimes i practice till i get the song right....

[BrassaxMan5]

I should start practicing more, since I want to get into North Texas....
believe me, I AM GOING THERE, guys.
anyway yeah...
there's this one song that I can't get right, and I have an audition that is less than a week away...better work my butt off
the song that I'm trying is ok, but if I take it slower, I can get it with fewer mistakes.
the right tempo is around quarter note=220

[sskilton]

Okay for what it's worth I'll stick my two pennies in.

I strongly believe that you have to do what is right for your situation. Those at school do have more time to practice than full time working parents.

I am a full time mum to a 2 1/2 yr old, a 5 yr old, and a loopy dog. I have no intention of becoming a pro or even playing in a band. I took up Sax as a hobby, my escape away from the world. I practice between 30 -60 mins a day on average. My teacher says I am making good progress, and I am happy with my current situation.

If you want to be pro than you need to give up work, hire a nanny and PRACTICE!!!

BUT ABOVE ALL ENJOY. If it becomes a chore you have problems.

8)

[sax_appeal]

I dunno, I just do it whenever I feel like it, but I do set an hour aside every afternoon. I also practice before school, during recess and during lunch and when the rest of my family is watching telly.

[chipmorrison]

About 45 minutes, if I'm lucky, in the morning before work. On the alto. Mostly scales.

An hour or more in the evening, on tenor, trying to pick up horn lines and bits of solos from my blues CDs.

[Josh]

Earlier someone mentioned trying to practice two or three keys in a day. I guess that's fine if it's your thing, but now that I've thoroughly learned most of mine, I only need to remind my fingers what the keys feel like, so I practice a key a day. I practice major, harmonic minor, melodic minor, bebop dominant (for now), diminished, whole-tone, pentatonic, and soon, blues scales too (maybe). That's not all, but that's my take on scale practice.

I think trying to cover 12 in a day is overkill. On double bass, I play in a key a month, a fingering a week, half notes at 60, but that's mostly an intonation thing.

[Razzy]

Well I find that it takes a while but you should do all 12 keys a day until you are comfortable with them... currently I'm doing about 3 hours a day again, taking it up to 4 once my job lightens up and college summer music programs begin (they are 9 to 5 every day).

Right now I play all my major and harmonic minor scales and arpeggios; scales and chords in dorian, the two versions of diminished scales, blues, and lydian; as well as ii-V-I patterns and blues/rhythm changes progressions in all 12 keys. Then I work on etudes, classical pieces, and shed some tunes/improv. It IS possible. But man, two summers ago when I learned all this stuff, like bloody murder every day in the shed... definitely was worth it :wink:

More important than practicing based on your situation, is practicing based upon what you want to achieve. I want to be a professional and a teacher. This takes all kinds of work. My financial situation isn't so good so I need to work mostly full time while going to college for music. It can be done, I have seen the results in comrades and they are awesome :) You just need to make some sacrifices... my girlfriend is going to college 60 miles away so we're seeing eachother every other weekend or so... pass up those invitations to the beach and the bar and get in that shed, I do it all the time...