Why I don't Practice 8 Hours a Day

As a kid, I hated practicing. And I mean - HATED - practicing. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVED playing the piano, but the notion of practicing, and playing scales and dreaded technique exercises just didn't appeal to me as much as going outside to play with my friends. So, instead, I relied on my strong site reading skills and played my pieces enough (barely) to somehow have good piano lessons and privately wince when my teacher lavished praise on me.

When I was 14 years old, everything changed. I went to a chamber music camp in Maine and that is when I met Arianne. She was amazing at the piano and could fly up and down those keys, playing the hardest of repertoire with ease. When I asked her how she does it, she looked at me and simply said. "Oh, well, I practice." And then added, "A lot."

Lightbulb Moment!

The next day, I forced myself to practice for a whole 30 minutes! The next day, 60. And worked my way up to 2 hours a day, then 3. (Hello competitive self!) And suddenly, I was improving. And I liked it.

That year, I went to take a lesson with her teacher who taught in the prep division of Juilliard School who told me that I had a chance to get in, but would need couple of years of hard work and technique building. But I could study with him that summer and get started. I remember like it was yesterday - feeling sad, and then soon after, feeling mad. My internal reaction was something like:

"A few years!?!?! Oh hell no! You just challenged the wrong girl."

I marched home and cancelled my summer plans and got to work. That summer, I practiced 4 hours, then 6 hours and before long, 8 hours a day. I was hooked.

And I auditioned and made it into Juilliard (barely) and continued to practice 6 and 8 hours a day. Sometimes more. Then at Oberlin Conservatory for college, I cranked it up and sometimes clocked in 10 hours or more.

And while, I was learning, performing, excelling, and loving it, I was also breaking. Physically and mentally. I was running on fumes and plowing through my worsening repetitive strain injuries in my wrist, elbow, arm and shoulder. I was told back in my Juilliard days that pain was a good thing. No pain, no gain. I was developing muscles.

But I knew something was terribly wrong and that is what got me introduced to the work of Dorothy Taubman. I'll go into the work in future blog posts (promise!) - but not only was - and still is - the Taubman Approach physically and musically miraculous and responsible for me completely revamping how I play and making full recovery from my injuries, but it radically changed how I practice and for how long I practice.

Instead of wasting hours and hours and hours on exercises like Czerny and Hanon (I have long thrown those out of my piano life), and scales and other technique builders - I get organized and decide what I'll work on during my practice session. Then I delve in.

Instead of playing passages that aren't quite working - over and over and over and over like I used to, I zero in on exactly what is not working - often it is getting from one note to another - or from one chord to one note, or fingering that is not as easy to play as another fingering would be. And then I work on fixing the problem so that the passage can be played and then go on and work on another area.

From the get go, after reading through a piece, I have learned to choreograph the piece. Figure out what I need to do movement wise, fingering-wise, do I have my rotations in place, my ins and outs, my shaping. Are my two hands coordinated? Do I have enough of a rhythmic pulse? The right touch? Voicing?

The work is often meticulous. And not glamourous. And takes a whole lot of brain power and commitment. BUT.....the results are miraculous.

And so, my days of 8+ piano practice days are behind me. And it's amazing what I can get done in say, 2 hours a day, by changing how I work, and knowing what to work on and how to work on them.

Now it's your turn. What does your piano practice look like? I'd love to hear - simply tell me in the comments!

Until the next time!

XOXOXOXOX