Posted by Sean Chisham on August 20, 2003 at 13:35:55:
In Reply to: Re: Focused practice (longish) posted by Jarrod on August 20, 2003 at 12:53:41:
I believe you are both right. 20-40 minutes is about as long as people can really stay highly focussed on any one task before you reach diminished returns, IMO. On the other hand 2 hrs/day is not going to get most people a job.
I like to shoot for 4-5 hours/day broken down into 1hr sessions each. In each session I try to break them down even further to maybe 15 minutes/page of a solo or /page of an excerpt list. These 15 minutes are long enough to get a lot done and the switch of tunes every 15 minutes helps to keep the brain engaged.
Where I differ from MP's post is in stating that we do not need to practice what we are already good at. Daily affirmation of already well prepared music will allow you to better explore the music instead of the notes and will also make it much easier to suceed when under the pressures of auditions or other live performances. So if the next page of solo practice is a page which you know better than any other page and there are still weak pages, stick to the routine and spend the 15 minutes getting even better on that particular page. Too many people have played recitals and sounded weak on the "easy" tunes because they did not dedicate the time needed. Same thing happens with the "easy" excerpts on auditions.
Focussed practice is indeed much better than unfocussed practice. But unfocussed practice is rarely more distructive than less practice. Your practice efficiency on that day may be lower due to your brain thinking about other things, but you will still be accomplishing advancement.
As long as you are not physically injuring yourself and are taking some time out to mentally recharge the batteries, I can see little reason to believe that there is any such thing as "too much" practice. The "too much" practice excuse is an attempt to justify not putting in the time. I am not trying to be holier than thou either. I have been guilty on several occasions of not spending the time needed to give a performance/audition which was up to snuff. Hopefully I have learned from the past and will continue to do so.
sean