In December, in Australia, life can be extremely busy as there is not only Christmas events to attend, but for those who have school age children, it is also the end of the school year. Because I have teenagers, I have a really busy December each year. What I have realized is that whilst everything is so busy, some of the normal, everyday things just get completely sidelined. This has made me consider the question – how much should you practice when life gets busy?
The answer is not a straightforward one. For some people, when life gets busy, like preparing for Christmas, so that family and friends have a special time, practicing the piano is just one too many things to do. There is only so many hours in the day and a person can only do so much and sometimes piano practice needs to be postponed. This is especially important if you are a beginner and you are trying to learn a lot of new things at once. When you are a beginner, piano practice can feel more like hard work than pleasure. This does not mean that a person doesn’t really want to learn, or is not well suited to learning to play the piano, It just means that there needs to be a lot of effort and concentration to focus on learning the notes, chords, timing, rhythm and fingering or posture.
If you are a beginner and you are really busy, don’t focus on having to practice every day, focus on trying to get some done when you can. You need to be tolerant of yourself on the days that you run out of time to practice. Getting annoyed at yourself for not practicing is not going to help you practice more or help improve your skill level. Seriously, just do what is reasonable when life is really busy.
If you are busy, then for some people, they need to practice more. Let me explain with an anecdote: A friend of mine was describing how her teenage daughter had a lot going on the past week, including going on a school camp. My friend described how when her daughter got home, one of the first things she did was sit down and play the piano. My friend went on to describe how her daughter’s mood went from being frazzled and a little grumpy to being okay after she played the piano. If you are like my friend’s daughter that playing the piano helps with your disposition and gives you a sense of calm, then you should actually play the piano more during busy times.
Of course, if you are sometimes more stressed about finding the time to practice the piano and sometimes it is the very thing to keep you managing business or stress, then you need to go with whatever works at the time.
Whatever you do, learning to play the piano and practicing should not be a source of stress, especially if you are causing yourself to be stressed by placing unrealistic expectations on yourself.