How much practice is necessary in order to learn to lay the piano is an interesting one. There are many varying opinions out there. Some of these opinions come from people such as myself, who have taught many students to play the piano while some people will have an opinion, who don’t even play a musical instrument.
From my years of teaching the piano, I have come to the conclusion that 5 minutes every day is enough for beginners to make reasonable progress. This seems a very small amount and five minutes some of the time is not enough. What is important is that the 5 minutes is regular, as in every day. If you cannot practice for a particularly busy day then missing a practice once in a while is perfectly fine. Missing every other day is going to impact negatively on your progress.
I’m so convinced that the regularity of practice is actually more important than the amount, that I would rather a student do 5 minutes every day than only an hour the night before a lesson. Think about it – 5 minutes a day for a week is 35 minutes is better than one practice of sixty minutes. Experience has shown me that regularity of practice is far more important.
Let me be explicit, I’m not talking about 5 minutes that includes sitting down at the piano and flicking through a piano book trying to decide what to start with, I’m talking about 5 solid minutes of concentrated practice.
If you get more practice than 5 minutes a day, then you are going to progress quicker. Again, this is only going to happen if your practice is regular.
As a beginner, I would also recommend that you don’t practice more than fifteen minutes at a time. I know that this sounds crazy but it really isn’t. If you practice for more than 15 minutes at a time when you are a beginner, your concentration will probably start to diminish after this time. If you are motivated to practice more than this, then I would strongly advise that you do a number of shorter practices on the one day, rather than one big, long practice each day. Doing this will maximize your results and progress.
If you are passed the beginner’s stage of learning to play the piano, then 5 minutes every day will not be enough. Fifteen minutes every day would probably be a better goal. Of course, you don’t have to do this amount all at the same time – you could do two smaller practices if you wanted to. This would be particularly useful to do if there was a new piece or a hard section in a piece that required a great deal of concentration or effort.
Obviously the more advanced you are and to keep progressing, you would need to do significantly more practice.
Of course what I am discussing is the ideal minimum effort you would need to put in in order to learn to play the piano. If you want to do more than what I have suggested here, then don’t let me hold you back – practice as much as you wish to!