Practicing is a rather complicated issue.  In general, beginners can start their piano careers with just 10 minutes a day and do quite well.  Most of my students are playing at an intermediate level and should be practicing for about 30 minutes a day (five to seven days a week).  Advanced students should be investing even more time (although I have had some excellent advanced students who practiced only 30 minutes a day).

Without regular practice, students (and their PARENTS) will get quite bored with their pieces.  (This can be especially true for more advanced pianists, whose pieces take quite a long time to learn.)  Students can begin to lose interest in playing the piano altogether if they are not really getting anywhere.  If there is no progress, the whole process can get quite tedious (and BELIEVE YOU ME, I KNOW)!

SO, WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THIS?

My first, and most important, suggestion is that you find a REGULAR time to practice.  One of the best times for many students is BEFORE school.  The reason that time works so well is that practicing gets to be a regular way to start the day and is seldom in conflict with other activities.  If that doesn't work for you, any other time can work, as long as it is regular:  every day right after school, every evening while dinner is cooking, every evening right before you go to bed, or (one student reported this as being a HIGHLY successful method) any time your parents ask you to do a chore of any kind.  (Good luck on that one!)

My second suggestion is to make sure to try the practice techniques we talk about on lessons.  If you just play your pieces straight through over and over, you will eventually learn them, but it will take FOREVER.  Focus on the parts of the piece that need your attention, and you will save yourself hours of time and learn the piece much more quickly.  Parents, invest in ear plugs if necessary!  Productive practice can be repetitive and difficult to listen to!

Third, really listen to your own playing and know when you are accomplishing something.  I hate to prescribe a set amount of time, or a set number of repetitions for a piece because you need to learn to gauge those things for yourself.  (The Practice Police just cannot always be there to tell you what you should be doing.) 

Practicing is complicated because sometimes it can seem like you are getting nowhere.  Remember that if you are working on a very difficult passage, it can take quite a long time to feel the progress.  The real results of practice can be unprededictable.  Most often, results show up several weeks later when difficult passages begin to fall into place.  A lot of the process is just having faith in the eventual outcome.

Of course, there are always those occasional hectic weeks, when you really just cannot practice very much.  If you should have one of those, please let me know at the beginning of your lesson.  Instead of wading through the same pieces we spent time on the week before, we can use the time to work on technique or sight-reading or ear-training or improvisation or theory, all of which are important to your musicianship.

WHAT SHOULD OUR HOUSEHOLD POLICY BE?

Some students are self-motivated and disciplined and will regulate practice without guidance from anyone else.  Some need a reward system.  Some need practice times enforced.  Some just need reminders.  My main concern is that piano practice does not become a source of ill will between parents and kids, and much of that depends on your own relationship and family dynamic.

Also, it can be difficult for a student to get motivated when it is so easy to stare at the television or the computer, or talk on the phone.  If kids have some down-time from these activities, they will often gravitate to the piano...not only to practice, but to play through old pieces or to write music of their own.  These things are all important to musical development.

I hope that family members will take an interest in what each student is doing: knowing what he or she is working on, listening to practice, being supportive during the inevitable plateaus, and recognizing accomplishments.  (PLEASE, I BEG you, do not make negative comments about what you think of a particular piece, or how long the student has been working on it.  Such comments are quite detrimental to the student's open-mindedness and the learning process in general.) 

Music can be such an enjoyable part of life!  My teacher felt that improving oneself musically is one of life's nobler endeavors.  (He was not biased in any way either.)  I do know that, with dedication and patience, each person can find his or her own rewarding and joyful musical path.