Violin practise - how many mins a day?

[Moominsarehippos]

DS is doing his grade 1 next month. How long prep should he be doing each day?

I don't know, but I try to be realistic and get DD to do 10 minutes every day (before school seems to work ok) and 2 supervised practices a week (supervised by me, a non-violinist, but at least I can comment on tuning, timing, etc).

Do you think that would work for you?

Ten minutes would be fine I would think, however if he's very young 5 minutes would be more practical. Better to have a small amount of quality enjoyable practise than make it into a chore.

DDs 10 minutes does seem to include a lot of rosin application and general prep work.....

You need them to practice in a focused and meaningful manner. (real practicing not messing about with stand / bow tightening / adjusting shoulderrest!!) every single day (little and often) not one big session the night before lesson / exam!!!

try and do scales and arpeggios every day... you call out "g major" "d major arpeggio" etc. Look up the syllabus and use the technical terms that the examiner is going to be using, so they are used to the vocab and them being muddled up and not in one set order.

Pieces... Not just from the beginning to the end, but focusing on the tricky bits first, then the whole piece...
thinking not just about accurate notes (in tune and in time) but also dynamics.

very much needs to be supported practice for little ones. Lots of encouragement and praise.

Am lucky as I play too, so helps me supervise my Childs practise. Working towards grade 1 and we do 20mins together every day including singing / clapping rhythms, playing pieces, scales / arpeggios, sight reading.

Left to their own 'practise' I think a lot of young children struggle to know what to do and will play the pieces through and that's about it.

Most music teacher will write in a practise notebook for them, and you can read this to them and remind them of the practise points before they start each piece (e.g. Use long bows, don't forget to count the rests etc)

Musical talent is usually 1% inate musical talent and 99% practice / dedication! The more quality practice they put in, the more they'll get out of it!

Someone told me for little people to aim for 15 minutes 3 times a week or 10 minutes 5 times a week. My dd is 6 (piano not violin though) - and I am trying to get us into a "proper routine" (ie minimum requirements). So am very interested in this thread - thank you!

DS1 is 6 and has just started, he does 10 minutes a day, but 100% supervised by me, which makes a tremendous difference as I also play so can make sure the time he spends is as effective as possible.

Sadly I never learned a musical instrument so haven't a clue about notes and can't tune the thing (but I can hear when it needs tuning and the lovely guy in the music store does it for me!).

Thanks for the tips mamaabc!

Dcs do practice every single day. About 15 mins per instrument for 7yo ds1 and 5 mins for 5yo ds2. Ds1 also doing grade1 violin this term.

Dd age 4 does between 5 and 10 mins per night depending on how tired she is. I find the key is to get into the habit of doing something every day.

My dd is a bit older 9 and practices each instrument for about an hour a day, every day. Even xmas day but she is a freak.
I think about 30 mins once they start doing grades.
Scales, arpegios and a bit of sight reading everyday is a good idea, and aural work at least twice a week.
When no exam on the horizon, dd tends to play fun pieces and those for orchestras, ensembles and choirs.

Dd is seven and in first year of piano. Daily works better for us than anything as its always piano practice day with no wheedling or negotiating. Sometimes she loves it sometimes not, but a year in she's got the practice habit which, despite reaching grade 8, I never did. And I supervise her practice-sometimes from right next to her, sometimes whilst making breakfast. Morning is the only good time for us to do homework, practice etc, after school she either wants to play in the park with friends or at home with the space to do it on her own terms, but "luckily" she's up at six .

Both my children started from 5 minutes, 10 mins Grade 1, 15 mins grade 2, 30 mins grade 5, 1 hour grade 8. You will not notice you spend longer time, just the pieces are getting longer, it will take longer practice time.Significantly less time for second instrument,so far no more than 10 mins ,preparing grade 3 violin exam current season.

My DD1 did grade 1 violin at Christmas and was practising around half an hour, 3 times per week - like the others' said, mainly supervised practise (with me, non violinist) but focusing on stuff.

A few months later and her practice is never less than 1 hour, sometimes even 2 hours. This though includes some fun playing pieces with CD Accompaniment, lots of scales practice for her impending grade 2 exam and some grade 3 pieces and scales that her teacher has given her to do as well as some optional folk pieces she likes to learn/play.

Agree with Curious.

Ds (6) does 15+ mins (grade 2) while dd (9) does 45+ mins (grade6+)

For grade 1 I'd say supervised practice always to keep focus and avoid the awful problem of " learning the mistakes" (whn you play it wrong but don't realise and then practice it like that so it becomes ingrained).

Practice with real focus - concentrating on the hard bits- playing them slowly, then working up to faster than needed - very gradually - makes huge improvements in little time. Bashing through the hole piece for 30 mins a day may not do what 15mins 3x week of real focus does.

But then again there is the tiger mum statistic of 10k hours to genius! But I bet this is 10k hours of real focus too