Organising the Practice of two instruments

[Acinonyx]

Dd plans to take up a second instrument when she is 9 and I'm wondering how best to organise practice. At the moment, we do 20-30 mins of first instrument after dinner and some random other times (and usually miss 2 nights for one reason or another) and this is working really well. Not sure about the second one - best one after the other, apart, same time each, every day??? Not aiming for professional standard but keen to do it well.

Fitting it all in can be a bit of a nightmare - all 3 of my dc play 2 instruments and it can be chaos.

They all do piano and so tend to do 10 min slots twice each - once after school, once after tea. Then they pick up their individual things at another time (this does vary - 2 of them have just been doing piano exams so that's been he focus). My dd1 is in S2 and is able to practice both instruments during one of her class music lessons a week in the practice rooms, which is accordion, though I like to hear her at least once so I can check its going in the right direction.

They probably practice 5/7 days a week. Won't be hat for the next 2 weeks though, too much else on!!

I think you do have to accept that the progress on each may not be as fast if they were only learning one.

Lots of good advice thanks. I shall be sad if the piano suffers but I guess I'll live....

Alternate nights, while they're young. But in the sixth form I was doing 90min of piano before school and 3hrs of violin after school (8-11pm), in addition to other musical activities.

DS1 does two, and does them one after the other. But he's only 6 and hasn't been doing either long so it's only 15 minutes ish on each.

JulieMichelle
when did you get some sleep?!!

@makemelaugh

Not sure. Where I am, everything's pretty local so even walking to school only took 50min. After all that, conservatoire didn't happen, but I'm glad I took the alternative route and read music as an academic subject - it suited me much better. My A-levels were totally eclectic and I did them in the middle of a run of shows (pit-orchestra, not on stage) and I now teach violin and piano but also play several other instruments to varying standards, and I play jazz, folk and gypsy-punk-craziness (electric fiddle) as well as classical. Not really conservatoire-friendly I guess!

^can't edit, but add early music to the mix. :)

We are having this problem too, especially with DD1 who has a long commute to school now and after school clubs and also has reached grade 3 in one instrument, so more practice required...

We are totalling 6 instruments (x3 children) at the moment and I am considering just alternating days so that we are effectively practising 3 instruments in one night rather than 6.

If anything, I am finding it too stressful supervising 6 lots of music on top of homework, cooking dinner, and getting everyone ready for bed/stories read etc...I am becoming rather shouty too which I always regret afterwards!!

Could you supervise alternate instruments each night?