If your child plays an instrument, how much time a day/week do they practice?

Thirteen year old daughter plays cello. Through elementary school, ten to fifteen minutes four days a week was recommended by the music teacher. The last two years, junior high, fifteen to thirty minutes every day. The sign in the music room says something to the effect, "Only practice on the days you eat." I can honestly say my daughter really only practices about five days a week. She is coming up on the county evaluation, so she is practicing daily, but this every day thing only seems to happen in the week or so before a concert and again in the spring before this evaluation. The teacher encourages her class to practice daily. I try to leave it to my daughter to follow the guidelines. She is in her fifth year playing the cello and plans to continue on through high school and possibly even through college. She isn't planning a career, she merely enjoys the music.

My son is only 1 so, no he doesn't play an instrument. But my little sister does. She is 12. (I'm 17). She plays the violin and flute. She practices both for an hour. About... hmm. i'd say 3-5 nights a week? In her room. And, no the teacher actually tells them how long they're supposed to practice for, it's just a matter of doing it. It's basically like homework,, but homework you can't turn in. If I could pick it would be 30min-1hr for 3-4 nights a week.

my kids are a bit young but I suspect they will want to practice an instrument when they get older, it runs in the family and they show an interest in many instruments and music, most teachers do tell their students how much they should practice so that they can continue learning and improving, but I also think that if you don't want to practice the instrument you can't really want to play it, so the more they play the more inclined I am to let them continue if they only take it out for lessons then I'd be more inclined to ask them if they really want to play.

I took piano lessons from the age of 4-13. My teacher initially told me what practice was required, but when I got older she simply assigned me pieces, and I practiced between lessons until I could play them correctly. So the amount of practice varies with the person, the level, and the purpose. For casual playing, less practice is necessary. When I was getting ready for an audition and had to memorize several different pieces and play them perfectly, there was a lot more practicing required. In general I would think 30 minutes a day would be a minimum.

My son is 16 and plays the acoustic guitar. He practices anywhere between 1 - 1 1/2 hours per day, three times or more a week. He has had a guitar teacher (one on one) in the past for a few lessons only, the rest he has learned on his own. I have never set the practice times for him, he was responsible to do this on his own and he wants to continue on. I think that once you instill the love of music in a child, it takes on a whole life of its own. If they were meant to play an instrument or sing or whatever, they will do it but forcing lessons and practices rarely yields good results. IMO, true musicians are born with the drive to succeed, you cannot teach that no matter how hard you try.

My kids are 12 and 15. The 15 year old plays the piano and has done since she was 6. She doesn't practice much, to be honest - she has big exams coming up. The 12 year old plays piano and bassoon. It's up and down. When he practices piano, he'll play for a while. But he doesn't do it every day. He doesn't practice bassoon at home as much as he should, but he does have hour-long group practices at school twice a week.

Well, I started the violin in Kindergarten and then I practiced about 15-20 minutes. Now I'm in 8th grade and I try to get in about an hour or at least 45 minutes a day although Im very busy. If your child is going to learn an instrument, the first few years he will probably hate it (which is what I did) But after a few years (it took me about 8), then he'll finally ENJOY practicing! I know I do! WHATEVER YOU DO: DON'T LET HIM QUIT. I'm sooo glad my parents didn't let me!

My son is 23 and my daughter is 18. My son plays the electric guitar and drums, and my daughter plays the classic piano. They're at university right now and they have less time to practice and play their Instruments, but are part of the music so cities at their universities and my son is in a band with his university friends, so they meet up twice a week for several hours. When my children were at home, they used to go to their school music club on Wednesdays for 2 hours and a half to practice, and they used to go to their music tutors on the weekend for 1 hour and they practiced every night for 30 minutes too.

I used to play the piano, violin, and French horn, but I'm too busy now so I quit all of them around four years ago. I'm 15 now, I quit after fifth grade, when I was 11. I practiced piano for about half an hour right before my weekly lesson, and that's it. I was supposed to practice half an hour per day, every day, but I never did. I practiced violin about an hour total per week, usually ten minutes here and ten minutes there. I had orchestra two times per week for an hour in school, and I was supposed to practice three hours total per week. I practiced French horn about an hour per week too. I had band twice per week for an hour, and I was supposed to practice for two hours. I'm naturally musically talented though, I was the best violin player in my grade at the time, and I probably practiced the least.