So, last week, when it was really super hot, we watched a lot of TV

[conuly]

Anything to stay air conditioned, I say.

Ana was very happy to get to see Angelina Ballerina. In order to make that show "educational" they slip in live action clips of real people doing real things, and the episode we watched had three children who are attending youth programs at Julliard. And the first one talks about how he plays the flute, and this and that, and as he's talking on and on I interject "And he practices three hours a day...." into all of this. Naturally, I'm ignored.

Then the two who play the marimba come on, and sure enough, one of them says those exact words, "I practice about three hours a day."

Cue Ana turning to stare at me, jaw fully dropped.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

That's really an amazing amount of time to spend on something when you're a kid, since children need so much time to sleep. If you take how much time a typical kid spends getting ready for school, eating meals, and doing homework, and sleeping even if we assume minimal chores (say just tidying up one's own room and stuff when one uses it) that leaves very little time for anything else during the week. If the family also insists on any sort of weekend activity (such as church/temple/etc.) then that leaves even less free time.

But it is certainly true that vast amounts of practice is the way to really develop a skill. I just hope those kids really enjoy it. I would not be at all surprised if I averaged 3 or more hours per day reading throughout my childhood, since I did really enjoy it.

[conuly]

It's an amazing amount of time to spend on something no matter how old you are.

But you don't get to Julliard practicing 20 minutes a day. (Of course, practicing 20 minutes a day is perfectly reasonable if all you want to do is play competently.)

[leora.livejournal.com]

True, but it's not an amazing amount of time to spend on a job. So, if you were a professional musician, it wouldn't be impressive if you played 3 hours a day. And with a lot of things people end up making careers of, you don't need to put in that kind of extracurricular time. For example, learning to read was difficult for me and took me a lot of time in first grade. But I was spending that time while in school, which I had to go to anyway. So I could still spend my time after school hanging out with friends, which I did fairly often when I was young.

And 3 hours really is less time for a healthy adult who doesn't have other commitments (such as raising a child). For example, 3 hours a day during college or shortly after college would have been a lot less time, because college involved significantly less class time (the homework was harder, but it didn't use up so much more time that it compensated for the vast shortening of the class time) and a college student needs a little less sleep than a young child (although I got far less than I should have). A young adult needs far less sleep than a young child, so 3 awake hours is just a smaller percentage of one's time. Of course, most adults have to spend time doing things like grocery shopping, which those kids may or may not have to do (I often did go to the grocery store with my mother, but these children may not have to).

So, yes, it's a lot of time for anyone, but it's especially a large percentage of a child's free awake time.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

At school, I was a competent musician, but nowhere near making a career out of it. I did an hour per instrument per day (piano and cello). Dropped the piano when I got to sixth form, as I no longer had the time to spare (I was trying to do 4 A-levels rather than the normal 3).

A friend who is a pro-standard harper got that way by practicing 6 hours a day for about 10 years.

Your two are a bit younger, I gather (don't know exact ages?). I think I was only doing about half an hour when I started piano at 6.

[conuly]

Ana is entering 3rd grade, and she's 8. Evangeline is entering 1st grade, she's 5, but she'll be 6 by Halloween. They're almost exactly 2.5 years apart.

Half an hour a day is, as I told leora, perfectly reasonable if all you want to do is learn to play piano. We can't all be best at everything.