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Comment by ken47 | Hacker News Reader

“I, and the other strong students in my department, did practice less than the weaker students,” he said.

This is quite misleading. -Locally-, it might be true that weaker students practice more than strong students, to compensate for their weakness. But on average, great piano players practice much more than mediocre piano players.

It's easy to find examples, but I'll name two that I found in my first two Google searches:

Lang Lang (virtuoso classical pianist) - 6 hours a day Oscar Peterson (virtuoso jazz pianists) - 6 hours a day

I'm --certain-- this is the norm, not the exception.

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Agreed. I simply do not believe they practiced less.

I know a couple technical folks who are smoking good at their instruments, and basically said:

"Look, I spent time in <strong musical program> as an undergraduate. One group "has it"--they're the elite. I'm in the second group. I'm practicing my ass off, and I'm not deaf. I'm gaining some ground on the best in the second group, but it's REALLY slow as they're practicing their ass off, too. Maybe I can reach the bottom of the elite group after 4 years. Maybe."

"Or I can get a CS degree. And still play my instrument. And get amazing gigs simply because I am more than good enough and am always available when a cool gig comes up since I don't have to worry about money."

Maurizio Pollini still practices like crazy- lots of hours. More than I do! (he is way better than I)

Sviatoslav Richter has some amusing comments on this, even though he did not intend to be amusing. He states in his notebooks that he never practiced more than three hours a day and that he kept accurate records of his practicing, which clearly demonstrated this. He then added that (of course) travel days in which you don't have access to a piano, sick days, etc. all need to be made up for. So, while he practiced more than three hours, on average it was not more than that.

There then appears a footnote in the notebooks by the editor stating that even with this correction, his friends', colleagues', and the editor's own experience of Richter suggest he practiced way more than that.

Perhaps he delineates between practicing and playing? Maybe his friends conflated the two?

Indeed, Al DiMeola is another example. I used to do 6 hour practice sessions with some regularity. What you practice during that 6 hour session matters, however. If you "play" for 6 hours, you can't call it practice. They're quite different.

6 hours a day is plenty for a professional working musician, since they’re going to be performing, dealing with students etc. Serious students will do up to 10 hours a day tho.

>10 hours a day

I would hope they are spending many of those hours reading instead of doing the physical exercise.

In my experience playing, after only a few hours, I stop getting any better. I need sleep to solidify my understanding. Although I'm a 15 year amateur music player.

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