Good question! I can imagine that practicing for 5 hours sounds like a mission impossible.

First I will give you a kind warning…

When you are used to practicing about half an hour or an hour daily or you aren’t used to practicing at all (for example when you are a beginner)… don’t suddenly practice for 5 hours when you have a day off or something and feel like it.

You can compare this with sports: you have to build it up slowly. You can’t run a marathon without proper training.

I see everywhere that people are encouraging others to practice more and more, to study hours and hours. That’s not the whole story. You won’t be a good violinist when you only ‘make the hours’ like a machine.

Do you know many people brag about how much they practice and exaggerate the number of hours? The number they mention might not even be true.

Please consider the quality of your practice first. Focus on studying smart, awake, inspired, relaxed, concentrated and focussed. Don’t just make hours and hours without these factors.

You can compare playing a musical instrument with sports in some areas, but music is not a sport. It’s not all about building stamina and learning motor skills. Music is way more interesting as an art than as a sport.

Even in sports you can overtrain: you can ruin your results by training too much, while you can better train in a thought through way.

I’ve seen many people start hating their instrument because of too much practice or being pushed to practice. Also I have seen people getting injuries caused by too much practice or tensed practice. I don’t want this to happen to you :).

Now let’s go back to Valyncia’s question: what should you do when you practice many hours?