The Thirty Minute Myth
By Philip Johnston

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It doesn’t matter how much you gush to parents. It won’t help.

You can explain how their child’s reading has improved, and that their phrasing is mature beyond their years. You can commend the excellent concentration in lessons, or praise their attention to detail when learning new pieces.

None of this matters. When parents are assessing how their child’s lessons are going,  most of them don’t mess around with all this airy-fairy subjective stuff. (Apart from anything else, not all of it makes sense to them… Dynamics? Phrasing? Stylistically Appropriate delivery of Baroque pieces? Huh?)

In fact, of all the indicators of the success or otherwise of the lessons, there is only one that seems truly objective. It’s easy for them to assess, so it is one of the first things they check.

How much practice is my child doing?

And somewhere in the depths of the subconscious, they know what the answer should be:

Half an hour a day.

		Of all the indicators of the success or otherwise of the lessons, there is only one that seems truly objective. It’s easy for parents to assess, so it is one of the first things they check. How much practice is my child doing?

Just as our lifespans are supposed to be three score and ten, and centipedes have exactly one hundred legs, practice is supposed to take half an hour.

And if it doesn’t…well, clearly there are problems. Maybe we shouldn’t be forking out all this money for lessons.

Come with me for a moment, as we have a look at the whole idea of the Compulsory 30 Minutes a Day.

Because I’m not convinced it’s a great idea.

Now before the protests start, don’t misunderstand me. I am not about to advocate practiceless music lessons. (We’ve all had students who have shown us where that path leads). What I’m going to do is briefly examine the reality of what insisting on 30 minutes a day actually produces, and check whether this particular old saw is still sharp.

What! Blasphemer! Explain yourself, sir!