9/2/25 What Arthur Rubinstein knew about practicing

When I was a student at the Juilliard School, the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein came and spoke to the students.

I was already a huge fan of Rubinstein. I had many of his records–yes, these were LP’s back in the day–and had read his autobiography, which was brimming with his love for life and music and adventure.

He was to speak at 1:00pm and I got to the concert hall where he was to speak before 10:00 am to get a good seat, and quite a few kids had already beat me there to get a good seat to hear the legend speak.

After regaling us with wonderful stories of his life, he opened it up to Q&A from the students and I will never forget that someone asked how many hours a day he felt students should practice.

This audience was full of some of the best and most serious music students in the world, most of whom were spending 6-10 hours every single day in the practice rooms–many of them eating all 3 meals in those practice rooms.

His answer astonished everyone and I can still remember the audible gasps from the audience.

He said, if you can’t accomplish what you need to do in an hour or maybe two at the most, you’re just wasting your time and probably going to injure yourself.

And he was right.

Endless hours of practice often just leads to frustration and pain of one sort or another. And it can often drive us into a kind of unhealthy and compulsive approach to our music.

While it’s obviously necessary to work on things, over-practicing can actually take us further off course than we may be aware.

When we relax into our music, we can often achieve greater results, and actually faster than if we work harder. Because music isn’t about working.

It’s about playing!

Playing gives us
✅ More connection to our body
✅ More ability to bring subtle changes or “micro-improvisation” to our music
✅ Less tension in the hands, arms, and shoulders
✅ Grooves that feel as good as they sound