Question 13

Hello Mrs. Lang,
my professor says that I have to practice a lot. Pianists would also practice up to 10 hours a day. So 6 hours must be possible. Since I've been doing this, I always get tired quickly, often have a cold and don't really make progress. My question to you: how much does a singer have to practice?
Thank you very much!
K.K.*

*name changed

Hello Mrs. K.,
I am a violinist by training, and during the semester breaks I also had practice phases with daily workloads of up to 8 hours. These intensive practice periods were for repertoire study and preparation for the following semester. During the semester I practiced about 4 hours a day and used this time very intensively.
When it comes to singing, in my opinion, it looks a bit different. The musculature is perhaps, if it is well trained and physiologically correctly used, designed for longer "use". However, when singing, we depend on the functioning of small muscles and epithelial layers. There, the mucosa may not recover as quickly. Again, if their functioning is trained on a physiological basis, endurance performance is possible. This is the only way to explain top vocal performances in long parts, such as Susanna by a lyric soprano, Hans Sachs by a heroic baritone, or the title couple of "Tristan and Isolde" by the heroic tenor and the highly dramatic soprano.
Such feats of endurance are achieved through successive building. Just as a small child learns to walk, incorporates this activity more or less consciously into its daily life, takes longer walks, hikes, perhaps participates in sports and competitive sports, and thus in the course of years the adolescent develops a stamina, the time factor is also of great importance in the development of the singer. The time factor in the horizontal direction. "Vertical" use of time, i.e. hours of singing "practicing", I consider to be of little use, because one gets more and more into a spiral of fatigue, in which one cannot really regenerate.

I have had this confirmed in many feedbacks from students and professional singers. In my opinion, one should develop a "practicing hygiene" which, through conscious practice of movement sequences, slowly leads to the development of retrievable individually desired sound qualities. If the singer learns not to get tired in finding his own singing, he will also be able to sing longer and longer phases in the course of time and thus be able to serve the vertical time axis differently.
I would like to emphasize here the difference between active singing practice and learning. If the learning time, which should be much longer than the pure practicing time, is used optimally and on different levels, this should also have a very positive effect on the practicing time and on the progress of the practicing-learning process. Thus, one can rehearse works on the instrument, preferably the piano (without singing). One can organize one's memorization in different ways: e.g. speaking text, memorizing text silently, combining text memorization with movement, combining text memorization with pictures, combining words and melody with different anchor methods. You can make your own practice recordings to listen to (even "on the side") whenever you get a chance. There are no limits to the imagination here. Everyone should search for his own ways and learn to find them.

Repetitions in practicing and learning should be meaningful, varied and executed in a concentrated and conscious way.  Stupid repetition of movements, or even worse, taking refuge in emotional patterns, is not very effective.

I myself have never practiced singing for more than an hour a day. However, I have studied much longer. That could add up to 6 hours of learning. - In peak periods, when there was a lot to study. It was always important for me not to come out of a practice session tired and never to go into the next practice session tired. My teachers always emphasized that I had to find my way. The time of study should be used well for that. In studies, you are still allowed to make mistakes and you can learn from them. At work, you should know what, how and how long you can sing, and how much time you need for regeneration.

If I were in your place, I would ask my professor to explain to me exactly how he understands six hours of practice and on what personal experience this time figure is based.
I would have the question of voice fatigue clarified by a phoniatrist at the current occurrence.

Best regards

Petra Lang