How much time do people invest in playing music on a daily or weekly level? In an ideal world I would play drums at least a little bit every day. Back when I was in a full-on band I would rehearse with the band 3 times a week 3 hours every time so I never practiced on my own. Now that I'm solo I play drums a little every day. I just acquired a new bass and I'm not really a bass player at all but I enjoy picking it up every other day and playing for about 30 minutes or so.

As a drummer I think that you need to play regularly to keep your skills up. And more time is needed to not just sustain the skills but actually get better. I'm just wondering about everyone's practice practices.

If there's a show coming up, I really practice a lot... almost an hour a day if I can -- fear: the great motivator. But I haven't played live for a year and a half. Also, I live in a tiny place with my wife, so lately I've only been picking up the guitar once or twice a month for 20 minutes at a time. Gotta get back into it!

If you don't use it, you don't got it.

I reckon I play for a couple of hours a day, although only maybe 30 minutes is 'practice' and the rest is noodling.

When I played in my old band we'd rehearse for 3 hours a week. Members of other bands used to express amazement that we only rehearsed for that amount of time, but I think it was simply that each band member tried really hard.

The band I was in after that practiced more, but was far less tight simply because the members were far less interested...

3 hours of hard practice beats 10 hours of arsing around smoking and instrument swapping, easy.

I'm a classic example of the drummer without a practice space.
My playing is terrible because of this and i've been playing for over ten years. Band practice is only once a week. 3 Hours spent forging songs and jamming for song ideas. Total time to practice technique: 0

AAAAARGH!

I practice two consecutive nights a week for four hours at a time. The consecutive thing is important: it means that we just leave all our shit set up and ready to go for the next day thus able to pick up exactly where we left off and save an hour of fannying around setting up, level-checking, etc. Also people can usually remember a riff if it's 24 hours old. If I had my way I would definitely practice 3 nights a week, so twelve hours in total. If I had a piano or good accoustic guitar at home, I'd also play that most days for anything from 20 minutes to two hours. I could happily spend 20 hours a week+ just playing, and in fact would probably be a lot mentally healthier for it.

Every band I've been in, there has been a typical schedule of practice of three times a week, a couple or more hours at a time.

hard to tell. i play everyday and have 4-6 hrs band rehersal once a week but how much of it is actual practicing? not enough, that's for sure. the problem is, i like to fuck around with instruments. it's fun, god damnit. but i've been playing almost exlusivly challenging (well, for me) stuff as me and the drummer came to a conclusion we can do something really... you know, cool.

what adam said about swapping instruments and smoking.

Adam CR wrote:When I played in my old band we'd rehearse for 3 hours a week. Members of other bands used to express amazement that we only rehearsed for that amount of time, but I think it was simply that each band member tried really hard.

I am experiencing this for the first time in my life.
Every other band I have been in has always practiced two to three times a week and we never got as much done as the band I am in now gets done in 3 hours a week.
I think the trying hard is a factor, but there's also the fact that we don't spend half the time yelling at one another, smoking dope, trying to pick fights with each other, trying to fill gallon milk jugs with piss, smoking dope, etc...
I am happy that I am finally in an efficient band.

My band practices twice a week with few exceptions, but generally only for about 2 hours. We don't fuck around, just get together and play. Unless there's a show coming up, no more than half the time is spent going over old stuff and occasionally trying to change the songs forcibly into something different so we stay interested. The rest of the time is spent working on new things. Most of the new stuff never lives to see completion, but the process of trying out new ideas is why we practice. I think we're a better band for always being a little unfamiliar with what we're playing - it forces us to listen to each other. I don't think any of us would enjoy getting together every week to play the same songs over and over again, and we could probably get away with doing that once a month.