u/claro-safaro

Hey dear Community,

I've set myself a goal of practicing 700h of music, by the end of 2026. Currently I'm on day 32, and have 80h of practice in.

Background: I've focussed on guitar and singing these past 5 years, so already have successfully taught myself and have basic music theory understanding.

Now I want to move my practice to the next level, as I plan to make music my main profession over the course of the coming 3 years and move it from the side-line of my freelancing, into the center.

This is one motivation for my 700h goal: To truly shift the way I spend my days and move music practice up my priority list. To reach the 700h goal, I'm spending 3-4 hours per day on 3 instruments (piano, accordion and flute), chunked into 20 minutes sessions.

My question to you is:

• Does anyone have experience with how to keep up 2-4 hours of daily practice over a longer period of time?
• How do you manage the cognitive load?
• How do you deal with set backs and days not stuck to the "ideal plan"? (especially curious about this)
• How to avoid burn out?
• What to expect (in terms of improvement) with 700h of practice invested?
• Do you think this goal is realistic or delusional?
• How to deal with not reaching the goal?

I have a history with burn out, ergo I am trying to set this goal up in a way to prevent myself from overdoing it and then need to drop the ball entirely.

Grateful for any advice or tips.

Thank you for reading and sharing!

(I started a blog series, to keep me accountable, with some more background and context how I set the project up. But the main facts are summed up here in this post, so reading isn't really necessary. https://sarah-stumboeck.com/blog/700-hour-music-practice-experiment)