How Much Should Kids Practice? What Research Says About Practice Time

By ABC Academy of Music teaching team · Updated August 2026

“How long should she actually be practicing each day?” It is one of the most common questions parents ask once a child starts lessons. Here is the honest answer: no study we found hands out a magic number of minutes per day. What the research does show is something more useful. It tracks how much total training time is linked to real, measurable gains, and the pattern is clear. More consistent practice, over weeks and years, tracks with bigger results.

Training Duration and Cognitive Skills: The Boston Study

A well-known study from the Boston area compared 41 children who took regular instrument lessons to 18 children who did not. The music group had trained for an average of 4.63 years. Researchers tested both groups on motor skills, vocabulary, and nonverbal reasoning, a kind of puzzle-solving skill unrelated to language or math.

The music group scored higher on fine motor skills in both hands, on vocabulary, and on the puzzle-solving tests. Just as important, the length of a child’s training predicted the size of the gain. Kids with more years of practice behind them showed bigger advantages in motor skill and vocabulary than kids with fewer years; the same pattern showed up for reasoning but did not reach statistical significance in the full sample. This was a correlational study, not an experiment, so it cannot prove practice alone caused every gain. But the dose-response pattern, more training linked to more benefit, is a meaningful signal on its own.

How Fast Can Real Change Show Up?

Longer is not the only variable that matters. A Portuguese study measured how quickly gains show up with structured group music training. Researchers worked with 74 children, average age 8, from public elementary schools in Porto. One group did 24 weeks of Orff-based music training, two 90-minute sessions a week. A second group played basketball on the same schedule. A third group had no structured activity.

The music group pulled ahead of both other groups on a hand-coordination test, with a large effect size. Four months after training ended, the gains were still there. None of the children in the music group scored in the bottom 20 percent on the coordination test at that follow-up, and over half scored in the top 20 percent.

A separate, shorter Japanese study found a measurable working-memory gain after just six weeks of twice-weekly keyboard harmonica lessons in 6- to 8-year-olds. Together, these two studies suggest real benefits can show up in as little as six to 24 weeks of consistent, structured practice, not just after years.

What This Means for a Practice Routine

Since no study in this review gives a specific number of daily minutes, we will not invent one here. What the studies support is a simpler, more practical takeaway for parents: short, regular, structured sessions, kept up consistently over weeks and years, are what the research links to real gains. A child who practices briefly but steadily is following the exact pattern these studies measured. A single long session before a lesson is not.

How a teacher structures those sessions matters too. Both the Boston and Porto studies involved structured lessons with a teacher or program, not unsupervised practice alone. That structure, someone setting clear goals and checking progress, is part of what the research measured, not a side detail.

Music Lessons at ABC Academy of Music

Our teachers build practice plans around exactly what this research supports: short, consistent, structured sessions with clear goals, not marathon cram sessions. Whether your child is just starting piano or picking up drums, we help set a realistic routine from the first lesson. See our class schedule to find a spot, or visit our rates and payment page for current pricing.

For more on how practice connects to real outcomes, see our related articles on music lessons and motor skills, the best age to start music lessons, and music lessons and school performance.