<p>I'm a singer, and I generally practice 1 1/2-2 hours daily. I usually warm up, practice my songs, take a 10 minute break, and go back singing. How long does a serious vocalist practice a day?</p>
<p>That all depends on your age, development, and what sort of rep you are practicing. Best to consult someone who knows you.</p>
<p>The younger the singer, the shorter the daily amount; the higher the voice, the less the daily amount; the more vocally demanding the rep is, the less the daily amount. </p>
<p>I don’t know of any vocal teachers that would recommend anything more than 2 hours per day for a high school vocalist (and many would recommend much less for many of their students). So, if you are in high school, you are near or above the safe maximum. As musicamusica suggests, check with your voice teacher.</p>
<p>When my wife was about 25 and had won national competitions, her voice teacher insisted that she never sing more than 90 minutes per day. She was a soprano and her teacher claimed that overusing the voice was one of the reasons for its early decline (i.e. many female singers’ careers end in their late 40’s or early 50’s).</p>
<p>I should add that there are ways to “practice” without singing:<br>
a) listen to your repertoire (and memorize it before you start singing–some teachers deplore this because they believe that students will merely mimic the interpretations in the recordings they listen to and also potentially mimic voices which they should never mimic thus harming their own voice, but other teachers view this as a way to preserve the voice and choose the voices that their students listen to carefully and ensure that the student does not try to emulate a voice which would be unhealthy for them);
b) score study;
c) text and language study, etc…</p>
<p>It very much depends upon your age and you really need to discuss this with your voice teacher- if you don’t have one, you need to get one. For high school/undergrad, 90 minutes/day is too much, and you risk damage to your cords and you certainly don’t want to end up with nodes or polyps. You’re wise in breaking your sessions into two smaller ones, but shorten them so that you aren’t actively singing for more than 45 minutes to an hour per day. If your throat feels “not right”, by all means take the day off.</p>
<p>My S is a HS baritone who sings in 2 choirs at school each day (probably about an hour to 1 1/2 hr every day). His voice teacher only wants him to practice at home for 45 minutes 4 times a week + one hour a week for voice lesson. When he is rehearsing/performing in a musical, he is given a “pass” at school. He listens and learns the music, but does not sing. Seems to work well for my S. Just visited his ENT today and was given a clean bill of health.</p>