PianoTell's 3rd Annual Practice Accountability Challenge - Team 2026 (PACT2026)

Sophia · 2025-12-13T17:40:44+00:00

You are cordially invited to join the Practice Accountability Challenge - Team 2026 (that's PACT2026)! The challenge starts January 1st. This is a team-oriented accountability challenge designed to energize and support everyone's piano practice. PACT tracks any amount of time on your piano practice (that can be 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour - that's completely up to you!) There are no PACT police. The challenge is based on the honour system. You get to choose which instrument to use, and what activities effectively and meaningfully support your practice. PACT is meant to be flexible, welcoming, and encouraging. Ideally, everyone thrives and completes the challenge! CHALLENGE GUIDELINES Join this challenge by adding a comment to this thread with your pledge to participate. Signing up is your pledge to engage in activities that effectively and meaningfully support your piano practice for any amount of time, every day, for the whole year. We have no means to distribute a forum award, apart from a pat you can give yourself on the back when you complete the challenge. We'd love to hear about your accomplishments and challenges throughout the year. You may join the challenge at any time, whether it's one day into the new year or the last day of the year - it's all good. Unexpected events happen that derail even the best laid plans. By signing up, you can optionally pledge to report any absences by leaving a comment in this thread. If you want to explain why you've missed a day (make us laugh, make us cry, make us cheer), you may be as dramatic as you want, but only the date(s) that you didn't practice are important to mention and will be added at the bottom of this invitation. 2026 PACTICIPANTS @Jay @KevinM @LauraLang @MandM @navindra @Ornstein @rsl12 @ShiroKuro @Sophia @TC3 @TLH21 EXCUSED ABSENCES (the E-List) @rsl12 February 11

TC3

End of the month, time to check in! I'm happy to report that I got in some meaningful practice every day in March. Yay, me!

Per earlier posts, I'm aiming for an hour a day -- three 20-minutes chunks, to be specific. I'm hitting that more days than not -- most days, even. Tuesdays are tough because of my work schedule, but I'm still getting at least one of those chunks in even then. The rest of the week, I'm typically able to get all three in, though there's the occasional time when it's just two (and then I usually skip the one devoted to technical stuff like scales, etc., and make sure to get to the classical repertoire and rock band tunes).

Again, I'm finding this thread very helpful to motivated me to practice on days that I might otherwise be tempted to skip. And I find that the more I do that, the less I hate to think about it -- it's just becoming consistent habit for the first time in a while now.

Thanks for making me accountable, everyone! 😃

LauraLang

I’m preparing for the Grade 5 practical exam. Scales and arpeggios are almost done, and I’ve learned about one and a half pieces so far. The last piece, Foggy Blues, seems quite easy. I do sight‑reading every day, and I’ll be starting aural soon.
I’ve also only just started Grade 6 theory—and calling it “a step up” from Grade 5 is a huge understatement. I bought Victoria Williams’ course on Udemy to help.
There’s so much to do.
I started with this teacher last October, and I haven’t dared to miss a single day of practice when I'm at home.

LauraLang

Ornstein
Yep, I've pushed back on chores too - I decide how I spend my time.

ShiroKuro

I counted my practice days so far this year.

January: 29 days
February: 28 days (no missed days)
March: 24 days

Given that I had two business trips in March, I think that’s pretty good! So in February and March, I practiced every day that I was physically at home. Yay!

Also, in 2025, I averaged 26.5 days/month (which was that low because I was in Japan for six weeks), but my monthly average is already slightly above that number. This year I don’t have a long trip planned (although I have business travel coming up again in Oct and Nov. yuck.) but anyway, I hope I can average closer to 28 days/month by the end of the year. We’ll see how it goes.

🙂

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