Playing Without Looking at One's Hands

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Playing Without Looking at One's Hands

by Antwane
(Amherst, New York, USA)

Question: How does a pianist learn to play the piano without always having to look at his hands as he plays as well as make those octave leaps on the piano without having to look at where his fingers are going?

I would appreciate any tips or suggestions.

Antwane

Albert's reply: Antwane, thanks for the excellent question. Keyboard geography is a matter of proprioception, the "sixth sense" in which the brain knows where the body is in space. Athletes and dancers have extremely highly developed proprioception, and pianists need to develop it as well. Much advanced repertoire demands it, in fact, as the eyes can only focus on one part of the keyboard at once. Chamber music and song accompaniment demands it as well since they are usually played from the score rather than from memory.

Sight reading music regularly is one of the best techniques for developing proprioception. It is essential to keep one's eyes on the page and to resist the temptation to look down too frequently. With practice, the hands will learn where to go on the keyboard and you will no longer be dependent on your eyes. When sight reading, make sure you do not use music you're practicing or wish to learn, as the brain also learns any mistakes along the way and these must be avoided! Music for performance may be sight read only the very first time you pick up the piece; from then on it must be slowly and carefully worked out in practice.

I sometimes place a long sheet of cardboard above the keyboard to block the student's view of the keys when they practice sight reading. This eliminates even peripheral vision and forces the hands to find the right keys by themselves.

I also sometimes hold a pencil at the far end of the piano and have the student focus on it while playing, as I move it around slowly.

Another practice technique is to try playing your music with your eyes closed altogether. Blind pianists are able to find their way on the piano keyboard by feeling the groups of black keys. Art Tatum, famous for his peerless technique, could improvise rapid leaps back and forth so perfectly that people thought there were two pianists playing... and he was blind! I describe this exercise on the black keys in more details in the article Learn to Read Music, under the headline "Develop proprioception."

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Playing Without Looking at One's Hands

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Jul 06, 2009
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Very brilliant counsel!
by: Antwane

Very brilliant counsel!!!! Thanks for the advice. Now I have a way to proceed. I already know all the keys, all of the scales, both major and the 3 forms of minor, all the triads, 7th and 9th chords. It was just this that was limiting my playing. I will immediately put to use what you have advised me to do and try.

How can I become a regular participant of your site? I have more questions but this will do... for now. Again a thousand thanks.

Antwane

Jul 06, 2009
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Re: Very brilliant counsel!
by: Albert

Thanks, Antwane; your comments are much appreciated. A next step for you is to practice playing these chords with your eyes closed.

As for participating regularly in key-notes.com, you can subscribe to the news feed by following the instructions at the left of every page. key-notes will soon offer memberships for piano students as well, so stay tuned!

Good luck,

Albert

Jul 10, 2010
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My two cents
by: Mark

As a fair-to-middling pianist (in my own humble opinion) I've tried as much as possible not to look at what I'm doing, to the point that in some cases I now actually find it a distraction to do so. This is certainly easier with some pieces than others, although as an example, I now play 'The Promise' (The theme from the film 'The Piano') entirely with my eyes closed. Whilst admittedly it is not completely flawless, I'd have to say that what flaws there are in the performance don't go away when I open my eyes. As to how to achieve this: in my case, it was just a question of making the quantum leap and trusting myself to do it. I reached a point where I'd practised the piece so many times with my eyes open, that I became aware that I wasn't actually watching what I was playing any more—and indeed, brain-eye co-ordination doesn't work that fast anyway; you can't possibly focus your eyes on both hands at once and react to what they're doing anywhere near fast enough for it to be of any use. Without realising it, the brain starts to go into automatic pilot, and although you fool yourself into thinking you're only playing well because you're watching your fingers, it's often actually not the case—so that if you close your eyes, you find that your brain is still giving your fingers the right instructions even though there's no visual input to feed it. I do have to say that in my case this was only something that started to happen after a lot of practise, although I educated myself to play scales with my eyes shut from the beginning (which with hindsight may not have been a good idea—I probably should have been looking at the music... !) Having said that, I only ever practise scales with my eyes closed now, because it's simply second nature to me to do it that way.

In short, I guess, I would say that when you've practised a particular piece long and often enough, just close your eyes and see what happens. I'd bet that you'll get through a lot more of it than you might think.

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Jul 10, 2010
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Submitted by: Mark

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As a fair-to-middling pianist (in my own humble opinion) I've tried as much as possible not to look at what I'm doing, to the point that in some cases I now actually find it a distraction to do so. This is certainly easier with some pieces than others, although as an example, I now play 'The Promise' (The theme from the film 'The Piano') entirely with my eyes closed. Whilst admittedly it is not completely flawless, I'd have to say that what flaws there are in the performance don't go away when I open my eyes. As to how to achieve this: in my case, it was just a question of making the quantum leap and trusting myself to do it. I reached a point where I'd practised the piece so many times with my eyes open, that I became aware that I wasn't actually watching what I was playing any more—and indeed, brain-eye co-ordination doesn't work that fast anyway; you can't possibly focus your eyes on both hands at once and react to what they're doing anywhere near fast enough for it to be of any use. Without realising it, the brain starts to go into automatic pilot, and although you fool yourself into thinking you're only playing well because you're watching your fingers, it's often actually not the case—so that if you close your eyes, you find that your brain is still giving your fingers the right instructions even though there's no visual input to feed it. I do have to say that in my case this was only something that started to happen after a lot of practise, although I educated myself to play scales with my eyes shut from the beginning (which with hindsight may not have been a good idea—I probably should have been looking at the music... !) Having said that, I only ever practise scales with my eyes closed now, because it's simply second nature to me to do it that way. In short, I guess, I would say that when you've practised a particular piece long and often enough, just close your eyes and see what happens. I'd bet that you'll get through a lot more of it than you might think.

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