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Pianocliff has summarized things very nicely here. I was taught not to look at the keys, however, there are execeptions as he has pointed out. There are times when it is necessary to use the peripheral vision to reach the outer-most parts of the keyboard to give things a glance because these parts seem to be miles away when playing.

There are other times too as when chords are weird. Rachmaninoff and Debussy, for example, use some odd chords with naturals or sharps in them that do not fit the hands. I find with these you have to give these a quick glance in order to get the hands lined up.

When playing by memory, I find that things go better when I don't look at my hands. I find I am using, as Pianocliff says, a brain image of the score, and I will lose the image and get confused. The other thing that happens too is that I lose the musical aspects of the piece too because I start focusing on the mechanical aspects of the fingers.

So as Vintagefingers has stated too, try to minimize the key-peaking and use the feeling/groping approach as much as possible, and glance only if necessary.

John

I have been playing for a couple weeks after a 20 year hiatus.

No teacher yet, but I do intend to find one.

My son taught me to play a piece he wrote. It has a lot of chords on both black and white keys and is played with both hands. I still stumble through it but I'm getting better. By way of an experiment I played it without looking at my hands. I was surprised as how well I did!

Years ago I worked in a packing plant where I packed a dozen pens in little boxes by hand. After a while I could pick up twelve pens without looking. This was any type of pen from skinny little ball points to big fat markers.

I would think finding my way around a keyboard would be easier than that. My goal is to play mostly without looking. Heck I might even master the jumps too.

I'm an amateur with average ability but with
hopes for major improvement. I had 9 yrs.
of classical lessons as a child, and then there
was a layoff of almost 20 yrs. from the
piano, then a startup on my own with no
instruction in which I made signifcant
improvement initally, but then gave up
again and took another break from the instrument
of about 5 yrs.

4 mos. ago I started up again after the 5 yr.
layoff, this time with a new digital
piano with weighted keys (I had been last
playing on a digital with unweighted keys).
After the 5 yr. layoff I initally couldn't
even read the staffs anymore, but I quickly
got back into it, and once more made significant
progress. I picked up again where I had
left off five yrs. ago on a difficult 19th
cent. concerto and some other advanced pieces.
I do not have the background or prerequisites
for the concerto, and every page of it
presents numerous technical problems that
I have to develop the physical technique
for essentially from scratch. In this situation,
with no prerequisites and learning without
instruction, it's difficult going and I've been
throwing everything but the kitchen sink at
it in an effort to get it in hand. But
my strongest asset to use on it is basically
sheer brute-force repetition, which will
eventually conquer anything.

But in order to get this hand in a reasonable
amt. of time I'm always on the lookout for
anything that will help, and at the beginning
of July I remembered something I read long
ago about Chopin contemplating writing a book
on how to play the piano, and how he implied
that the main thing was to play without looking
at your hands--using the identical pattern
of the black keys to find your way around
the keyboard.

Struggling with the concerto, and desperate for
any kind of help, I started to try playing it
without looking at the keys anymore--at the
time this seemed like madness, since I was
struggling even while looking at my hands.
But lo and behold, after some initial bad
fumbling, I began to see the absolutely
fundamental benefit of playing without looking.
It was like seeing the light for the first
time--I said to myself: "Why, this is what
I've been doing wrong all these years,
looking at my hands!"

Since the beginning of July when I started
to play without looking at my hand, I have
made unbelievable progress. What happens
when you play absolutely without looking is that
something almost phenomenal occurs: it is
as though you are now in harmony with
the instrument, since this is the proper
way to play it, and it seems to appreciate that
and reward you for it. Questions about
fingering and technique now seem to almost
solve themselves. Your sight-reading
automatically improves, since you now
play with your eyes focused on the score,
not your hands. You musicality also
improves since you have more time to
listen to yourself since you're not longer
constanly checking your hands. And so on.

Another thing (and this might be partly
to do with the superb Casio weighted keyboard)
is that your hand strength improves dramatically
by playing without looking. Playing without
looking forces you into the right kind of
technique automatically and this does
wonders for you hands. Since July I had
noticed the undersides of my hand seeming
to become rather thick and muscled (but not
in an unsightly way). I had never had
this happen before when playing. Curious about
this I went to a store a few days ago to
try playing on an acoustic--I had not played
on an acoustic in more than 5 yrs. (five
yrs. ago when I had my digital with unweighted
keys, I would have to make a physical
adjustment in order to play on an acoustic).
And when I played on the acoustics this time I was
shocked at the way I could tear into them
like they were toy keyboards. In just over
a month of playing without looking my
hands had developed tremendous strength
and my technique had improved amazingly.

Hey! I am the only one who noticed that Monica fessed up to playing the accordian for 7 years!

OFF WITH HER HEAD!!



Just kidding, of course. I actually think that is really cool!

As for the whole looking at your hands thing... Here's my take: different strokes for different folks. Different techniques and strategies will work for different people. I say do whatever works for you. I, for one, do look at my hands periodically (mostly left hand--very rarely right), but primarily in situations that others have mentioned such as when there is a big jump. With memorized pieces (I have so few...), I will glance at my hands from time to time, but I am not concentrating on what they are doing. I just want to see what they look like moving up and down the keyboard. When I play on my sister-in-law's polished ebony grand, I look at the reflection of my hands on the inside of the fall board. It's almost like watching someone else play, which is kinda weird, but interesting!

Aw, shucks! And here I thought I was getting away with it...

And thanks for "cool" comment, but there's few things more socially stigmatizing than admitting to playing the accordion (kitten basher, maybe?). I just wish my mom had shelled out for piano lessons 35 years ago instead of being swept away by the Milton Mann door to door salesman.

Oh well. She did good in the end. I'm using the money from her inheritance to buy the new grand I'm currently shopping for, and I think it would please her to know that I still have a love for music, though in a much more aesthetically pleasing form.

And maybe after a few years I'll finally be good enough at the piano that I won't need to look at my hands!

But I still think it's interesting that most of the people who say they look at one hand more than the other mentioned the left hand...I really wonder why that is. If anything, the left hand seems more patterned and predictable to me, so it doesn't seem intuitive to me that you would focus on it more. And unless everybody else who focuses on the left hand is also a closet accordionist but too embarrassed to admit it, my theory is wrong and there's got to be another explanation. Maybe it's the order in which we learn a song? I usually practice and master the right hand first, as it will have the recognizable melody and sound more complete. So perhaps I look at the left hand because it's the one I feel less confident about?

Monica, since we're exploring this whole accordian thing . . .

How does one wind up playing the accordian?

"Hey mom, what's is this wicked cool thing I just found in the attic?"

OR

"Dear, we just opened Uncle Clyde's will. There's good news and bad news. The good news is he left everything to you. The bad news is you must master the accordian first. Seven years of lessons oughtta do it."

I always try to remember too that when composers (Beethoven, Chopin, etc) were playing this stuff, what really were the looking at most of the time? Probably their hands, since the music was in their head, they must have looked at the degree of difficulty they were creating/discovering as they wrote. Fingering placements are part of the composers memorization process, assuming they are playing it as well as writing it. I find fault with the no look rule of reading/playing because it seems to go against the natural inclination of looking at the patterns of keys while memorizing the resulting sounds. While sight reading, it truly is hard not to look down while pulling out a song. It is tricky, but glancing down seems to help.

In my case, it really WAS a door to door salesman who carried a tiny starter accordion, put it on me, praised my "innate musical talent" when I produced a few sickly squawks, and offered an introductory series of 12 lessons for some near-free price. Of course, after 12 weeks with the loaner accordion it became "essential" to get a (new) accordion that they just so happened to have conveniently for sale at their studio...and that was $2000 (in 1970) that would have bought a very nice piano indeed. Sigh.

I still have my accordion, a DaVinci electric model that I don't have the heart to throw out. Or play. :p Do you have any idea how LOUD an electric accordion can get???

i'ma be honest here; even though i've been playing the piano for more than 15 months now, i still have some bad habits that i need to break if i'ma be a pro one day at it. for one, when i play songs, which i started doing back in May, [yes, songs, b/c i'm content to play along to popularized arrangments on the paino] my shoulders tend to tense up if i'm not paying attention to it, and i hate it.

there's also not a time when i'm playing a song when i don't make a mistake somewhere. i always flub a note somewhere. the only time i do really well is when i'm excited or in a good mood. that's when i get into the zone. but then i start to heat up, and then my hands get clammy, and i don't play as well, b/c my hands slip off the keys, and i flub notes.

but there was one thing that i forgot to mention. i also have the habit of looking at my fingers most of the time when i'm playing; i just haven't established [and mastered] the skill of being able to sight-read while i play. it's just like playing and singing at the same time, like some people do, and i'm just as bad at that. but there are times when i don't look at my fingers, [which isn't very often] but i don't feel the music quite as much.

i'm self-taught, but i think if i'm gonna perform in front of a live audience, then i have to break some of the nasty habits i have. but i DO, however, use a mirror while i'm playing, not only for vanity purposes, but to see my positions, just in case my shoulders tense up. people may think i'm nuts when i do that, but i feel it's nessesary.

and then there's ryhthm; forgot to mention that. i have a big problem with that, too. so what i do is that whenever i can, i go to a local university music building and play my CDs with the same songs that i'm playing on the piano, and just play along to the songs up there that i burned, so that i stay onbeat. the reason i do that is b/c i don't really have the fund to buy a metronome as of right now.

does anyone see a problem, or got any tips? i would be more than glad to hear them, even though i may not always like it or agree; but if it helps, then shoot. this past March, i started learning songs and reading music; i started playing fast stuff in May.

PJ, my tips would be two:

1. Get a teacher. I can understand self-teaching if this is just a hobby. But if you plan to earn money from playing piano, then I think being self taught is completely counter productive.

2. Practice perfect. I bet the notes that you miss are the same notes that you missed early on in your learning of the music. When you learn, focus completely and accurately with slow, perfect practice. It takes longer initially, but it plays huge dividends later.

Monica, I'll bet you can jam on those polkas. How about a little zyedeco?

double post Monica. btw, I can only joke about it cause when a neighborhood kid got an accordian all I wanted to do was get one too. My Dad had other ideas so it never materialized.

C'mon, guys, accordion is cool, and super sexy, too! You can latin-dance up a storm to it. It's not just for polkas, ya know. Try cumbia and lambada and tango on for size, Baby.

I've been teaching myself and I can't help but look at my hands. I'm getting a teacher soon so he'll probably kick that bad habit to the curb.

Everyone needs to chill. once again signa is correct IMO. It all depends on what you're tryin' to do people.At what part of the learning process are you? Are you memorizing the piece? What piece are you learning? Is it possible to sight read through it? How complex is it?

Can any normal human play the a minor fugue of the well tempered clavier without looking at their hands? NO! There is nothing wrong with looking at your hands!
don't let these people like this gyro guy tell you that you can't look at your hands. If you can read it comfortably do it. If not. combine reading and visual coordination in the learning process. This guy acts like he can read through
5 piano concertos a day. Even if he can, it's not
the correct method for everybody. Sure, cultivate your reading, it helps alot, but don't think that you should easily read through everything .

The looking at your hands scenario that makes me wince is this. People have posted that they have a hard time learning new pieces because they spend all their time learning measure by measure, reading the notes, looking down, finding and playing the keys, repeat as necessary until memorized, move on to the next measure.

People have said they can only play pieces they have memorized because they can't look away from their hands. If they forget a portion of the memorized piece, there's a long pause while they find their place on the printed music and look at the notes, place their hands, etc.

If you find it impossible to read the music and play without looking at your hands, you will find your musical development will be, best case, extremely slow. Worst case, you'll just never really progress.

Yes, there are exceptions... folks who play by ear, those rare musicians who have some sort of freak of nature talent for playing something correctly after hearing it once or twice. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who cannot read music and play at the same time, because they are undone if they don't look at their hands.

That is a really bad habit, and something that needs to be changed, asap. The earlier the better.

i agree with B.E. there's nothing wrong with looking at your hands or keyboard, as long as you don't depend solely on it when you're playing. i don't always look at my hands, but sometimes, i have to when dealing with some big jumps or some complicated passages where my fingers need some delicate or twisted moves. if you have ever played a lot of Bach or Chopin or even Beethoven, you'd know what i mean. such things just not avoidable sometimes. the point is that 'looking at your hands' thing is not some totally forbidden thing that is so bad (as some says) that you should never do. i really don't buy that, especially for learning a piece (not sight reading a simple piece/passage).

Nina is right on one thing that by trying not to look at your hands/keyboard, you'd develop the feel of keys (location/position) which will eventually help you in playing. but it's going to be developed whether or not you're focusing on doing so. but it's not the only thing that you should focus on when you're learning to play piano, and i'd state again: there's nothing wrong with looking at your hands sometimes!

Yep, I agree. I'll bet you'll find that you'll move away from this naturally as you become more comfortable at the keyboard.

Of all the things a new pianist must learn to do, I'd put "avoid looking at your hands" way down the list. It will develop on its own, I'll bet.

Now pedaling, independence of the hands, reading two clefs at once, chords/scales/arpeggios . . . those are the things that probably warrant some real attention in a beginner!

well, yesterday, i started practicing that.