Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How difficult is to play never ever looking at my hands?

The question being in the title, how difficult is it to play completely blinded (or just looking at the sheets with no peripheral vision of your hands)? At what skill level can one expect to become comfortable with this like a touch typist is when they never look at the keyboard? Being one myself, I even get confused when I look at the keyboard while typing, but of course there isn't as much hand movement as there is on the piano, so it's hard for me to judge.

I've been searching the internets for a definitive answer on this, but there doesn't seem to be any. Youtube videos say "do it, it's a good idea", while some say "do it but you can look when you memorize" or "look at big jumps", while others say "when you play big jumps with both hands you have to know them blinded". But nobody ever says "you need to be grade 8 to play blinded" or "even a complete beginner can manage this after a bit of practice".

To give some background on me, I've been playing on and off for a few years (mostly off, never really practicing), and only really started to learn a little over a month ago. I got a teacher and am now working through the basic things like C,G,D maj scales, broken and blocked chords, and learning some pieces. My teacher has assigned to me a few things of varying difficulty (the hardest one is grade 5 afaik, but I'm working slowly through it mostly to learn the rythmic part). I'm trying to play while looking at the sheet music as much as I can, and I have some basic confidence if I don't move my hands too much.

But to give a specific example, doing something like playing C major inversions contrary motion hands together (not sure if this excercise has a name), I do feel how inaccurate I am unless I feel the keys with my fingers. I don't really have issues when playing a melody within an octave, or moving a hand slightly, but for larger moves it feels very hit and miss unless I feel around or look.

Will I even be able to reach the same level of confidence playing on a piano as I have when typing on a keyboard? If so, when do people generally reach that point? Is it only the best of the best concert pianists, or anyone that practices not looking for a month will just "get it"?

Any person can play blinded if they practice enough. However, generally you would only be able to play only what you practiced. So if I practice Invention no. 13 by Bach until I can play it with my eyes closed, it will not mean that I can play Invention no. 2 with my eyes closed. However, the more you practice this, the easier it will get, but not at an exponential rate.

I think it's also necessary to mention that a level 0 piano player would be very limited in this endeavor because they are not very comfortable with the keyboard yet. If you wanted to do this, I would advise you to start with scales, if that's too easy, then play short and/or long arpeggios. Alternately, you can start with a simple piece you know very well and have been playing for a while. For me it all started with A Lonely Ballerina by Michele McLauglin. That piece does not have big jumps, everything on the first page fits very nicely under (my) hands.

With large jumps, it is mostly muscle memory. When I say large, I mean more than an octave or whatever your hand span is. Practice them slowly, gradually speeding up and looking at it less and less. I've been playing Breathe by Greg Maroney for two years I think and there is a section where the left hand has large arpeggio-ish passages and I can play those without looking with 90% accuracy, up to tempo, but if I don't play the piece for two weeks or more, I make mistakes even when I look.

Lastly, in my opinion, it is not necessary for a pianist to play without looking at their hands. I do it because of selfish reasons like bragging rights.

It is a question that taunts the beginner isn't it? I have had two previous piano teachers tell me it is ok to look at my hands but I don't think they quite got it. Tell a beginner it is ok to look at their hands and that is all they will do.

My problem was I spent my first two years being told it was ok to look at my hands, so that was all I did. I could not look at my hands and read the score so I memorised everything so I continue to watch my hands. I quickly found this to be very inefficient for learning new pieces and set about learning to read from the score. Three years on from then I just don't even think about looking at my hands. I still have problems reading from the score, but other factors like poor sight reading skills and attention factor come into it. I still look at my hands occasionally to make sure I am landing securely in certain instances, but no longer feel guilty about it. In addition after three years of reading as much as possible from the score, I notice my brain has changed so that on occasion I have a mental picture of the keyboard. With a mixture of this mental picture and touch sensation, I can feel where I am. I think this is a really good sign I am progressing. In the last two and a bit years I have learned a number of Bach Inventions and found them really good for this type of development. The Inventions are full of sequences of only 2nd and 3rd intervals with various fingering which have helped reinforce this skill and build up confidence. Probably any baroque would do though as that tends to be a trademark of the era.

Interestingly, after a long time playing one Bach Invention I began to play it from memory. With nothing else to do with my eyes I started to look at my hands, it was at that moment I said to myself it was ok for me to look at my hands

So much text. I can't respond to all of that.

I have played a long time and I am studying with a much more skilled teacher who has played a long time.

I think I mentioned something to him about "not looking at hands" once and he was "why?"

It's neither here nor there. When you are learning, relying on too much up-down between the score and the keyboard is probably not helpful. But as someone with a long time at the keyboard, there are simply times that I would be better served by being able to look at the keyboard directly or peripherally.

The problem with looking at the keyboard, if you are dependent on the score, is that it is really, really easy to lose your place in the score. If you don't look at the keyboard, then you can compensate (in my case) a TINY bit with peripheral vision (though the limits of this in my case seem to surprise teach) and definitely through memorization (which lets you watch your hands all the time).

It's really incorrect to compare typing from piano in that a piano keyboard isn't in range of most of your fingers all the time. You have to move your hands. This makes things more complicated.

So:

* You can look at score while playing. This is a great skill.
* You can memorize and only look at the keyboard. This is a great skill.
* You can learn to feel the texture of the keyboard. This is a great skill.

If you can do all of these GREAT. And you can work on all of them. If you are good at something in particular, that might be a skill you can cultivate.

Personally I play violin & piano. When playing a violin you never look at your fingerboard. Your eyes are completely facing your sheet music. When it comes to playing piano, there are some parts of a piece where your hands are far apart. You can only see 1 hand but not both. Unless I'm sight-reading a new piece, I tend to rely on memory when playing a familiar piece so looking at my hands is an option. I would look down when playing the start of a sequence such as scale runs. For example: D-E-F#-G-A I'd look quickly to find the D. The rest I can feel my way up the scale without looking.

The last online teacher I came across was Tim with his YouTube channel LessonsOnTheWeb. His opinion is that there are pieces of music that require your hands to make big jumps. It is almost impossible not to look at your hands (a quick glance) once in a while just to know your hands are landing on the right piano key(s). Many of us probably seen contestants in TV talent shows like "America's Got Talent" when somebody plays a piece on a piano blindfolded.

I don't know the answer to the question, or even if there is one. What I have noticed, however, is how important peripheral vision is in my playing. I'm not a young fellow, and my memory is not wonderful. So the option of playing while looking at my hands simply isn't there for me -- I have to play with my eyes glued to a score.

But... while I rarely, if ever, consciously look at my hands, to some extent I am aware where they are, and definitely by vision, rather than other means. I guess this is by a mixture of peripheral vision, and unconscious eye movement. I know this works by vision because I've tried to play pieces I know from memory in the dark, or blindfolded, and the results are not usually very satisfactory. I've also tried putting the music much higher above the keyboard than usual, so I'm playing whilst looking up; this also affects my playing adversely.

However, I can improve my "visionless" playing by practice, so I know that it's possible for me to learn to play at least some things with complete absence of vision. I also know about piano players who are completely blind, and still manage pretty well.

I firmly believe that some people who say they never look at their hands whilst sight-reading are subconsciously cheating, and relying at least to some extent on peripheral vision. I don't mean that as a criticism -- I think that unless you've really thought about it, you wouldn't even be aware you're doing it.

In short, I think that it's possible, given enough time and practice, to learn to play specific pieces with no sight of the keyboard or hands at all. However, I'm skeptical of claims that it's possible to sight-read unseen, unpracticed music this way effectively, and I suspect that people who seem to be able to do so are using subtle visual cues to become aware of their hand movements.

I also know for certain that if I deliberately look at my hands, when playing a piece I haven't studied, it's all over. It's better to miss a note completely, or play the wrong one, than to fail completely. However, I understand that some people can handle occasional look-downs in a piece, by marking the score so their eyes have so place to come back to. I doubt this would work it you needed to look down more that a couple of times on each page.

Unless you have a faultless and perfectly reliable memory, I believe that playing with only minimal, and peripheral, sight of the keyboard at all times is a skill worth developing. Whether you should be pedantic, and strive to eliminate even peripheral vision, is something I'm less sure about. I also think there's no mileage in teaching people that they must never, ever look at their hands, even when playing pieces they've studied. It's just going to add hours and hours to the time spent learning each piece of music.

For prima vista sight reading, I think developing the ability to not look at your hands at all is a good skill to have. Looking at your hands will invariably slow you down. When practicing this type of sight reading, my teacher would stop me every time I glanced at my hands and have me start over. Eventually I reached the point where I never looked away from the sheet music. As a result my sight reading and my proprioception improved considerably. For jumps, I suggest practicing with your eyes closed. Eventually you will have a mental feel of where you are on the keyboard. It takes a bit of time, but is well worth it.

I've seen a number of very good blind piano players. So it's completely possible for the brain to spatially map the piano and to develop the muscle memory necessary to play without being able to see.

Duane Shinn teaches a method called "flipping your eyes" from the music to the keys and back without moving your head so you don't lose your place in the score. However, he said that's only necessary if you need to look at the music. If you don't need to look at the music, then you can look at your hands or up at the celling or anywhere you want.

The concert pianists I've watched on youtube seem to mostly look at their hands (whether they need to or not, I don't know).

God Bless,
David

I don't doubt this, and I've learned to do it myself for a couple of pieces that I know well, just to see if I could.

What I'm interested in is whether it's possible to do this while sight-reading new music which, by definition, involves having your eyes open. The problem is that eye movements can be very fast, and unconscious, and I suspect the only way to practice this -- if it is even necessary to -- would be to create a visual barrier between eye and keyboard.

You will find this Eye tracking video useful to the discussion as exactly where an experienced versus a less experience pianist really look when playing

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GVvY8KfXXgE

I don't often have much good to say about YouTube, but I thought that was a really interesting presentation. It doesn't surprise me that a less experienced player would spend more time looking at her hands when trying to sight-read; but I was mildly surprised that even the chap with 30-odd years experience still had his eyes on the keyboard for 17% of the time.

I noticed that the less experienced player looked more directly at her hands, while the more experienced one seemed to scan the keyboard in a more general sense. It's interesting that the more experienced chap said explicitly that he didn't feel he needed to look at his hands because of his familiarity with navigating the keyboard. And yet he was certainly spending a fair amount of time looking near his hands.

It was also interesting that, when playing material from memory, both players had their eyes on the keyboard nearly all the time.

Fascinating. Thanks.

I was initially taught not to look at my hands, and I don't when sight reading (except for whatever peripheral vision may contribute). But, I have learned that it can be really important to look at your hands while learning and practicing a piece, to identify technical issues that you could easily miss otherwise. Misalignments of the hand or wrist, dropped wrist, awkward finger placements, excessive motions--sometimes you can feel what's wrong, but often you need to see what you're actually doing in order to clarify and fix the problem.

I find I do tend to look at my hands/the keyboard when playing from memory--I think mainly because that's where interesting things are happening! I haven't decided whether this is a good habit or not. It can be a little disorienting to go back and forth between this and looking at the score.

I don't know if it's a good habit or a bad one, but it certain seems to be a very common one, even among the most experienced pianists. If it weren't for the fact that I can't even play one bar from memory these days, I wouldn't let it bother me if I was playing completely from memory.

I think a real hazard is playing a piece that I know partly, and finding my eyes drifting towards my hands when I'm playing a section that I don't really need to read. It's usually at exactly these points where my memory fails me completely, and I can't find my position again in the score. I confess that I really struggle with this.

A lot of interesting insights in this thread.

I’ve recently realized that with my intermediate pieces I get to a point where I have to just accept that they won’t get any better or faster unless I memorize them. I play most pieces following the score - even if I don’t actually read every single note - and look at my hands with the corner of my eye only when I really need to, and I think this is the best way to combine written notes + sound + feeling of hand position in your mind, and to learn pieces and progress quicker. But since my reading ability doesn’t match the difficulty of the most challenging pieces I’m learning, if there’s something I want to keep in my repertory, record and maybe even perform, I need to memorize it. Usually it doesn’t take very long, because a lot of subconscious memorization has already happened. I find that this is a good compromise for me to move on and feel like I’m progressing, while at the same time having “something to show”.

As mentioned, looking at your hands is very useful when you need to understand why a certain passage does not feel easy or comfortable. Your teacher is not there to check on you all the time, so that’s a useful skill too.

Someone already mentioned that, but we don't necessarily look at our hands but the keyboard. I sometimes look at my hands when I want to solve a technical issue. But when I memorize and play from memory I look at the keyboard and my hands just follow my gaze.

I don't really like to see my hands play, they are not pretty

As far as I know .... the only reason for not looking at the keyboard when you play is because you cannot remember what comes next in the music and the notation reminds you of that.

So, if you can remember what comes next without looking at the music ... go ahead ... look at the keyboard (or anywhere else you wish to look).

This issue comes to a head when you find that you have memorized a few pieces of music and now you are finding that you just cannot stuff any more memorized pieces into your brain.

At that point, you have to decide if you wish to keep memorizing pieces or learn to play while looking at the music.

If you learn to play while looking at the music, you can play anything (within your skill set) at anytime with very little memory involved.


And a direct answer to the question .... How long will it take ? It all depends upon how much you practice it. It might take you a year, 2 years, or you may never be able to do it.

Follow this rule - Don't look when playing or practicing alone; look when playing that same piece for others, like at your piano lessons or for a friend, at a recital, exam, name your stressful situation.

If you followed this rule, then you got best of both worlds. You could essentially play without looking, and when under performance stress you could still play by cheating a little.

By the way, I am referring to jumps that's two octaves or more. If you're looking at every note or notes that are within an octave to each other, you need to get rid of that habit immediately.

There is a not-insignificant delay in your brain between the time you look and the time you process the target and moving your hand to the target. This delay became unacceptable as the music gets harder, and at some point, you discover that you must eliminate that delay, which means you have to practice not looking and still hit your target sooner or later, so might as well be sooner.

I would find this to be problematic, assuming you are talking about playing with the score. If you play by partially memorizing the score when by yourself, it would be difficult for you to play with the score when playing in a stressful situation because you would not be accustomed to not looking at your hands. If you intend to play with a score you need to develop a sense of proprioception: a physical sense of where the next keys are in relation to your body position. Yes, it takes time and yes, it can be developed.

When you are learning a piece you need to look at your hands a lot. When you have the feel of the music, you look more at the music. If you play the same thing eventually you know the music and you look at the score less and directly at your fingers a lot less - maybe at big jumps etc. However at this point, looking may be less but other senses are very much more - so I would listen to the music more and work with the feel in my fingers.

So certainly do not force yourself to not look, it is a useful skill and makes things easier in the learning process. When you start any new piece, you have to look at hands a and keys a lot more, also looking at the score is a long process, but eventually when you develop a piece you move onto other senses more.

Yes this. I would say one need to learn a new piece without looking, including learning this proprioception. If this slows down the learning a lot, so be it. It would not indefinitely slow you down, just in the beginning. It would in fact speed you way up in the long run. Putting your hand on the middle C, playing it, then jump to the lowest C 3 octaves away at first by looking then begin not looking repeat and repeat until you could jump from C to C 3 octaves away. You would be surprised how little time and practice it actually takes to manage playing the two C accurately without looking repeating over and over, certainly not even hours. If you could do this for one jump, you could do it for all jumps. It takes time, but it is not impossible. The benefit is well worth the effort.