Do you let your students look at their hands.

[mass]

I'm an adult beginner student.  I'm having a "discussion" about this and would like your opinions on it.  Thanks!

[maryruth]

Yes and no....if someone can play a song, take an occassional glance and look back up at the music without losing their place and stuttering, yeah, sure, look at your hands, but if I notice that looking at the hands is interfering with the performance of the piece then I usually cover their hands with my clipboard. 

It's usually lack of confidence and not believing that the song might actually sound BETTER if they didn't look.  ( when I cover people's hands, they usually do better than when they can look--it always amazes them) Unless you're leaping more than an octave, there really isn't a reason why you should need to look at your hands so much.  Really have faith in yourself....

If the song is memorized, go ahead, watch your hands.....

[pianistimo]

try to do what your teacher suggests and don't fight.  you can't lose either way.  one way you are learning to 'feel' the notes, and as you progress you don't need to look up and down so much.  you can read as if you were reading a book, and glance once in a while.

i, personally, am not that worried if a student (during the first two years) looks up and down.  in fact, i encourage it.  just becoming familiar with the keyboard is a lot to deal with.  it is a harder instrument to get your fingers around than most others.  so, like swimming int he deep end, take your time and swim near the edge first.  become comfortable, and then make it harder on yourself each time.  looking ahead when you come to rests (especially half and whole rests is a helpful thing).

[mass]

Thank you for your replies.  My teacher doesn't discourage looking at hands. It's other students (in other forums) that are quite sure that it really slows progress ("don't EVER look at your hands"), especially for sightreading.  I'm at about a grade 4 level, my sightreading is getting better albeit slowly , I've never dwelled on this one way or the other. I look at the music when I need to and look at my hands when I need to..... I feel that the more difficult pieces require stronger sightreading ability (I guess because they are often harder to memorize) and I figure it is a skill that will improve over time.  Having said that I think I'll go back a couple of levels and really practice sightreading (no peeking at the keyboard)......

[pianistimo]

you can take a glance once in a while (it seems that all pianists do this if there is change in hand positions) in sightreading but you don't have to focus on your hands as much until you memorize.  i look at my hands and it doesn't bother me.  in fact, i look at the keyboard, up, down, not too much at the audience.  i guess concentration on what you are playing.

for accompanying, not looking at your hands is optimum because you can look at the choral conductor, or the vocalist and not miss ques.  looking ahead is helpful and the more you do it, the better you become.  it's great that you understand you don't have to sightread really difficult stuff all the time.  takinga few levels back helps you focus on the skill of continuous playing (even if you make a mistake, don't stop).  as you progress, you can start learning how to scan a piece BEFORE you play.  this helps tremendously because you are already prepared for 'surprises.'

[jeremyjchilds]

It is good mental excercise to play for an entire session without looking at the keyboard once...

[mass]

It is good mental excercise to play for an entire session without looking at the keyboard once...

How often would you recommend doing this? Once each day for a certain length of time?  I was thinking that one daily 20 minute sightreading session (strictly no looking) would be good.

[Siberian Husky]

i ALWAYS look at my hands..i can play ALMOStas good when i dont..of course i stumble sometimes simply because imnot looking but i dont rely on my looking at the hands..i enjoy it..to me..if i dont look while i play..well thats like...not looking at your delicious food while eat..or not looking at your partner during sex (sorry about that analogy it just parallels too perfectly for me) etc etc etc

[jeremyjchilds]

How often would you recommend doing this? Once each day for a certain length of time?  I was thinking that one daily 20 minute sightreading session (strictly no looking) would be good.

I think that what you suggest would work great!

Not looking at your hands while sightreading strengthens your ear greatly too.

[Appenato]

sometimes i allow students to look at their hands, but it's rare. at the beginning it's fine, but once they've been introduced to note reading i try to steer them away from the habit. they begin to depend on their ear to guide them in playing the piece (which isn't a bad thing necessarily, since one should use the ear to aid in guidance) and then don't recognize notes when they learn a new piece. when i see this habit hindering their note-reading, i remediate it. heheh... then when a passage is hard in a piece, i encourage them to memorize that section and to watch their hands, because it is easier to watch the hands when playing a difficult move. ...

[alzado]

I believe we also have to take into account what we are playing.

Making frequent leaps of at least two octaves -- as called for in quite a number of professional scores -- is going to be difficult if you can never look at the keys.

Also, I suspect that some of those who boast that they "never look at their hands" are picking up positioning through peripheral vision.

Of course, we have to remember that Ray Charles could play the piano like crazy, and he obviously couldn't look at this hands.

An interesting issue--

[mass]

Also, I suspect that some of those who boast that they "never look at their hands" are picking up positioning through peripheral vision.

That's what I was thinking.........They probably don't even realize that they are looking..

I decided to begin seriously sightreading for 20 minute sessions - without looking......I realized that I look more than I realized...even if it is just a quick sideways glance     oh dear....

[maryruth]

Ah, yes, peripheral vision is an excellent tool.  I found out how much I depend on that myself when I got my new piano as the music holder is higher--alas, when looking at my music it was much more difficult to play at first and I realized it was because I COULDN'T see my hands in my peripheral vision.  I had no idea I relyed so much on looking---of course, I've since adjusted.

The problem I have with kids that ALWAYS look at their hands is that usually what happens is they are relying completely on memory and not reading the notes.  They get the same spot each time that causes troubles and then they don't know what to do--since they haven't been following along in the score they are competely lost and can't find their spot.  Then, I'll cover their hands and make them look at the music and usually they don't have so much "Trouble" at the problem spot.  If you're playing a 5-finger position there is no reason you need to look at your fingers....

If you don't look, particularly when beginning and in a 5-finger type pattern, it helps in grain what you see with what you're fingers do---notes go up on the staff you move right from finger to finger or skip a finger or what ever.  Notes go down the staff, fingers move to the left....It should become automatic.

And, yes, when playing pieces with a huge jump bass pattern, one must plan the looking.  I can't imagine not.   I'm playing  rocking version of "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" at the moment and there are huge jump bass patterns in the left hand (2+ octaves with 7th chords) and I've pretty much got the right hand memorized I follow the bass pattern look down on the jump down the key board look up at the music while the hand is flying back up the keyboard to check the next notes and I repeat.  I'm a terrible memorizer, so I've learned to look up, down, sideways, with fingers flying...it's great fun.

[Egghead]

I am intrigued by this discussion, especially w.r.t. memorization. Is it agreed that once memorisation is finished you may look at your hands? What else is there to look at?

And do you look at your hands while investigating what technique to use to master a particular passage?

I personally seem to memorise to a large extent tactile (how chord progression etc. feels) and visual information, i.e. what my hands look like, what patterns I play on the keyboard, where i jump to etc.

Memorisation directly from the score, away from a keyboard, is very hard if you dont know much theory! Relying on muscle memory is not recommended. But a combination of aural, tactile, visual (keyboard/hands) and visual (score) memory seem to work reasonably well. Why not use all this information?

[mass]

I've been focusing on not looking at my hands - mostly to see if I can.  I admittedly look much more than I had realized.  I memorize easily so I find it hard to focus on the score once I've got it under my fingers.....   Having said that, when I start to work on a new harder piece the 'finished' ones often slip away if I don't play them regularly and who has time to run through ALL previously learned pieces?  Because of this, I feel that sightreading skills (for me anyway) are imperative to playing. 

Right now I'm reviewing older pieces and find that I can keep my eyes on the score rather than my hands as, I suppose there is a little muscle memory left.........

I'm also having a hard time not stopping even for the sightreading pieces a couple of levels below.  Is it a good idea to not repeat a piece but rather go on to the next one even if it didn't go well?   I like the suggestion above - focusing on one aspect - either the notes OR the rhythm.  I'm going to discuss this with my teacher when I resume lessons next week and hopefully have him help me along with this and a little aural percpetion as well......so much to learn!!!!  I should have started 30 or 40 years ago!!

[maryruth]

What else is there to look at besides your hands after the piece is memorized?  Well, I once had a student play her entire recital piece while watching the birds outside the window at the birdfeeder...she never missed a beat (it was a duet with me and I looked over briefly and the kid was staring transfixed at the birds while playing the entire song.  I was completely amazed she didn't miss a note or get off count with me.......So, maybe a better question--Is it okay to look at the birds?

[Triton]

I heard from my teacher that looking at your hands is not good. Your eyes take control over your ears, so that you would have been playing a lot better without looking at them.
So when i play, i try to close my eyes, or look on something else.

Good luck,
Triton

[aya_heller]

My teacher lets me look at my hands.  Sometimes he MAKES me look at my hands (not often XD) and sometimes he makes me close my eyes. (I refuse though, I don't close my eyes in public, so he just makes me look at the wall.)

I never look at my hands much when I'm learning a new piece and sight-reading my way through the different sections.  Occasionally I'll look down for a second, if the music changes suddenly.  I memorize songs very quickly though, and by the time I have them memorized I sometimes like to watch my hands (of the reflections of my hands in the shiny wood on the piano. Hahaha) but I can also just turn my head and talk to people if they come in the room to bother me. >=E

[aisling_7]

One of my little students said quite astutely, "When you're learning to play the piano, It's really hard, then it gets easier, then it gets hard again."  She's six btw.  I think in regards to looking or not looking at your hands, the same thing applies.  You look at your hands, then you don't, then you look again.  When you are learning a new piece, especially if it has a lot of jumps, you look at your hands.  When you are memorizing you don't look at your hands.  When you are performing you don't have music anymore, so you tend to look at your hands for lack of a place to look.  Also, you look at your hands to tell them where to go and to make sure they behave.

Jackie 

[gaer]

When I'm teaching, I watch my students' eyes. If they are looking at the music with very quick downward movements of the eyes, the eyes going back up very quickly, I see no problem. If their eyes are not going right back up, they have started to memorize. They are no longer getting most of their information from the music.

I had a very bad experience in school. I was forced to type without looking at my hands, on an old-fashioned typewriter. (This was long ago.) The attempt NOT to look at my hands made me so tense that I typed everything wrong. It was awful. I hated it.

Years later, I asked a friend which fingers are supposed to hit which keys on the computer. I simply memorized the "fingering", made sure I always put the right finger on the right key, then looked at my fingers as often as I felt I needed to. Today I no longer know which finger hits which key, and I type very fast without ever taking my eyes off the screen. I have continued to type without stopping when we have lost power, when I've only been able to see the monitor. (I can't read the letters and symbols on the keys in the dark.)

I will never tell a student not to look at his or her hands. Instead, I watch the eyes, and if I see the eyes staying "on the hands" too long, I simply mention that this is a very good way to get lost and is not good for developing good reading, especially good sight-reading. Most of the time my students don't look down except when they are moving their hands to new positions or doing things they can't feel.

However, I do demonstrate playing while students hold something over my hands, and I also demonstrate playing things, from memory, with my eyes closed.

Gary

[omnisis]

Personally I almost never have to look at my hands when I'm sight-reading except only to glance occasionally on jumps.  At first I looked but then I started trying to play without looking and gradually built up my ability to find the right keys by ear and feel.  I definately could not look as far ahead in the music when I had to look at the keys.  Most pianists I know don't look when the are sight-reading either though they aren't always aware that they aren't looking (if that makes sense).  I think it is something that will come in time unless you develop an unhealthy dependance on looking early on.  Since I worked specifically on not looking at the hands early on I think it came faster for me than it would have otherwise.

There is definately a huge benefit to not looking at the keyboard IMHO and I don't see why one should have to look for simple things likes seconds, thirds and octaves which should be like second nature to most pianists anyways.  If you look at it from a pure energy conservation standpoint, looking at the keys for trivial skips and steps is euivalent to wasted energy, energy that could spent on the music instead.


That said you have to first look at the keys before you learn to play w/o looking at them (unless you are blind) and my approach to this was to learn how to navigate the keyboard by touch instead of trying to approximate distance blindly.  Since the keyboard is just a repetative pattern of 3 blacks and 2 blacks it is easy to learn how to find any key on the keyboard by feel without looking.  Learning to find the keys this way makes it much easier to not look.

~omnisis

[joyfulmusic]

I have noticed that there are different approaches, depending on the way a person is wired.  I've seen a little boy become very very uncomfortable when asked not to look at his hands.  I've seen others whip around the keys.  Some of us are more tactile and some more visual.  I think differences in individuals needs to be take into account.  I do not look much myself, but rather feel the keys.  Seems to me that the answer is very individual and may change depending on your educational experience as you go through life.

[alzado]

I'm playing a piece now where I find I look at my hands much more than I normally would. 

It's Satie's Ogive #1. 

There are all these chord inversions --  the left hand and right hand are playing the same four-note chords, but the right hand is the chord inversion.

I don't know why, but my intuitive placement often results in mistakes. 

Odd.  Maybe it has something to do with the way the human nervous system is wired.

[gaer]

Personally I almost never have to look at my hands when I'm sight-reading except only to glance occasionally on jumps.  At first I looked but then I started trying to play without looking and gradually built up my ability to find the right keys by ear and feel.  I definately could not look as far ahead in the music when I had to look at the keys.  Most pianists I know don't look when the are sight-reading either though they aren't always aware that they aren't looking (if that makes sense). 

Actually, it sounds right to me. Memorization is very hard for me. It's not a natural process, although I memorize music automatically when I teach it because my way of teaching is so organized into parts, sections, "chunks", call them what you want. When I was young, I couldn't keep my hands off music. I  couldn't come close to playing most of the music I played through—not correctly—but I enjoyed pushing myself through, just getting the general idea, and by about age 14 I had already gotten my first job, accompanying a voice teacher's students. Soon I was accopanying other students in high school, since I was also very invovled in band. In college accopmanying people for juries was one of the biggest financial helps to me, allowing me to pick up a extra money. I also got a scholarship for accompanying the chorus.

Since I also played brass, I accompanied every piece I taught, and that includes some fairly hard things, among them several sonatas by Hindemith. I had so little time to practice, I had to learn to get things very fast, so I think I'm not exaggerating when I say that my sight-reading ability is probably my strongest ability at the piano.

It actually screws me up if I think about when I look. Does that make any sense? It's so natural. I just never thought about the hands thing. I think I was so intent on playing everything, even it if was sloppy, that my eyes were more or less glued to the music, and I think my students (those who are good players) tend to do what I do. As I watch them, their eyes are almost always on the page.

I think it is something that will come in time unless you develop an unhealthy dependance on looking early on.  Since I worked specifically on not looking at the hands early on I think it came faster for me than it would have otherwise.

I think you are right, but I also notice that the students who have the most problems do not seem to pick up reading as naturally and have excellent memories. I have to work very hard to convince those with great memories that this "gift" will always be there and to not depend on it until later, when they are able to learn music quickly and add the memory as the last step.

There is definately a huge benefit to not looking at the keyboard IMHO and I don't see why one should have to look for simple things likes seconds, thirds and octaves which should be like second nature to most pianists anyways.  If you look at it from a pure energy conservation standpoint, looking at the keys for trivial skips and steps is euivalent to wasted energy, energy that could spent on the music instead.

I agree, but so far I have been unsuccessful at landing on the right notes in jumps. So when I'm practicing on a something requires "blind leaps" in both hands, I can't keep my eyes on the music there. If, however, I can feel one hand, I can use a bit of quick glancing which may be partially peripheral that barely takes my eyes away.

The only thing I feel is a must is learning not to ever lose the place in the music, which kills reading.

That said you have to first look at the keys before you learn to play w/o looking at them (unless you are blind) and my approach to this was to learn how to navigate the keyboard by touch instead of trying to approximate distance blindly.  Since the keyboard is just a repetative pattern of 3 blacks and 2 blacks it is easy to learn how to find any key on the keyboard by feel without looking.  Learning to find the keys this way makes it much easier to not look.

And I always wonder if blind pianists can train themselves to be as accurate when making really wide jumps, crosses and other things as people who are looking. I would say no, but I might be wrong. Some blind pianists are frighteningly accurate, so I'm just not sure.

What do you think?

Gary