memorizing eye movement, execution by touch

[Derek]

Does anyone ever discuss whether or not it may be important when and how one's eyes move as you play a piece? Looking at your hands while playing definitely aids in correct execution. For a piece with a broad spread where it is difficult to look at all your fingers at once, such as Chopin's Ocean Etude, I find I have to go by touch a lot of the time to execute correctly. This is tricky, much trickier than pieces wher eI have the luxury of looking at what my hands are doing. However I notice sometimes there appear to be optimal "spots" between my hands that I can look while playing that seem to aid in execution. Has anyone ever marked up a score to say: "Look at the G# for these two beats, then at the top start looking at the F" or what have you, and actually practice alwaysl ooking in the same spot in every part of a piece?  I wonder if it would help? I haven't tried it in earnest yet, I was hoping to find out if pros ever do anything like this.

[keyboardclass]

Excellent question.  We can put a man on the moon but can't create a sensible eye tracking system for a score.

[Derek]

To elaborate, while I'm playing the Ocean Etude, I feel that my eyes kind of race back and forth between my two hands, and sometimes  I lose sight of a few fingers or where I'm going, and must go by touch. Going by touch is difficult, but I imagine it is important to build that skill anyway. Still though, it seems like if eye movement is so variable and chaotic, I'll get a different "slide show" fed to my brain while executing the piece almost every time. The amount of time it may take for this "chaotic slide show" to settle down and produce consistent movements in my hands may be quite large, unless I consciously decide to make the slide show look the same every time, simplifying the physical problem of using sight to aid in execution.  This is all speculation so far as I have not tried it, I wanted to find out if anybody else has considered this.

[keyboardclass]

The amount of time it may take for this "chaotic slide show" to settle down and produce consistent movements in my hands may be quite large, unless I consciously decide to make the slide show look the same every time, simplifying the physical problem of using sight to aid in execution.

Yes.  Just as every tiny hand/arm movement is worked out (even if while on the hoof) every eye movement should be.  I've considered it often but there is really no guidance out there.  It's sonething that's been missed out of pedagogy.  To play successfully from a sheet you need to know when to look and where to look at all times. 

[Derek]

Fascinating. Maybe I'll give it a shot for a few months, try marking up the score with various "reminders" of where I might look while playing, and see if I notice improvement. I actually wonder, in light of this observation, if many highly disciplined performers maybe lock in consistent eye movements by coincidence and just never think about it, it just happens?

Note, I mean once a piece is memorized, where to look on the keyboard during execution. The problem of needing to look at sheet music while playing is removed in this case. That introduces a whole host of other issues.

[keyboardclass]

I find you can look at left or right hands but rarely both.  That you can look at the treble or bass clef but rarely both (though I've heard others claim otherwise). 

[ted]

Since the previous discussion on this some months ago I have thought about it quite a lot. I think what I tend to do is establish "landmark" glances in pieces. These rarely change, but what my eyes do in between them does vary. When I had a left hand problem recently I was forced to change many of these "landmark" glances to pay attention to the my hand. Once the initial discomfort of the first few tries passed everything seemed just as good, if not better than before. In improvisation everything is one-off anyway so the issue doesn't matter, at least not in the same way. There it is more a case of where thought and ear, rather than eye, are directed.

[Derek]

I'm wondering what would happen to my execution of pieces if I were to find a way to practice eye movements that would not change at all (except in very subtle ways, say if I'm sitting half a centimeter left of where I usually sit, or happen to be hunching over more than usual---its obviously impossible to make sure the "slide show to the brain" doesn't change at all, but I fear my eye habits are just too chaotic right now. I haven't even established landmarks as ted described.)

As for improvisation, this is a really interesting question. Every so often I've had a notion of attempting to learn to improvise entirely by touch without sight at all. I actually wonder, if I had superb keyboard orientation entirely by touch, how that would affect my improvisation AND playing pieces.

[nyiregyhazi]

I find you can look at left or right hands but rarely both.  That you can look at the treble or bass clef but rarely both (though I've heard others claim otherwise). 

It depends how far apart the hands are. There are many situations where looking in the middle offers awareness of both hands.

When you refer to clefs are you talking about reading from the score on or on the piano? There's absolutely no question that it's indeed possible to look at both clefs at once. Why would it be impossible to process information within such a small space? The eyes are more than capable of taking two staves in one point of focus. Attention may be placed slightly more or less strongly on on the two and this may very well alternate. However, it's very rare that I would only be aware of the bass clef or only the treble while reading.

[theodore]

Derek:

In stride piano the left hand must instantly jump down and hit an octave while the right hand carries the melody.  Most waltzes have this same problem for the left hand. Some compositions have large left hand jumps. Has anyone devised a system or drill where spatial movements, to get to the desired bass notes, (no looking) are practiced ??

When left hand notes are black keys the left hand jump is easier. It is the white keys that are more difficult to pinpoint. Any advice on left hand white key jumps ??

Theodore

[sashaco]

I find looking at the left hand when it has lots of big jumps is a trap.  After a while I have to look at the left hand to play and, despite my best efforts, I start playing the right hand as if it were accompanying the left, rather than the reverse.  My ears get locked in with my eyes, in other words.  A few peeks for orientation are probably ok, and perhaps neccessary, but using the eyes all the time slows down the process of learning the leaps fully, and distracts the ears.

Cheers, Sasha

[pianoyutube]

Do you think it's easier to play by looking at the score?

For me it is much easier to play from memory. There's less eye movement involved. I think the easy parts of a piece can be played reading the score. But that parts could also be played with closed eyes. So I have to memorize at least the difficult bars, because I need to see and feel what I'm playing.
My conclussion: if I have to memorize the difficult parts of the piece, I memorice also the easy bars, and I can play the piece with full concentration. Memorizing the easy part of the piece is not much extra work.

Solved the problem of reading the score, where do I look at?
I can not see both hands at once if they are not fairly close together on the keyboard, so I look at one of them, and use sense of touch for the other one.
Sometimes my eyes jump from one hand to the other. As I memorize my hand movements, I think that I memorize also the eye movement, but in in an unconscious way.

[lostinidlewonder]

Does anyone ever discuss whether or not it may be important when and how one's eyes move as you play a piece? Looking at your hands while playing definitely aids in correct execution....

I do this in a lot of my lessons and especially when trying to work at solving playing with Both hands. Often when you play both hands one hand needs to be out of your vision and the other your eyes want to look at. Often positions that are not moving as much can be done without sight while we watch the part which moves more. It is an interesting lesson to ask a student who starts to memorize a piece which hand they need to look at. I often cover a stuents vision with a book/paper etc holding it above the hand I don't want them to view. I have drawn an eyeball on the score to remind the student where they should be looking For sight readers however this skill is not so important since you should predominantly be starting at the score and not your hands. Sight readers use the score to accurately tell their hands exactly where to move, even large distances can be measured by eye by staring at the score and it causes the related movement in the hand over the keys.

[danhuyle]

I've played Chopin Etude Op25 No12. I play with music to familiarize myself with the layout.
Like anyone else who's played it, you'll memorize the pattern and forget the structure.

I write in the keys that this piece goes through and play from there. By the time you play it fluently, Op25/12 memorizes itself and you didn't even have to lift a finger.

 

[nyiregyhazi]

I've played Chopin Etude Op25 No12. I play with music to familiarize myself with the layout.
Like anyone else who's played it, you'll memorize the pattern and forget the structure.

I write in the keys that this piece goes through and play from there. By the time you play it fluently, Op25/12 memorizes itself and you didn't even have to lift a finger.

? What do you mean? The topic was about the relationship between looking at the hands and ease of execution- not how memory is acquired. Do you mean to say that you play it as easily with your eyes closed?

[gvans]

I find this thread fascinating, as I've been thinking about piano vision a lot. For those of us with progressive lenses, it gets even more complicated.

With octaves, e.g., the Liszt B minor sonata octave passages, I find it helpful to look solely at the thumbs, even if one is emphasizing the top note in the right hand (the fifth finger). In playing difficult chamber music, where I don't have the entire piece memorized but go back and forth from score to memory (e.g., Brahms D minor violin sonata), I have made giant pencil marks to train my (aging) eyes where to get back on track.

In general, when reading music, I try to force myself to look ahead a measure or two, to prepare my fingers and brain for what's coming. I find when I'm tired, I read the score right at the point I'm playing--generally not as good.

Cheers!

[autodidact]

What a coincidence that this thread pops up now. I had never before given any real thought to eye movements, then suddenly a few days ago the strangest thing happened. While I was in the middle of playing a Beethoven sonata (luckily I was reviewing it at home, not playing for someone else!), for some reason I suddenly became very consciously aware of my eye movements at a certain fast(er) part, and the thought jumped to the front of my mind of "where am I normally looking right now?!?" The sudden awareness of my eye movements, and being completely at a loss as to what to do with them, actually distracted me so much that I started messing up relatively badly. D:
Thinking about it, it could possibly be because a lot of the time when I'm playing something I know, I'm not looking at the keys, so my eyes normally aren't seeing the keys at that point.... Certainly something to think about; I wouldn't want such a silly thing to mess me up while I was actually playing for someone.

[nyiregyhazi]

for some reason I suddenly became very consciously aware of my eye movements at a certain fast(er) part, and the thought jumped to the front of my mind of "where am I normally looking right now?!?" The sudden awareness of my eye movements, and being completely at a loss as to what to do with them, actually distracted me so much that I started messing up relatively badly. D:
playing for someone.

The question would have to be though- did the eye movements necessarily cause you to mess up? Or did your eyes start flashing around everywhere because of a level of uncertainty?

[cjp_piano]

This is interesting. I often look directly at my students' faces while they're playing to see what their eyes are doing. If their eyes are moving around quickly and frantically, it's usually a sign that they're not completely secure with what they're playing. The younger and less advanced students usually need some guidance as far as where to look, especially when they have to move BOTH hands to a different register at the same time. We usually practice in slow motion to figure out which hand to look at in which order.

But as far as the eye movements being coordinated with the music exactly and done consistently every time, I'm not sure that's a good idea.

[nyiregyhazi]

But as far as the eye movements being coordinated with the music exactly and done consistently every time, I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Yeah, I'd have to agree. The more different ways you can afford to operate without breaking down, the better. I think it's important to at least have some kind of a safety net. It's fine to normally operate in a certain way, but I don't think anyone ought to be overly dependent on a fixed scheme.

[cjp_piano]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. The more different ways you can afford to operate without breaking down, the better. I think it's important to at least have some kind of a safety net. It's fine to normally operate in a certain way, but I don't think anyone ought to be overly dependent on a fixed scheme.

Yes. I often have my students purposefully look in different places while playing a section, and that seems to make it more secure. For example:

"Play it while you look only at your RH"
"Play it while you look only at your LH"
"Play it with eyes closed"
"Play only the RH, but look at your LH"
etc.

[autodidact]

The question would have to be though- did the eye movements necessarily cause you to mess up? Or did your eyes start flashing around everywhere because of a level of uncertainty?

The odd thing is that I had played that same passage so many times in the past with no uncertainty. It just occurred to me though that it could be a case of uncertainty caused by potential confusion with a different, recently-learned passage....

Yes. I often have my students purposefully look in different places while playing a section, and that seems to make it more secure. For example:

"Play it while you look only at your RH"
"Play it while you look only at your LH"
"Play it with eyes closed"
"Play only the RH, but look at your LH"
etc.

I'm going to start doing this kind of thing, and see if it helps with confidence in potentially difficult passages.