Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Looking at my hands makes me play worse

When I learn a song from sheet music I rarely look at my hands, and usually by the time I am done with the song, I play it without looking at all.

Memorizing also comes quickly to me, so I can usually play the song from memory without the sheet music by the time I'm done.

The problem is, when playing a song from memory, I can't look at my hands. If I do, my fingers seem to forget where to go and the whole song gets derailed. So I have to play the song staring off into space like a blind person, except without the cool sunglasses.

The problem is, I think, that I memorize the song by intervals, by feeling out the distances between notes. But when I look at my hands, all the sudden my brain switches to "hunt and peck" mode. This conflicting information, one to feel out intervals, and the other to search out keys, confuses my poor fingers and whatever part of the brain is coordinating them.

Sometimes I can stare right through my fingers, focus on the back of the piano or something, or on the fingers reflection if the piano is glossy enough. But I would actually like to be able to look at my hands and not screw up because of it. If for no other reason then to not be bored when playing something from memory.

It might help to note that in the past I looked far too often, and memorized some songs that I could only play while looking at the hands.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has this problem.

And just to help, let me get this out of the way: "You're complaining about NOT having to look at your hands while playing a piece you MEMORIZED!??! I wish I could memorize a song at all! Much less play it without looking. You ungrateful bastard, I curse you and your whole family! etc."

Ah, MooGoo, you made me laugh, and it's a Monday.

There is something about students of Music that drive us to perfection. I don't know which came first, the drive to learn music or being a perfectionist, but it is a trait we all share, I think.

Anyway, thanks for the laugh.

how about try to follow the sheet music (every note!) while you play from memory? it's another way to test if your memory can be distracted or disturbed or not. it would make you feel the same way as you're looking at your hands at first, but you'd get used to it when you keep trying to do just that.

it's also helpful for sight reading skill.

How about just buying some cool sunglasses ?

MooGoo,
I'm discovering I have a similar problem. I have the same sequence of experiences with my hands (memorize, but must look; read, but don't need to look; memorize, but must not look).

I'm finding that if I look after memorizing, I'm focusing on the notes of the moment, instead of thinking about what may come next. Thus, I'll conquer the current notes, but I then have to think about what I'm supposed to play next. This creates a long enough delay that my playing falls apart.

Maybe we've both reached a transition point to the next phase of playing. I sure hope so.

Hey MooGoo, I did the same thing when I started – especially for more difficult passages.

It sounds like you are relying on muscle memory and your ear when you play. This is OK, and where lots of people (including me) often leave their memorizing. If you want to make the memory deeper you should likely incorporate a few more types of memory into your playing as muscle memory gets derailed too easily. Looking at your hands is one. Photographically memorizing the notes is another. If you haven't run across Chuan Chang’s on-line book, he covers memorizing very well and talks about your options.

If you force yourself to look at your hands, eventually your brain will see and remember what your muscles already know and the memory becomes visual as well as muscle. It really doesn’t take too long to adapt … and when you get lost in a song the visual cues help get your hands working again.

MOO Goo, you made my day. You said it all for me.

And Piano Fingers. I have the same problem as you. Hope someday to get it all together. Right now, it is frustrating to know how it should sound, and yet playing something that falls far short. Sometimes I come to a complete halt trying to remember what comes next.

Tony.S. That Chang book has so many wonderful suggestions. It has become my music bible. Gaby Tu

MooGoo

I usually make sure I can play a piece without looking at my hand at all. I am not a good memorizer but did memorize Bach's 1st two-part invention because I want to play it at this month's class concert, without the music in front of me.

Initially, I had the same experience you have, that looking at my fingers irritated me and I got lost. As I continued practicing, however, I added the picture of my fingers on the keyboard to one way of knowing the piece. Now, it's ok if I look at my hands, and if I get lost, I have another way of finding my way back into the piece should I get lost, hit the wrong key at some point etc.

I've found that Bach's Inventions are particularly hard to recover from making mistakes while playing from memory without looking at your hands.

Muscle memory is not that useful when you are stretching your fingers from the wrong note.

I suppose if I do the reverse now, and force myself to look while I'm playing from memory, I'm sure I could get used to it. Good advice.

MooGoo,

Once I was ok looking at the keyboard I've stopped it, it's just that now it doesn't matter if I look at it or not, it doesn't irritate me.

And as you've said, this exercise has helped me a lot to get to the point that I can complete the invention no matter what slips and mistakes I make in my play. Of course, for the class-concert I'd love it to be just perfect, but it gives me the needed "guarantee" that I can finish no matter what happens.