Piano Video Lesson: Should You Look at Your Hands When You Play From Memory on the Piano?

Hi, and welcome to LivingPianos.com. Robert Estrin here. The question is, should you look at your hands when you play from memory on the piano? I had somebody ask me this question, and it's a really insightful question. This is because there are two distinctly different ways of playing the piano. One is playing from memory, and the other is reading the music. Interestingly, when playing with the music, you should strive to keep your eyes on that score the entire time with only the briefest glances at the keys. And when you do look at the keys, it must be just your eyes moving. If you play the piano and you are looking at the music, reading the score, and then you look down like this, guess what? You're not reading anymore. You can't read what you're not looking at. So with playing from the score, you absolutely must keep your eyes on the music.
Now, what about playing from memory? So oftentimes I have students memorize music because at the very first lesson, I show my students how to memorize something that almost nobody ever teaches. You think it's magic that pianists just could assimilate all this, or are all pianists some kind of geniuses? No, you just have to know how to memorize, how to take little chunks of music and build the whole composition bit by bit. And then when you hear somebody play, it seems like a miracle, but really if you see what's behind the curtain, it's just a lot of little steps that go into it.
So then I have my students play from memory. And then the first time they do it, a lot of times they'll be looking up into space. And you know what I say to them? Look at your hands. And they go, "Oh, really? I can?" And of course. One of the reasons that we memorize musics is so that you can look at your hands. Because think about it. When you have leaps, something like that, how are you supposed to get that without looking at your hands.
Now, having said that, there are some blind pianists who defy all reason, that can do the most amazing playing, bouncing all over the keyboard, and they don't rely upon looking. Well, that's great for them and all the power to them. But for us mere mortals, I mean, you've got your eyes to utilize. You might as well. You've got the music memorized. Not only that, but it actually is another way to reinforce your memory. By looking at your hands, you see the connections of the keys. You know where to look. If there's leaps, for example, a certain hand, a lot of times what you want to do is when you're playing the piano, is look at your thumbs rather than the extreme outside fingers because the thumbs can line up everything and they're close together. So when you have leaps, you tend to want to look in the inner part of your hand. That's one little tip for you.
Now, does this mean that you should never try to play without looking? No, absolutely. The time for that is when you memorize a piece of music. Does that mean you're done with a score? Far from it. It's exactly the opposite. The way I learn music and the way I teach my students is to read through it a couple of times the first day only. Then get down to work and start memorizing it. So the first thing you do is memorize your music instead of the last thing.
Then what do you do? You go back to the score and you reinforce the memory by reading the score, keeping your eyes on the music. That's the time for not looking at your hands. Reading from the score. All the little details that maybe you didn't catch the first time, or even if you did, maybe you forgot where a slur ends or a crescendo begins, or a voicing of a chord. Does it have three notes in it or four notes? Maybe the first time it's three. The second time it's four. So you have to constantly go back and reinforce your memory. That's the time for that.
One last bit for you, and I have a video on this subject about playing the piano from your mind. And interestingly, you can indeed play the piano without any instrument or anything visual at all, or oral, or tactile. Sitting in a chair, playing through your music while thinking it through, every nuance of sound and touch. That is the ultimate practice. I'll have a link in the bottom for those of you who want to try it with a piece you know really well, but you want make sure you reinforce that memory. There is no better practice when you don't have the benefit of the finger memory, you don't have the keyboard to look at, you don't have the sound to go by. It's all up here.
Interestingly, they did tests of people playing the piano and they'd scan the brain. Then they had people thinking about playing the piano while doing the same brain scan on the same people. And there is zero difference in the brain whether you are playing the piano or thinking about playing the piano. Now, what does this reveal? It tells you that you can practice away from the piano effectively and get all the physiological benefit, all the reinforcement of the score, all from just using your mind. The ultimate practice, where you're not using your eyes or your ears or your hands. But normally look at your hands. You've got the benefit of seeing what you're doing. Y'all might as well take advantage.
Great question. I hope this has been enlightening for you. If you like this, you can address questions to me here, robert@livingpianos.com. And if you haven't subscribed already to LivingPianos.com or YouTube, go for it with a thumbs up and there'll be lots more videos for you. Thanks so much for joining me and keep those questions coming in.

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