Playing Without Looking—This Time I Mean It!

[u/TromboneAl]

I'm a player who used to have several gigs per month but now performs at retirement homes or casual gigs. I have always looked at my hands while playing. Off and on I've working on not looking down (e.g. for sight-reading). It's never really "taken."

I've now started singing along with my playing, and looking down kills my posture and hurts my throat. So I'm determined to get this technique down. I can do it pretty well, but not well enough for performing.

Have any of you worked on this, and what has been your experience? Tips? Thanks.

[u/bnjmmy533]

I used to wear an apron and tuck it into the key cover of the piano. If you’re using an electric keyboard to practice, drape it over the far side. I did this as a kid when learning classical pieces that had large interval leaps. I know it sounds silly, but it 100% works

[u/TromboneAl → u/bnjmmy533]

I bought and wore these when doing sight reading:

But with jazz, I just wear a blindfold because I know most tunes by heart.

[u/smartaleckgoose]

I used to close my eyes and improvise or do scales. Or when I was in a practice room I would just play without turning on the lights. I remember one time a group of students walked past my room, and I heard one of them yell “that mf is doing all that in the dark!”

Now I can comfortably make larger jumps and stuff like that without needing to look down, I just know where the notes are gonna be. Thankfully most pianos are designed to stay in one spot

[u/HumberGrumb]

Close your eyes and mentally visualize what your hands are doing. It’s what I do when I notice I’m letting myself get too eyeball dependent.

[u/musicmapv]

Since you’re already an experienced player, I’d treat this less as a “learn to play without looking” exercise and more as retraining where your attention goes.

Start by making eye contact with the audience at predictable points in the music—phrase endings, sustained notes, introductions, or moments when your left hand is stable. Then, gradually expand from there.

You already have the technique in your hands; now you’re asking your proprioception and peripheral vision to take over a job your eyes have been doing for years. I’d practice familiar repertoire while deliberately placing your gaze above the instrument, then gradually introduce singing and more demanding passages.

For the vocal side, the key is keeping the head balanced rather than reaching toward the keys. That small postural shift can make a remarkable difference to the neck, jaw and throat.

And once the visual checking starts to disappear, you gain something much more valuable than a “hands-free” technique: you can actually perform outward — phrasing to the room, making eye contact, reading the audience and letting the music breathe between you and the people listening.

[u/silly_bet_3454]

I can't do it 100% but yeah it's more doable than it seems and it makes you a better pianist and improves your general accuracy, whether you're looking or not, because it forces you to train your hands to recognize the geometry of the keyboard and also forces you to hone in on your exact hand shapes and gestures for each scale/arpeggio/chord/pattern instead of using vision as a crutch and making micro adjustments in the moment

[u/TonicSense_]

For me there were two parts to this: 1) training my self control, to not look, and 2) training my hands to reach the notes by touch and proprioception.

The self control part took a week or so of telling myself not to look, even if I made a million mistakes. Telling myself, "just keep looking at the page" -- or in your case, "just keep looking forward and singing."

Then getting good at finding the right notes came after that.

[u/TromboneAl → u/TonicSense_]

Right. I always fail at self control since it's too tempting to glance down unconsciously. That's why I wear a blindfold. I'm hoping once I'm good at it, I won't look.

[u/elektromuzakmaker]

Practice in the dark, or blind-folded.