Can you study a score without touching the keyboard and still make musical progress?

Concert Pianist • Piano Researcher • Piano Educator
Emma_Leiuman
updated 3 wk ago
29replies

This is something I've been thinking about for many years.

When we say we're "practicing," we usually mean sitting at the piano. But how much of learning actually depends on the instrument being there?

I don't mean simply analyzing harmony or marking fingerings. I mean mentally hearing every note, sensing the phrasing, following the direction of the musical line, imagining the tone, the voicing, the timing, and even the path of movement through the hands before a single key is pressed.

I've often found that some of my biggest breakthroughs happened away from the keyboard. When I returned to the instrument, it sometimes felt as though the hands were simply catching up with work that had already been done inwardly. This aligns with the way I now structure practice, where analysis and advanced mental practice precede the later learning and performance stages.

I'm curious how others experience this.

Have you ever made genuine progress while away from the piano? If so, what exactly were you working on, and did it transfer back to your playing?

- Jessica_Chapman
- 3 wk ago
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This is a timely topic for me as I am in hospital for some days and plan to look closely at some scores here.

I expect that how much you get from this depends largely on your reading/analysis skills and ability to 'hear' all the written notes and harmonies. I find I get most from practicing away from the piano if I have first listened to recordings of the piece played by several good pianists. A great skill to develop though.
- Concert Pianist • Piano Researcher • Piano Educator
  
  Emma_Leiuman
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  I hope your hospital stay is a short one, and that the scores make good companions.
  
  I like your observation about listening to recordings first. It's almost as though they help "feed" the inner ear, making it easier to hear the score away from the piano.
- Vicki_R
- 3 wk ago
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Pianist David Chang posts so much on this topic on youtube, and there is a course here on Tonebase on that topic with him explaining his techniques (as you may know already perhaps).
- Peter_William
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  could you please post the class name ?i have seen David Chang play on YT—wizard !!!
- Vicki_R
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Hi there! Under 'Livestreams', I searched the keywords 'mental practice'. In the responses there is :
  
  Livestreams (on the side menu)
  
  1) Mental Practice That Actually Works: Tools for Real Progress (with David Chang)
  
  2) Why Mental Practice is Important! (Tips/Advice With Asiya Korepanova)
  
  Hope it helps! :-)
- Peter_William
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Great ! Thank you !
- Concert Pianist • Piano Researcher • Piano Educator
  
  Emma_Leiuman
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Thank you, ! I actually wasn't familiar with David Chang's work, so I really appreciate the recommendation.
  
  I couldn't find the course on Tonebase, although I did find that exact video on YouTube. I’m always interested in seeing how others approach the development of inner hearing and mental practice.
- Vicki_R
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Hi Emma. It's on Tonebase under 'livestreams'. See my post above to Peter. Thank you for initiating this topic - it's an interesting one. Myself, I can only 'visualize' the music and do the mental practice, once I've tried the piece (or passages), and only then can I perform mental practice. For any complex passage, I find it very difficult to just read the score without any attempt at the keyboard and visualize how it might realistically feel under my hands in order to commit it to memory. Are you able to fully memorize a piece (or section) without any attempt first at the keyboard? David Chang seems to be able to do this I gather from his YouTube posts, he mentions learning it even one hand at a time. And in small sections, even half bars. Perhaps my chunks are too large. I'll have to retry with smaller chunks as training..
- Concert Pianist • Piano Researcher • Piano Educator
  
  Emma_Leiuman
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Hi ,
  
  My experience is a little different. I don't usually sit down with the goal of memorizing a piece from the score. For me, memorization becomes an almost inevitable consequence of audiation.
  
  As I work on a piece, I gradually enrich what I experience inwardly. I imagine every note in both hands, connect each interval through inner singing, and progressively add layers such as tone quality, harmony, dynamics, voicing, sound texture, and movement. Then I bring those inner experiences into the physical motions at the keyboard.
  
  After several days of working this way, most of the piece is simply there. I don't feel as though I have "memorized" it - it has become familiar because I've experienced it so many times inwardly. Of course, there are always a few more demanding passages or occasional memory slips that need specific attention afterwards, but by then they usually represent only a small part of the work.
  
  Will be watching right now how David Chang approaches this process.
- Vicki_R
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Thank you Emma. It appears you could give your own course on this topic! Appreciate the details. One question - so you approach the 'imagining' of such details as described, without ever having tried the notes first - or after a first pass or so? If so, that's a wonderful skill. Thank you again.
- hot4euterpe
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  I would just add here that there are many ways and levels to practice away from the piano and I have known a number of performers that practice away from their instrument. They all thought of it a little differently. Some listened to recordings while they did it, some used inner ear to 'listen' to different voicing, some focused on harmony, some moved their hands as though playing with the specific fingering, some focused on checkpoints for memory etc.. Some would do this before playing at all but many would play it first or certain parts first and continue to work on things away from the piano (especially if waiting for a practice room!).
  
  You can combine these or do them individually. If you start with one, even for a section, you can then build on the skill and add other details. The more repertoire you play and listen to, the more you have to draw on for your ability to 'hear' away from the piano. Musicianship skills like ear and rhythm training can also be very helpful!
- Vicki_R
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  I appreciate your enlarging on the definition.. My listening with scores (which I do a lot of ), seem to be part of this broader explanation.
- Concert Pianist • Piano Researcher • Piano Educator
  
  Emma_Leiuman
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  ,
  
  That's a wonderful question. I think of it a bit like baking a cake, layer by layer.
  
  The first "cake layer" is usually practical. I spend a little time at the piano, often with separate hands, finding comfortable fingering, wrist motion, elbow motion, and position changes. That gives me the first physical feedback.
  
  Then comes the first layer of icing. Away from the piano, I imagine every note with its ideal tone quality—warm, round, singing, and full. That imagined sound immediately begins to influence the physical movement I discovered at the keyboard.
  
  The next cake layer is harmony. I return to the score and listen to the emotional colour of each harmony. Then comes another layer of icing: I imagine exactly the same notes again, but now coloured by those harmonic nuances.
  
  Some layers don't require going back to the keyboard. For example, once I understand the harmony, I can continue enriching the same inner performance with dynamics, voicing, inner singing and arm weight, and many other musical details entirely through imagination.
  
  So the process isn't simply "play first" or "imagine first." It's a gradual layering, where each new musical element enriches everything that came before.
  
  Hope that helps.
- Vicki_R
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  Yes it does help very much.
- Peter_William
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  This ability that Emma is talking about would be fantastic for beginners/early intermediate players like myself but I think this may only be possible for super advanced concert pianists after many many years of training. It may be possible for pianists who are sight singers as well. Since they can see the notes on the page and hear it in the head without playing the instrument. I cannot hear anything from the score without the note being played.. :-)
- Peter_William
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  check out her videos from 11 years ago. Lightning speed ! etudes. I only came across her channel in my search a couple of years ago ( 100 piano channel search lol!) saw an interesting video and found it way too advanced ( my level is beginner) .. then remembered her channel from the conversation last week. Yesterday I located some great videos !
- Vicki_R
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  Thank you Peter. Couldn't find that precise video - but appreciate the interesting reference. Tonebase has quite a assorted mix of members doesn't i? So glad you are beginning piano, you're on an excellent platform.
- Peter_William
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  3 years ago.. I could play maybe 1 piece from memory( 2 pages long) ( same status for about 25 years -didn't try..). When my friend ( a music conductor) told me 'hey can you play the next page.' I quickly told him 'Oh no please don't turn the page'.. lol!.. Then I found TB and thought 'oh this is only for advanced piano people' a year later I took total beginner lessons .. and now.. it is been quite a journey.. I can at least read almost anything in that big book ( not at tempo but slowly).. and play almost everyday for an hour at least.. so yes TB is a wonderful platform for me.. I have not acquired musicality yet.. but it is a very slow process for me..
  
  I am going to send you the link via messaging .. only found it this morning.. will let you decide for yourself.. are you a piano teacher? what level.. I know I won't be able to play anything like what was in that video for the next decade( maybe ever ) I think .. lol!
- Mom, fitness instructor, lover of music
  
  Michelle_Russell
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  Hi Peter - I've no doubt that these and similar skills can be learned even as a beginning pianist...but the parameters, specifics, and goals might be different at the start. In the world of singing we are taught to learn in layers which may be informative here. The first layer, the language layer, isn't terribly adaptable to piano, though reading through and being sure you understand what each marking means might be seen as the language layer. The rhythm layer, however, is quite appropriate and important to pianists. I could see this being a good first step for those wanting to learn the seemingly advanced skill of which Emma has written. "Hearing" the rhythm, perhaps even tapping it hands separately or together, could be a wonderful initiation into this world. The other things come later, but why not begin with something quite important to our ability to play the piece? And then as we learn more, listen more, we can take what we learned at this layer and use them for the next layers - different skills, perhaps, but same process of learning.
- Peter_William
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  ah yes.. I talked to Emma at length a few days ago.. She was talking about "inner hearing" of the music this is really not the same as hearing rhythms I think. This is explained a lot by the great masters in the books listed above. I certainly don't have it - for sure -and was just asking whether it could be learned. I know Emma definitely has it ( I had seen her site a few years ago) and decided it was way too advanced for me. She came from a top Russian Conservatory -training 8 hours a day for several years. BTW I heard your son Thurmond play at the concert and he would definitely know about this kind of ability for sure as he is playing at that type of level. You might want to ask him.
- Peter_William
- 3 wk ago
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Hi Emma ,

Is it even possible to learn this skill or is it just innate ability ? Meaning hearing the music in the head while just looking at the score away from the instrument.
I do not hear the music from the score unless it is played .. hence my question .. any thoughts on how to acquire this skill would be immensely appreciated .. Thanks in advance
- Concert Pianist • Piano Researcher • Piano Educator
  
  Emma_Leiuman
  
  3 wk ago
  
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  I don't believe it's an innate ability. In my experience, it can definitely be developed, although it takes time, dedication, and a gradual progression.
- Mark_Cooper
- 2 wk ago
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An interesting topic indeed.
my current piano teacher is also a performer, and most of his practice is done in his head away from the piano, he claims his house is quite silent when he is practicing!

He also relates a story of coming across a well known Russian pianist at a party one time standing on his own smoking a cigarette and going over a tricky passage in his head !!

So I’ve made it my own routine of doing 5-10 minutes of mental practice myself before my usual practice session , with the score open and trying to imagine myself playing a passage , imagining my fingers moving through it . I think it’s a matter of practice and persistence , and definitely a work in progress at this stage ….
- Peter_William
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  Ah yes!.. Mark I am no expert yes the Russian school of Music - started by Anton Rubinstein seems to emphasise this ability a lot. In my reading of just a few books I came across references to this type of ability and was almost bewildered that this was even possible for some people. It turns out in that tradition of Piano playing 'mental singing' was considered an essential pre requisite for good piano playing. Any misstatments here are soley due to my lack and not due to the actual facts so apologies in advance. I don't mean to start a big conversation here but will point you to the following books which I came across on my journey just a year ago.
  1. Josef Lhevinne's book - This is a wonderful book
  2. Neuhaus's book - where he talks of mental comprehension of the whole piece - if I recall right he cites S Richter as an example epitomizing this ability -sometimes on first reading.. !!
  3. And now most recently I came across Josef Hofman's book .. Now this is whole different genre altogether.. Hofman sigh!.. I will let you read about him !.. :-) .
  You may already know all of this from advanced formal musical education.. if not like me you may find these extraordinarily interesting.
  How much of this is obtainable by the standard curious person is what I would be very interested to know.. ? If this is even acquirable.. For me having seen absolute legends of modern day piano playing on YT and read about the previous generation I am just content to happily listen to a great exponent play the piece with the score - and play just a bit at a time - whatever is possible :-)
- Mark_Cooper
  
  2 wk ago
  
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  thanks Peter, I’ll definitely check out those references