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