Piano Video Lesson: How to play the piano with your mind

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin with livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com. Today's question, Derrick asks, "How do you play the piano with your mind? Is it possible?" Well, it actually is. In fact, playing mentally is one of the best practice techniques there is. I'm going to explain all about it in this presentation for you.

Well, actually mental practice is all practice. Practicing really is a mental activity. You may think of it as a physical activity, and indeed there is a physiological component to practicing. But most practicing, the primary thing you're doing is training your mind, is a learning process. In fact, did you know that in brain scans they can not tell the difference when somebody is playing an instrument or thinking about playing an instrument? The brain is doing exactly the same thing.

I had an experience years ago. I came down with mononucleosis when I was in college. I had a concert that I was engaged to play, a solo recital. And I was still quite weak, but I really wanted to play this program. I could only practice maybe an hour and a half a day, two hours tops. And my program was about an hour and a half of music. So that really is not a lot of time at all to practice. Well, what did I do? I took all my scores in bed with me and I practiced mentally. And you know what? It was the best concert I've ever played up to that point by far, which really surprised me because I spent a fraction of the amount of time at the piano than I had for the previous recital I played less than a year before.

So, what is this all about? Well, the fact of the matter is you must learn your music one way or another. And I would recommend learning your music at the instrument, because why not? You need to get technique and you want to develop your fingers. Or if you play a wind instrument, you want to develop your embouchure, or your bow. So, obviously, practicing at your instrument is very important. It's vital, necessary in all kinds of ways.

However, once you've learned your music and if you have your music memorized, playing it away from the piano or if you have another instrument playing it away from it, and imagine playing it, you are free to hear exactly the music as you hear it, as you want to hear it. And you would imagine playing it with all the detail. This is extremely challenging to do. You'll find the things that you can play from memory you might not really know thoroughly. A lot of it is tactile memory, which you can't depend upon completely. So it makes you quantify everything in a very precise way.

I will tell you this. Try a piece. Try to play through it mentally. Work through it far as you can get. And when you can't go any further, reference the score. Go back, and try to pass that point until you can play successfully through the whole piece. When you do this you will have that piece mastered to an extent that you've never had any other piece learned before if you've never done this technique. In fact, before recitals I have music going on through my head all the time. And there's particularly hard sections that I'll go through again and again until I can finally get through it mentally. Some very challenging complex sections with lots of key changes in a row sometimes are very difficult. It's particularly when there are leaps because the fingers can remember where to go, but sometimes the leaps, you'll have to know where you're leaping. You have to know that in your head.

So, there's no greater way to practice than practice mentally. All practicing is mental practicing. You, too, can play in your mind. Thanks for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---