What is Listen to your Hands! and why study it?
Listen to your Hands! teaches a language; it develops a piano student's ability to identify patterns in the keyboard, and to associate those patterns with sound. The ability to associate patterns on the keyboard with patterns in sound is central in learning how to play without sheet music, a skill that is indispensable in playing musically.
When students can play without relying on reading, such that they are playing from memory, or are improvising, or even practising technique, their attention is no longer divided between playing and deciphering symbols on paper. Freed from the page, a pianist's attention can be focused solely on the moment and location at which the fingers touch the keys. Rather like an image being brought slowly towards and then finally touching its reflection, the pianist can simultaneously apply sight, listening and touch to connect the anticipation of playing forthcoming notes with the actuality of those notes being played. Apart from sitting better, being freed to listen better, and to play music that is more technically advanced, these pianists invariably sound better: they play in time with themselves, rather than chasing notes on a page that are forever a moment ahead.
Listen to your Hands! is not intended as an alternative to learning to read, but is intended, amongst other purposes, as a response to the diminishing benefits that sheet music provides as a piece becomes increasingly familiar. While reading is widely recognised as a valuable and necessary skill, and is accordingly typically introduced to beginners, usually as a part of their very first lesson, learning to play without sheet music is for many students a skill that is never taught at all. Listen to your Hands! teaches this skill.
For whom is the course designed, how long does it take, and what commitment does it demand?
Listen to your Hands! is written for teachers assisting children, or for adult students who intend to work through the course by themselves.
Listen to your Hands! is suitable for piano students with a playing skill level that is equal to or more advanced than that of Grade 3 AMEB. Some less advanced students are capable of progressing through the course, however it is the more advanced students who recognise a greater proportion of the patterns from Listen to your Hands! in their pieces, and who consequently find the course to be more rewarding.
Listen to your Hands! is designed to be incorporated into the normal practice routine of the student; it is studied for the first ten minutes of every class, and played and recited for the first ten minutes of every practice session. It is a course that usually takes a Grade 3 student 9 months to master.
How does Listen to your Hands! enable students to play without sheet music?
Listen to your Hands! teaches students to play and understand a repertoire of progressions, a repertoire that encapsulates the majority of the harmonic patterns found in Western music. As students progress through Listen to your Hands!, a language, or mental framework, is established, which assists in the recognition of patterns within other music that may be being studied. For example, when a student sight-reads chord IV in one of his or her pieces, Listen to your Hands! teaches the student to identify that chord as being chord IV, both on the page and on the keyboard, and to associate that chord with its sound, regardless of the key in which it is being played. This provides the student with an analytical foundation for memorisation. Alternatively, when a student hears a pattern in a recording, he or she learns to identify that pattern, and to know where it can be found on the piano, regardless of the key. This facilitates improvisation, and to play along with a recording, or to play by ear.
Understanding why music sounds as it does, while it is being played, is arguably one of the most enjoyable aspects of playing the piano. It is the skill that distinguishes simply liking a piece of music from the joy of knowingly and admiringly presiding over its unravelling. And if so, it is a key to students continuing to learn.