The tendency to stare at one’s own fingers while playing
This habit can really inhibit students’ music reading abilities. When their gaze is permanently fixed on their hands, it is almost impossible for them to read fluently. Students with this issue will often resort to playing by ear or memory to compensate.
Much like a dancer who stares at his feet, this tactic of watching their hands while playing soon becomes counterproductive. When students are looking at their fingers as they play, not only are they not able to read effectively in that moment, but their keyboard awareness will not develop either. As teachers we need to get them over this hurdle and allow them to rely on their sense of touch to navigate the keys.
Symptoms
Prescriptions
Book Levitation
In lesson
This is probably the most common finger fascination remedy and it’s popular for good reason. Quite often one session of ‘Book Levitation’ is enough to cure finger fascination for good.
Ask your student to prepare her fingers on the keys, ready to play the piece she is currently working on. Once she is ready to play, hold a book a couple of inches above her hands so she can no longer see them. Then instruct her to begin playing.
It may take a few attempts for her to find her way around the keys, but many students are actually surprised to find that they can do so right away. If this is the case for your student, you may not need any more prescriptions. Her finger fascination could have been solved by just this one exercise.
At home
If more intervention is needed, there are a few ways to adapt ‘Book Levitation’ for home practice. You can directly carry over the exercise to your student's practice by asking a parent to hold the book over her hands at the start of each practice session. You could also fashion a cover out of poster board or stiff card to sit over her hands as shown in the diagram below. I have known teachers to even use basketball dribble glasses (glasses with the bottom half covered over) as a way to tackle finger fascination in the practice room.
A simpler option is to just leave a note on your student’s music that she should imagine the floating book when she is practicing at home. You can then repeat the ‘Book Levitation’ at each lesson until you feel she has learnt to look only when necessary and not as a force of habit.
Blind Drills
In lesson
This approach takes reading out of the equation completely so that your student can focus entirely on utilising her sense of touch. Ask your student to place her hands in a five finger position such as a pentascale. If your student is more advanced you may choose a full octave scale instead.
Have your student close her eyes or wear a blindfold. Call out notes for her to play, such as “right hand F sharp” or “left hand C chord”, as appropriate to her level and current repertoire. Drawing inspiration for these drills from her current pieces is a good way to begin, as she will immediately be able to apply the awareness she is developing in context.
At home
This process should become your student’s warm-up for practice in between lessons until the issue is resolved. Instruct her to do the ‘Blind Drills’ before practicing each piece by placing her hands in the starting position and calling out notes to herself to play. Just by calling the notes out herself she will become more aware of her positioning on the keys – if someone at home is willing to help by calling out the notes at random, that’s even better!
Related Diagnoses
Leap Phobia
Octave Disorientation