Practicing/playing with eyes closed

**djangoles** · 02-20-2015, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin

Hello to all! I think that it is important to clarify the difference between learning and playing. Many players don't know the difference between the two approaches.

If you go to any instructional video and someone is demonstrating a musical idea, their eyes are always going to be open.
If you watch someone in a playing mode, sometimes they will close their eyes.

When you are practicing, you are either starting to learn or reviewing musical information. this always requires that one'e eyes should remain open because you are in a learning mode. Everyone keeps their eyes open in a learning experience.

Playing itself is the instantaneous moment of representing music that has already been learned. It is here where emotion and the flow of music takes place and it is only here where one might close their eyes.

It is a non-helpful approach to deliberately close one's eyes in a learning situation, assuming that you will either learn how to play better or get in contact with some deeper part of you. You won't! Learning is not art. It is an information gathering moment and you will all learn better if you keep your eyes open and think about where your fingers should go on your instruments. Please write your thoughts and we can talk about them. I am home for a few weeks and would like to know what you think. Regards to all. Jeff berlin

So how do blind musicians fit into all this?

**coolvinny** · 02-20-2015, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin

Hello to all! I think that it is important to clarify the difference between learning and playing. Many players don't know the difference between the two approaches.

If you go to any instructional video and someone is demonstrating a musical idea, their eyes are always going to be open.
If you watch someone in a playing mode, sometimes they will close their eyes.

When you are practicing, you are either starting to learn or reviewing musical information. this always requires that one'e eyes should remain open because you are in a learning mode. Everyone keeps their eyes open in a learning experience.

Playing itself is the instantaneous moment of representing music that has already been learned. It is here where emotion and the flow of music takes place and it is only here where one might close their eyes.

It is a non-helpful approach to deliberately close one's eyes in a learning situation, assuming that you will either learn how to play better or get in contact with some deeper part of you. You won't! Learning is not art. It is an information gathering moment and you will all learn better if you keep your eyes open and think about where your fingers should go on your instruments. Please write your thoughts and we can talk about them. I am home for a few weeks and would like to know what you think. Regards to all. Jeff berlin

No disrespect intended, but I (a non-pro but serious amateur) strongly disagree with you. I learn lots of things with my eyes closed and I don't even need an instrument to practice a lot of things, including new things. If you can see something with your mind's eye, then you know it better than if you can't. That's why there is a lot of literature on visualizing out there. Sure, if you don't know how to finger a certain chord voicing then keeping your eyes open is probably a good idea, but even then, it can be instructive to visualize it in your mind first in order to build up that muscle. Also, keep in mind that horn players really have nothing to look at anyway even if they wanted to! (as others have mentioned above)

I actually practice with my eyes closed much more than I play with my eyes closed (virtually never). Or if my eyes aren't closed, I am often looking at my sheet of "random roots" when I take a line or a head or all modes of major or melodic minor through all possible keys, sometimes for 20 minutes straight. Practicing with my eyes closed has been super helpful to me to really make the fretboard my friend.

But sometimes looking at the fretboard is really helpful when learning - usually only when something is very hard for me. And even then, not always...going slower and while not looking can sometimes be better for me.

**pushkar000** · 02-20-2015, 05:43 PM

It's already been said, but I want to add here that looking at your fretboard is bad posture which might result in physical complications.

A few months ago I had to get a couple of sessions with a doctor because of neck and shoulder issues.

Wherever you look(or don't) during practice/performance, always make sure your back and neck are straight and your shoulder muscles are relaxed.

**Flyin' Brian** · 02-20-2015, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by djangoles

So how do blind musicians fit into all this?

In his book "The Music Lesson", Victor Wooten talks about this and how blind musicians seem to always have a LOT of feeling in their playing, are often really good singers, and write songs that are timeless.

They play in unorthodox ways sometimes as well.

**MarkRhodes** · 02-20-2015, 07:35 PM

[QUOTE=coolvinny;504274] . I learn lots of things with my eyes closed and I don't even need an instrument to practice a lot of things, including new things. QUOTE]

Well, if you're playing music you don't know with your eyes closed, how can you read it? ;o)

**docbop** · 02-20-2015, 07:54 PM

[QUOTE=MarkRhodes;504320]

Originally Posted by coolvinny

. I learn lots of things with my eyes closed and I don't even need an instrument to practice a lot of things, including new things. QUOTE]

Well, if you're playing music you don't know with your eyes closed, how can you read it? ;o)

It's Jazz no charts to read just bring big ears.

**MarkRhodes** · 02-20-2015, 08:12 PM

[QUOTE=docbop;504327]

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

It's Jazz no charts to read just bring big ears.

That's performing, which is not the same thing as learning. For example, if you want to learn Drop 2 voicings, you may have a diagram of some to look at until you internalize the shapes. Or perhaps you're learning a new scale---or pattern--- from a music book. You need to look at it until you have learned it. Then you don't need to look at it anymore. Maybe a glace to refresh your memory at times.

**coolvinny** · 02-20-2015, 08:20 PM

[QUOTE=MarkRhodes;504320]

Originally Posted by coolvinny

. I learn lots of things with my eyes closed and I don't even need an instrument to practice a lot of things, including new things. QUOTE]

Well, if you're playing music you don't know with your eyes closed, how can you read it? ;o)

Haha, learn things from sheet music? You must have me confused with someone else! And if I'm learning changes from sheet music, I put that "sheet" away within a few minutes!

Copping changes just by listening...ongoing project. I'm getting better but still a ways to go!

**coolvinny** · 02-20-2015, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

That's performing, which is not the same thing as learning. For example, if you want to learn Drop 2 voicings, you may have a diagram of some to look at until you internalize the shapes. Or perhaps you're learning a new scale---or pattern--- from a music book. You need to look at it until you have learned it. Then you don't need to look at it anymore. Maybe a glace to refresh your memory at times.

Ah, I see. We're coming from different places. I'm not learning from books anymore, generally speaking.

**princeplanet** · 02-20-2015, 11:38 PM

Yes practicing with eyes closed is a different discussion than performing that way. Eyes open to learn it, then eyes closed to rest how well I've learned it, that's what I try to do. No one has brought up the fact that transposing on the guitar has the problem of wider and narrower positions to negotiate. Practice in a lower position and trying to transpose- or just shift- that playing to a much higher position with eyes closed presents problems. So does positional shifting where you are trying to "feel" your way to different positions.

Overcoming these problems of positional shifts without looking really imprints the neck layout in your mind's eye. I was raised on CAGED and had to overcome the crutch of knowing the boxes by sight as opposed to by feel. Closing the eyes when practicing help me to escape the cage, er, so to speak.

Anyone have thought about necks without position markers as an aid to escaping visual crutches?

**edh** · 02-21-2015, 11:17 PM

The necks w/o the position markers will still have the dots on the binding, won't they?

**princeplanet** · 02-23-2015, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by edh

The necks w/o the position markers will still have the dots on the binding, won't they?

I guess most will, yeah. What if you removed them?

**whiskey02** · 02-23-2015, 05:15 PM

Originally Posted by Gertrude Moser

Close your eyes and think of England….oh,… never mind, wrong forum. I don't necessarily close my eyes but I can usually "see" the fretboard better if I don't look at it. I sometimes run into problems when I switch, in the middle of soloing, from "thinking and visualizing" (where I am on the FB) to letting go and playing the rest of a phrase or line "by ear" alone. I find that when I do that, I may very well play something I'm happy with, but then having "let go" of my mental image of the board, when I finish that phrase, I may have to pause to recollect where I'm at, sometimes actually looking for a second to catch my bearings. As well as I can visualize the neck without looking, I still wish I could use "shapes" to better advantage. My issue I think stems from shapes being "one note/finger" per string, and once I play 2,3,or 4 notes on one string…that shape has dissolved.

I think I know exactly what you're saying about seeing the neck by not looking at it. I can just "calculate" where I'm at and where I'm going without the need for visual image, real or imagined. It's kind of a "in the zone" thing, and breaking away to look, takes you out of the zone.

**mrcee** · 02-24-2015, 01:27 PM

There was country pop band that was very big in the late 70s early 80s that had a bunch of hits. They even had their own TV show at the peak of their popularity. The front man lead singer strummed an electrified acoustic guitar and would stare at the fret board the whole time he was singing. He was a good singer and country rhythm guitar player (cowboy chords) but it looked amateurish for some one in that level of show business to not be taking his eyes off his left hand especially being a singer just paying open chords in keys like C, G and D. Someone must have gotten to him and taken him aside and told him he wasn't happening because over night he lost that habit and started looking at the audience.
Also a lot of great jazz guitarists make funny faces when they play. That's probably not going to happen if you're not looking at the fretboard.

**klk** · 02-24-2015, 01:42 PM

That Kanensiger video is great--

I like all of his technique lessons-- he has some of the best explanation/demos of ergonomics and technique.

**mrcee** · 02-24-2015, 02:06 PM

There is a performance aspect to jazz guitar. And even though jazz can be an intellectual music requiring lots of concentration and no one is going to do the Chuck Berry Duck Walk or play with their teeth when they're comping Lush Life, engaging with the audience can be a good thing.

**pkirk** · 02-24-2015, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by mrcee

Also a lot of great jazz guitarists make funny faces when they play. That's probably not going to happen if you're not looking at the fretboard.

It's a critical part of playing. Some very important pointers, which I'm trying to internalize along with my bebop skills, are given in this
amazing video:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...417090&fref=nf

**edh** · 02-25-2015, 01:04 AM

...it smells bad.

**Jeff Berlin** · 02-25-2015, 03:14 AM

Hello to all. The point about practicing with eyes closed can probably be viewed in two ways:

1. Players that closes their eyes while practicing are either playing music they already know, or they are improvising. This is the artful regard of your instrument.

2. Players that read music or practice new musical ideas always keep their eyes open as they are trying to figure out where to play them on the neck.This is the academic regard of your instrument.

I believe that a blind musician has no advantage over a sighted one. I say this because there are WAY more sighted musicians in the world. Most of the top level musicians play with passion and musical feeling whether they are blind or not. Someone quoted Victor Wooten saying that "blind musicians seem to always have a lot of feeling in their playing and are often good singers and write songs that are timeless."

I see this as false! Sighted musicians such as Hendrix and Jaco played with lots of feeling, Tony Bennett and Peter Gabriel sing well, and George Gershwin and John Lennon wrote great songs.

To me, it is a myth to assume that closing your eyes will create an improved environment for anyone to play better. Shouldn't the overwhelming majority of sighted musicians in the world that play with feeling prove this? I suggest that, as musicians wishing to play better, you should use every tool at your disposal to add to your musical vocabulary and your experience as players. To me, cutting off your sight to seek something in the dark seems silly. I don't know where this odd belief started.

Just my opinion. Thanks for reading!

**rockzdesert** · 02-25-2015, 12:26 PM

I think it is a good training and interesting topic to practise with my eyes closed.
I just tried this few daysago, it really helps me to focus more and know your guitar more unless you are very familiar with it at first, it is indeed kinda hard.

Usually one of your 5 senses is gone, the other four will be more sensitive which i think it's really true in thise case. Once my eyes are close, specifically my ears are more "opened" and feel the guitar more so that i can learn more to listen while playing any songs. It is such a good practise!

i learned something new and useful, which i am happy with that and willing to learn more stuffs from you all

**whiskey02** · 02-25-2015, 07:51 PM

Are you Jeff Berlin the highly esteemed bassist Jeff Berlin? If so, we should all be grateful he 's posting here and frankly take advantage of his willingness to share his knowledge and experience with us. Jeff is noted as a performer and educator. Also, just for fun I"ll add that if this is bassist Jeff Berlin, he's also has a history in boxing and can probably punch the living snot out of all of us so let's be real nice

LOL.

**Jeff Berlin** · 02-26-2015, 02:50 AM

Yes! And thank you for that very kind assessment! P.S. I certainly don't wish to beat anyone up. I just happen to admire boxers and have enjoyed training and sparring. But these days, I am far more dedicated to a pursuit of kindness.

**targuit** · 02-26-2015, 06:01 AM

Thanks for your insights and commentary, Jeff!

I do like playing songs I know well with eyes closed for a few reasons, but essentially because my focus becomes more auditory without visual distractions. I also play keyboards and find it helpful in liberating one's technique from visual patterns.

But I can play with eyes open, too, especially if I can find a lithe, attractive young woman to play to. A focus of a different kind....

Jay

**Sam Sherry** · 02-26-2015, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by Gertrude Moser

Close your eyes and think of England….

I've played some gigs that felt like that.

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin

Hello to all!

To quote Stanley Clarke, "Hello Jeff!" Thanks for all your inspiring music over the years. Folks, a player of High Standards is among us.

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin

Playing itself is the instantaneous moment of representing music that has already been learned.

True but not exclusively true. I'd like to think that there's room for something new to appear in the moment, yes?

Originally Posted by Jeff Berlin

It is here where emotion and the flow of music takes place

Nicely said.

Originally Posted by medblues

Nobody said it yet, so I will: Playing/practicing in the dark is different way of accomplishing what you said and it doesn't require as much effort (to pay attention to keeping your eyes closed or not to look at your hand or fretboard).

Kinda hard to gig in the dark, don't you think?

+ + +

I close my eyes a lot when I play. Occasionally I miss a visual cue, which sucks. As with so many other things a balance seems to be the goal.

**Jeff Berlin** · 02-26-2015, 09:31 PM

Hello Friends.

I have noticed that flawed concepts of learning or playing sometimes take on a life of their own. People believe what they either hear or read but sometimes don't question these things. To me, practicing in the dark, or wearing blindfolds falls into this strange new approach in music education. It has been stated that there is a benefit here. It appears to me that a belief has taken hold, but I can't find any precedence for it anywhere in music history. As far as I can tell, no one ever mentioned closing one's eyes to improve one's playing or feeling. I would have thought that if this approach had merit, someone in the past might have mentioned it.

Blind musicians don't play with more feeling than sighted players. They don't have better ears than sighted players and they don't play with more feeling either. This, to me, is all a myth! It seems silly to assume that denying one's sight automatically provides more fertile ground to play with feeling. Has anyone considered that a blind musician plays with same feeling as their sighted counterparts because it is natural for both the blind and sighted players with a musical spark in their heart to play this way?

Regards, Jeff