How to Find Piano Keys Without Looking Down
I stayed away from the piano for a few months and now that I'm coming back to it, I'm having a hard time finding the right notes by touch. I worked hard to teach myself not to look at my hands when I play. I have to read sheet music and if I take my eyes off it I can't bring them back to where I was looking, so I depend on being able to find the keys by feel. And right now I can't.
It's two separate problems I'm having. My left hand is overshooting the bass notes by about half an octave. (When I reach down to play F, I go too far and play C.) My right hand is different; it's like I'm forgetting to check my position by touching the tips of the black keys, and I land one note off. Not a wild miss, just consistently wrong by one note.
Both problems are frustrating, but they're different problems to be attacked.
The left hand problem
Years ago I spent a period of time training my left hand reach. I would work around the circle of 4ths: hit the low bass note, bring my hand up to the middle of the keyboard and play a chord, then bounce back down to the bass note.
I'd do that a couple of times for F, then move to Bb. Play the low Bb, bounce up to a chord, bounce back down and find Bb again. Then Eb. All the way around the circle, over and over, in 15 minute drills. Like a stride pattern.
It worked. I learned to feel for the black keys with my fingertips and then hit the correct white key. Like, I knew the approximate distance based on where I was sitting and how long my arms are, so I'd feel for the side of a clump of black keys with fingers 3 and 4, and play the low C with my pinky.
I guess I just need to do that again but it makes me mad that I've lost the ability.
The right hand problem
With my right hand I think the issue is I'm forgetting to check. When I was playing regularly the checking was automatic -- my fingers would brush the black keys and orient themselves without me thinking about it. Now that habit is gone and I'm just putting my hand down in the general area and hoping for the best, which gets me one note off.
And here's another thing that might be making it worse: I'm sitting further back from the keyboard than I used to. It's on purpose because I'm trying to get my hands and forearms in a better position above the keys. Before, I tended to sit too close and drop my wrists low.
Now my wrists are higher (good) but you change one physical thing and it throws off muscle memory you didn't realize depended on it. I used to sit at a certain distance and my hands knew how far to reach for everything. Now I'm a couple of inches further back and all those distances are slightly different and I think I'm over-compensating.
I don't even remember how I trained my right hand the first time. It was mostly about intervals -- I would space my fingers the correct distance for any interval smaller than an octave and then put my hand down. I don't remember concentrating on feeling for the black keys but I'm sure I did, and I guess that's what I need to focus on now.
What I'm going to do
The left hand drill is clear. I know it works because it worked before. Circle of 4ths, bass note to chord and back, 15 minutes at a time, for as many days as it takes. The right hand, I'm less sure about. I think getting back into regular playing will help, and I've ordered some more easy songbooks on eBay for sight-reading practice.
The more I play, the more my fingers will remember to orient themselves. But I might need to come up with a deliberate drill for it too, something focused on feeling for the black key groups before playing a note.
The bigger thing I'm learning from this is that keyboard awareness isn't something you train once and then have. It's something you maintain by playing. When I was practicing every day I didn't think about any of this. My hands just went where they needed to go. Take a break and it fades. The good news, if there is any, is that it should come back faster than it took to build in the first place.
Other skills I'm working on in 2026: