Practicing the ability to play piano while looking at the score: start with already memorized pieces or new ones?

Question

I've learned some pieces by myself. When I first learn a new piece, I look at each bar carefully, then I can just remember the notes after a few repetitions. Once I can play through it, I just repeat by memory, rarely looking at the score again. So far my memory has served me well.

I noticed some comments in another recent thread that tells the op that playing the piano while looking at the keys is the wrong way to learn piano.

I'm talking more about being able to look at the score while playing, versus simply playing without looking at the keys (e.g. keeping your eyes closed). In other words, doing two things at the same time

So question: Should I begin to try this on the pieces I've already memorized, or only with my next brand new piece?

Answer 1

Both are valuable, and they reinforce each other.

Pieces already memorized

Since your hands and ears already know the feel and sound of the music, it makes it easier to associate the experience with what you're taking in visually. This also allows for the possibility of playing music that might otherwise be too difficult to read fluently.

"Reading" music you've already memorized helps develop the visual part of reading.

Brand new pieces

With brand new pieces it's important to start very, very simple. In general, learning visual cues is faster than associating those cues with physical or auditory experience. That is, recognizing by sight that two notes are a third apart is easier than developing the feeling of a third in one's hand or the sound in one's ear. This isn't true of everyone, and might not be true of you, but it's the most common situation.

Playing the simplest pieces lets you develop the association between what you see, what it sounds like, and how to move to play it without undo complexity. If one also have to contend with complex rhythms, intricate technique, or other musical factors, there's not enough room in one's mind to take everything in and play it at sight.

"Easy music", for me, means easy enough to play the entire at or near performance level after, at most, three readings. Reading 1 gives the basic idea of the music; Reading 2 allows for integrating the things noticed but not executed during Reading 1, and by Reading 3, "real" music is being produced (within the musical limits imposed by the simplicity of the music).

Brand new pieces develop the kinetic/tactile/auditory part of reading music.

Answer 2

The real ability you need for that is the ability or muscle memory to know exactly how you’d need to move to get from one thing to the other. For this doing new pieces is implicitely beneficial as these will force you to look at the score and might have transitions you never had before.

But what I’d suggest for practice is to start practicing the two hands separately. Try to play while doing other things and stuff, until you do not concentrate on where the keys are anymore. Then you can start practicing with both hands.