Just wondering if we should be practicing triads/arpeggios/251s etc without looking at the keyboard… is there a benefit to this?
I do my scales happily by touch alone but a lot harder on triads and arpeggios and haven’t tried at all on 251s.
Would it help when I’m learning new pieces on the jazz standards or advanced sessions on some of the beginner standards?
Yes running through theory drills without looking can be a good exercise and it will help you in different areas of your playing.
For example, when playing a stride left hand such as in the course on Georgia On My Mind, and Cocktail Piano Improvisation, if we can play some of the left hand elements without looking, it frees up our attention to focus on our right hand decoration and improvisation.
My recommendation would be to try the whole step 251 drills without looking:
This would be a nice place to start because our hand doesn’t lift of the keyboard when playing through 6 keys (the 1 chord turns minor and starts a 251 a whole step down) and so it’s easy to ‘feel your way around’ and find the shapes.
You could also try this with rootless voicings in the left hand, but following the whole step pattern. This is a nice idea for a topic to cover in a live seminar in fact. I have added it to my notes.
I hope that helps Donna - let me know if you have any further questions.