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Why do pianists type faster?

Your fingers are moving in isolation (controlled by the forearm etc.), which is also true when playing the piano. When you are typing fast, your brain is words ahead of the words that your fingers are currently typing, like reading ahead in the sheet music when playing the piano.

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Sometimes people assume that because I am a pianist, I must be good at touch-typing. I find this funny because I am actually a terrible typist – in fact I am writing this right now using voice dictation software. But it makes sense that people would link these 2 skills, so I did some research to see whether piano skill impacted typing speed and accuracy. There is some evidence that pianists make faster and more accurate typists than non-pianists. This 2019 paper reports a typing speed of 120 words/minute for pianists, compared to 50 words/minute for non-pianists, for 3 reasons: piano-playing has an enhanced feedback loop, is an inherently analytical process, and uses all 10 fingers fairly equally. Here is an explanation for why these 3 factors could make typing easier for pianists:

Enhanced Feedback Loop

When we play the piano, we get immediate aural feedback on whether a note was played correctly or not, and whether the dynamics or articulation worked well or not. It might sound pleasing or it might not. We can retry playing the same note or chord many times to see which way sounds the best in context. Our brains get rewarded with a positive sound every time we play the right notes, and subconsciously get discouraged from playing wrong notes because they are usually paired with a less pleasing sound. Even though there isn’t such an obvious mechanism like this at play when typing, in theory as pianists we have trained ourselves for typing accuracy.

Analytical Process

As pianists, we have to be aware of so many things when we are playing – whether the notes are correct, how loud or quiet to play the notes, which articulation to use, keeping a steady pulse or sometimes slowing down or speeding up intentionally, etc. We also have to think about which fingers to use for which notes, with the understanding that in different contexts, any finger could be used to play any note. We are used to having to think about many variables at once. When we switch from this highly analytical process to typing on a keyboard, suddenly we only have to think about the accuracy of the key-presses. It no longer matters how hard or soft we press the key, as the outcome will be the same. We don’t need to keep a consistent tempo, and we usually have one specific finger allocated to each key consistently, so we don’t have to think about this either. It follows that if we are used to the highly analytical task of playing the piano, typing at a computer might seem easy in comparison.

Using All 10 Fingers

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There are very few tasks in everyday life that require full use of all fingers and thumbs fairly equally. Typing and playing some musical instruments are the only things that come to mind right now. Not even all musical instruments use all 10 fingers in the same way, e.g. woodwind instruments only use the right thumb for supporting the instrument – it doesn’t contribute to the pitches like the other fingers do. At a very basic level, playing the piano could be described as the cooperation between the brain and the body to press a key down without looking at it, which is the same process needed when touch-typing. In this 2013 study, researchers turned a piano keyboard into functioning as a computer keyboard, i.e. each piano key represented a different letter, or combination of letters, covering the whole alphabet. They found that with no prior practice using this system, professional pianists could type sentences on the piano at a rate of 80 words per minute on their first attempt. If you want to know how fast the piano world record holders can play the piano, then check out my other article here.

Annecdotal Evidence

There are a number of individual people who believe that their fast typing speed is at least partly due to their ability to play the piano well. Jelani Nelson, one of the fastest typist in the world, credits playing piano as a child as one of the main contributing factors to his fast typing speed, in this interview here. However, this is not a hard and fast rule, and there will be many pianists who do not find touch-typing easy. If you want to increase your typing speed, there are plenty of courses and programs out there. Alternatively, you could decide not to type, like me. After struggling with RSI-type pain, I made the switch to using Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software to control my laptop, and now use it every day instead of typing. As a pianist, I decided to save the majority of my hand usage for piano-playing, and reduce my risk of overuse.

So we’ve seen that pianists potentially have an advantage over non-pianists when it comes to typing, but what about the other way round?

Do Typists Make Good Pianists?

People are often curious how this works the other way round. I sometimes get adult beginner students who are proficient typists start lessons with me expecting to find piano easy. I couldn’t find any scientific studies to show that touch-typing ability transfers to piano ability. In my teaching experience, this has also not been the case. Students who can already touch-type when they begin piano lessons don’t seem to have a lasting advantage over non-typists. However, there is some anecdotal evidence that supports that typists make good pianists, but there is also anecdotal evidence supporting the opposite.

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Here are some reasons why typists may have a head start when it comes to learning the piano: Touch-typing helps hand-eye coordination, which might mean that you might not have to look at the piano keys so much when learning. Your fingers are moving in isolation (controlled by the forearm etc.), which is also true when playing the piano. When you are typing fast, your brain is words ahead of the words that your fingers are currently typing, like reading ahead in the sheet music when playing the piano. In contrast, here are some reasons why typing skill may have no impact on piano skill: When playing the piano, we have to move our hand position constantly. Each key could be played by any of the 10 fingers at different times. This is a step up from typing, where each key on the computer keyboard is only usually ever pressed by one specific finger. Computer keyboards are not touch-sensitive. You either press a letter or you don’t. Contrast this to piano-playing, where how much weight you use to press each key determines the volume and quality of the sound, and is an important skill to develop. Many of the physical requirements of playing the piano are not used when typing, for example tucking the thumbs under other fingers to join up passages, using the foot pedals, and even playing big chords where many keys are pressed at once. When playing the piano, the 2 hands are independent. They each have their own separate notes to play, and have their own separate parts of the sheet music to follow. When typing, both hands work together towards the same goal of typing the same sentence. Rhythm is generally irrelevant when typing. The goal is usually to type as quickly as possible whilst maintaining a good level of accuracy. Piano-playing has the additional levels of maintaining a consistent pulse (unless indicated otherwise), and following any written rhythms, to think about. Playing music is about much more than the physical processes involved. It’s about listening intently, shaping phrases, conveying emotions… Typing does nothing to develop your aural skills and musical awareness. If you want to improve your piano-playing speed, check out my article on how to do that here: How to Play Piano Faster

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