Learning and Practicing Modes

Generally 4 piano playing modes exist:

1. Sight Read Mode (SRM)

SRM is the most basic and common playing mode. The player interprets what he sees in the notes in front of him. This way of interpretation is quite intuitive and straightforward. And many players keep this approach unchanged at any stage they are with the piece they are studying and playing.
As we can see, generally this model is a pipe that starts in the notation and ends at the player's fingers. It is an open circuit model. Audio feedback doesn't play a significant role here.

2. Muscle Memory Mode (MMM)

When we remove the visual source part from 'SRM pipe' (we achieve it gradually), we end up in MMM of playing. As described in some articles before, this model of playing from memory is quite fragile an immature. If we want to move on, we need to replace this model with some more advanced one.

3. Dialog with the Instrument Mode (DIM)

DIM is a model of playing with no visual pattern in front of as too (playing by heart), but is much more advanced than MMM. DIM is a closed circuit model that works such a way, that we have our intention, idea or sound image in our head, this image is associated with the ability to implement it using our hands (with significant help of our eyes), the resulting sound perceived by our ears then evokes the sound idea of the next part in our head and thus the process continues. The center point of this model is in our mind. It is based on mental sound images (and their sequential links) and on the ability to trasform them into manual playing.
Ok, it sounds interesting, but how to achieve it? Obviously this quite good model is different from SRM and MMM.
The way is to modify or improve our initial SRM model a bit so that it is a natural precursor to the DIM.

4. Advanced Read Mode (ARM)

On the scheme we can see a kind of combination of initial SRM and desired DIM models. This is a model used by professional pianists. Professional pianists are people who spend many hours a day playing the instrument (and they do it for many many years). They are really good at it. Their interconnection with the instrument is optimal as well as their ability to read the sheet music not to mention their musical memory so they can freely combine all these abilities to achieve optimal progress with the piece they are studying. When studying a new piece, at the beginning they possibly use SRM (they can eliminate or minimize this phase by analyzing the work theoretically). But as quickly as possible they move to ARM. As we can see on the scheme, the main activity here is interaction with the instrument (equivalent to DIM), the reading activity is not prime, is not ruling the whole process, it is being used only as much as needed. The info from the sheet music is being taken over, but the eyes are not stuck on it permanently or at least they don't need to. The visual information is just taken over, then is transformed into the inner sound image and the own playing is ruled by this inner image. And what priciple is being used to transform the visual image into the sound image? It is the same principle that rules the transformation of the sound image to the playing activity. It is an association. So when such a musician sees the bar, he is not analyzing it note by note. He knows it already, he remembers it. So the image of the bar (it's visual image) evokes / associates the sound image in his mind immediately.
As we can see, this practicing model is very close to DIM and moving from ARM to DIM is quite natural.

The ARM process is as follows:
visual image (of a bar or a sequence) -association-> mental sound image -association-> playing activity -> real sound -> inner comparison between the sound and the intention

The DIM process is:
mental sound image (of a sequence) -association-> playing activity -> real sound -> inner comparison between the sound and the intention -association-> mental sound image of the next sequence

Note: Generally the difference factor between the first two (SRM, MMM) and the other two modes (DIM, ARM) is practicing approach. Studying the piece 'as whole' (playing from the beginning to the end over and over again) leads to the first two ones, whilst studying and practicing per individual fragments (bars) separately is a prerequisite for mastering the other two more advanced approaches.