A wealth of research in multiple domains of human activity has demonstrated that gaze is a reliable indicator of cognitive attention, and that the study of visual fixations reveals aspects of thinking that may be obscure, even to participants themselves. In recent years, findings in scholarship utilizing eye tracking technology have led to a deeper understanding of musicians’ and teachers’ attention allocation during music learning experiences (Heinsen, 2024; Hicken & Duke, 2023; Marcum, 2017). Gathering information about where musicians and teachers fixate and the relationships between their fixations and their verbal descriptions of learning experiences provides insight into conscious processes engaged during teaching and learning and attentional processes that operate below conscious awareness yet contribute to the accomplishment of musical goals. Comparisons of expert and nonexpert gaze behavior may thus serve as a proxy for comparisons of expert and nonexpert cognition. These comparisons reveal important features of expert thinking that may inform the learning experiences designed for nonexperts. We recorded the gaze behavior of 6 instrumentalists (2 undergraduates, 2 graduate students, and 2 professionals) as they silently studied, described, and then performed a brief unfamiliar etude. We analyzed the gaze behavior of each participant to determine differences in their scan speeds, track patterns, and fixation durations. In a second task, we asked participants to identify a section of music from a piece they were currently working on that they believed they could make sound exactly the way they intended within 10 minutes of practice or less. We then recorded the gaze behavior of their practice of the chosen excerpt and asked them how well they had accomplished their goals at the stop time. One notable preliminary finding was that both professionals achieved their goals (and indicated they were ready to stop practicing) well before 10 minutes had elapsed, whereas three of the four students used the entire 10-minute period and did not meet their goals. Analyses of visual scan paths and fixation durations throughout the activities, combined with analyses of musicians’ verbalizations hold promise in revealing aspects of musicians’ thinking that have yet to be illuminated in systematic research.