Personally I almost never have to look at my hands when I'm sight-reading except only to glance occasionally on jumps. At first I looked but then I started trying to play without looking and gradually built up my ability to find the right keys by ear and feel. I definately could not look as far ahead in the music when I had to look at the keys. Most pianists I know don't look when the are sight-reading either though they aren't always aware that they aren't looking (if that makes sense).
Actually, it sounds right to me. Memorization is very hard for me. It's not a natural process, although I memorize music automatically when I teach it because my way of teaching is so organized into parts, sections, "chunks", call them what you want. When I was young, I couldn't keep my hands off music. I couldn't come close to playing most of the music I played through—not correctly—but I enjoyed pushing myself through, just getting the general idea, and by about age 14 I had already gotten my first job, accompanying a voice teacher's students. Soon I was accopanying other students in high school, since I was also very invovled in band. In college accopmanying people for juries was one of the biggest financial helps to me, allowing me to pick up a extra money. I also got a scholarship for accompanying the chorus.
Since I also played brass, I accompanied every piece I taught, and that includes some fairly hard things, among them several sonatas by Hindemith. I had so little time to practice, I had to learn to get things very fast, so I think I'm not exaggerating when I say that my sight-reading ability is probably my strongest ability at the piano.
It actually screws me up if I think about when I look. Does that make any sense? It's so natural. I just never thought about the hands thing. I think I was so intent on playing everything, even it if was sloppy, that my eyes were more or less glued to the music, and I think my students (those who are good players) tend to do what I do. As I watch them, their eyes are almost always on the page.
I think it is something that will come in time unless you develop an unhealthy dependance on looking early on. Since I worked specifically on not looking at the hands early on I think it came faster for me than it would have otherwise.
I think you are right, but I also notice that the students who have the most problems do not seem to pick up reading as naturally and have excellent memories. I have to work very hard to convince those with great memories that this "gift" will always be there and to not depend on it until later, when they are able to learn music quickly and add the memory as the last step.
There is definately a huge benefit to not looking at the keyboard IMHO and I don't see why one should have to look for simple things likes seconds, thirds and octaves which should be like second nature to most pianists anyways. If you look at it from a pure energy conservation standpoint, looking at the keys for trivial skips and steps is euivalent to wasted energy, energy that could spent on the music instead.
I agree, but so far I have been unsuccessful at landing on the right notes in jumps. So when I'm practicing on a something requires "blind leaps" in both hands, I can't keep my eyes on the music there. If, however, I can feel one hand, I can use a bit of quick glancing which may be partially peripheral that barely takes my eyes away.
The only thing I feel is a must is learning not to ever lose the place in the music, which kills reading.
That said you have to first look at the keys before you learn to play w/o looking at them (unless you are blind) and my approach to this was to learn how to navigate the keyboard by touch instead of trying to approximate distance blindly. Since the keyboard is just a repetative pattern of 3 blacks and 2 blacks it is easy to learn how to find any key on the keyboard by feel without looking. Learning to find the keys this way makes it much easier to not look.
And I always wonder if blind pianists can train themselves to be as accurate when making really wide jumps, crosses and other things as people who are looking. I would say no, but I might be wrong. Some blind pianists are frighteningly accurate, so I'm just not sure.
What do you think?
Gary