How to not look at the keys..

[donjuan]

Hi! I am always interested in improving my sightreading, and one thing I have never learned to do is play while reading along- and NOT glancing down at my fingers all the time.  When I look down from the music to the keys, I lose track of the music, and tend to play one note, look at the music, look at my hands, play the next note..etc., and the sightreading slows down...  

How do you keep your eyes on the music while controlling your ability to play a specific note far away- down the keyboard?  (I mean, sometimes I get lucky and hit the right key, but how do I get more consistent?)
donjuan

[goalevan]

richman's sight reading secrets book has some good drills for keyboard orientation, theyre helping me alot so far.

[thierry13]

Well i think it's practice, and make pieces you know allready without looking, to develop your skills. And maybe try to move your hand on the piano to feel the notes pass under your finger,and try to make a mental image of what you touch. And for the notes that are close, just judge the distance from the note you're allready on... Hoping this were helpfull!

[donjuan]

richman's sight reading secrets book has some good drills for keyboard orientation, theyre helping me alot so far.

what's the name of the book?  What's the author's full name?  Im interested in buying it..

Bonjour, thierry13 comment ca va? (that's pretty much all the french I know..), your idea sounds reasonable, but I was hoping to find a methodical approach to improve consistency.  I will also try your idea.  I guess I never really "felt" my way around on the keyboard.  I am so used to looking- which destroys my ability to sightread.

thank you both for your thoughts!
donjuan

[Piazzo22]

I don´t think that playing without looking will teach you to play without looking.

Technique is the same as playing without looking. The fingers already know where to go. There is a cerebral map that developes for your playing, and keyboard orientation is impulsive, you don´t think or feel. Your brain incounsciously knows it.
So, don´t bother trying to learn piano sight reading. It comes from practicing playing the piano.

The more efficient way is practice hands separate one piece (several days) until the hands go automatically for each hand, then trying to put hands together.
The more pieces you practice, the more easily you will read.

Your brain learns the spatial relationships so you can play looking less at the keyboard.

Is inefficient to read hands together tons of pieces only one time without looking the keyboard and pass to other, and so...
You have to look, you´re learning. Don´t try to feel the keys, LOOK at them. And hands separate. There are nervs that act like sensors for your interosseous muscles (the ones that moves the fingers from each other), and the lumbricals muscles that flex the fingers (they are all in your hand), and so the brain learns the distance of your fingers.

[donjuan]

hmm piazzo, your idea is intriguing.  My goal in the end, however, is to be able to turn to a piece (any piece) in any music book and begin to play- I dont expect to be a Franz Liszt- but I would like to be able to construct something during my sightreading- something with rhythm, melody, and harmony.  I dont want to work for five days on a page of music, hands separately, that is not sightreading.  My sightreading is already better than last year, but I need something special to take the next step..
donjuan

[faulty_damper]

Lots of effective practice would remedy it.

Do you type and glance down at the keyboard all the time?  Probably not if you are efficient with knowing where the 'backspace' key is.  I am making so many typo errors that are only remedied by using the 'backspace' key.  And I REALLY know where that key is.

But how do i know when to use the 'backspace' key?  When I SEE that I've made an error on the monitor.  With music, when you read a note and play it, you must be able to know how it sounds and if that note is correct or not.  But this first means that you know how it sounds.  If you don't know how the notes sound on paper, then you're going to have a really hard time with learning how to play without looking as you are not sure if the key you pressed is right because you don't know the sound it is supposed to make.

[Piazzo22]

hmm piazzo, your idea is intriguing.  My goal in the end, however, is to be able to turn to a piece (any piece) in any music book and begin to play- I dont expect to be a Franz Liszt- but I would like to be able to construct something during my sightreading- something with rhythm, melody, and harmony.  I dont want to work for five days on a page of music, hands separately, that is not sightreading.  My sightreading is already better than last year, but I need something special to take the next step..
donjuan

That I understand. But I think you cannot practice sightreading per se.
Unless you want to read only one time, pieces and pieces hands together without looking at your hands. But that wont help to sight reading. It will help with note recognition in the staff, but not spatial awareness in the keyboard.

[bernhard]

Sight reading is a popular subject in this forum.

Have a look at these threads for more ideas:


https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1028328133

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=perf;action=display;num=1022360780

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1045438109

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1057746417

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1048235978

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1061861871


https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1069725044

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1081187434

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1081684084

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1081624578

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1073131731
(discussion of Richman’s book)

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1071914342

However, the best way to master sight reading fast (but it is not for the faint hearted - you have been warned), is to arrange to regularly accompany a friend (like everyday). Start with pieces for piano + another intrument/voice. Not only you will have to read three staves, as you cannot stop. You will learn several trckis of the trade (like skipping notes). The best way to start is to get some beginner pieces for recorder/flute/violin. then upgrade to the proper repertory. Once you are confident move on to chamber music: trios/quartets/quintets. You will now have to read 4/ 5/ 6 staves. Once you can sight read this sort of thing, you can sight read anything.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[donjuan]

Thanks for the advice, Bernhard.  I am thinking about ordering Richman's book.  Where would the best place be? (I live in Canada)
thanks,
donjuan

[goalevan]

I'm really enjoying Richman's book so far and I seem to be making progress from his drills - hopefully you'll find it as useful. I ordered it from Amazon.com, for about $10 USD. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0961596309/qid=1085893420/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-1561454-9923347?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[donjuan]

hmm, ok, I also found it on amazon.ca.  however, I was reading the reviews, and there were a few angry responses.  Goalevan and Bernhard, I want to know what you make of these responses before I put down an order.
-----------------------------------
Reviewer: Robert E. Welcyng (see more about me) from Anchorage, AK USA  
I am embarrassed that I actually bought this book of 48 pages without first examining it. I found no "super sight-reading secrets." In fact, I found nothing about reading music that I had not already learned from grade school music classes.

I did not find the following sort of advice especially useful:

"Get a book of all major and minor scales. Begin practicing all 24 major and minor keys."

"Play every note of the Bach Chorales hands alone, without looking, one octave displaced."

I was able to follow much of Richman's text only because I recognized what he was trying to say. I found little clarity in his writing and I was annoyed by his many ungrammatical sentences.

My advice is to buy an old standby such as "Learn to Read Music" by Howard Shanet.

------------------------------------------
Reviewer: A reader from Malibu, California United States  
I found this book to be long in title (and promises) and very short on delivery. There is so little information to guide the student and so many assumptions made by the author that a student would be better off approaching the piano using a seeing eye dog! If the piano student knew all the information that the author assumed the student to already know, believe me, he or she would not need to investigate or acquire this book.
I definitely do not recommend the serious piano student invest money or time with this one.
--------------------------------------

well, what do you think?  Do these people know what they are talking about?

donjuan

[bernhard]

Read carefully these reviews and ask yourself this simple question:

Does it look like that these reviewers actually sat at the piano and tried out Richmann’s suggestions?

My own answer to this question is a definite “No!”

I may be wrong, but the way they write gives me the distinct impression that they leafed through the book and dismissed it on purely intellectual grounds. In other words they already had a previous idea of what a “sight-reading secret” might be, and since it did not conform to that idea, they simply dismissed it.

It takes at least three months of diligent practice to go through all of Richmann’s ideas. For most students it may take two years. I doubt very much if any of these reviewers went to this trouble.

I did.

My reservations with this book are very simple:

It is badly put together from a reader’s point of view. In short: it is very reader unfriendly. You have to keep going back and forth in the book to keep track of what you should be doing. I do not know why it is so poorly designed. Maybe Richmann did it himself and paid for its publication so he had to fit it all into only 47 pages. With a good publisher and the help of a good editor and a good art department, this could be a really brilliant book. Does it matter? In my opinion not really, since I am often more interested in the substance than in the packaging. But I have to agree that in this case the packaging is poor.  And yes, Richmann does not write all that well or articulately.

However the substance of the book more than makes up for it. First Richmann really knows what he is talking about. The order of the exercises (like in a cake the order of mixing the ingredients is at least as important as the ingredients themselves) is brilliantly well thought out. I have not yet (which is not to say that it doesn’t exist) come across a more methodical and efficient approach to sight reading.

Richmann states clearly at the beginning that you will have to go through the drills for  anything from 3 months to 2 years before you start to see the full benefits.

Simply these reviewers were lazy. They thought they would get the book read it and start sightreading like pros immediately. Let us take the first one:

Reviewer: Robert E. Welcyng (see more about me) from Anchorage, AK USA  
I am embarrassed that I actually bought this book of 48 pages without first examining it. I found no "super sight-reading secrets." In fact, I found nothing about reading music that I had not already learned from grade school music classes.

Sure, but reading music is not the same as sight reading. And reading music is like anatomy: a dead science. It is doubtful that you will buy a book of anatomy because you want to find some new bones or new human organs, so what sort of criticism is this? So of course, he will not find anything about reading music in this or any book on music notation that one has not learned in music lessons duh!

I did not find the following sort of advice especially useful:

"Get a book of all major and minor scales. Begin practicing all 24 major and minor keys."

When I got Richmann’s book I was already a competent sight reader, which I had learnt the hard way: By accompanying (this is the equivalent of learning how to swim by being thrown at the deep end of the pool – effective but not particularly pleasant) other musicians.

However I was very dissatisfied with teaching it. I was teaching it by the traditional method that says that you learn to sight read by sight reading! Start with simple pieces (3 grades below your own) and do it everyday. This was not working at all. There had to be a better way. So I got Richmann;s book. And all I can say is:WOW!

It allowed me to tie everything else in my teaching with sight reading. For instance, scales that Robert found so unhelpful. Before Richmann I used to delay the teaching of scales for several reasons (that now I believe are untenable). Now I start teaching scales from the very first lesson, and boy what difference it does make! (and not only to sight reading). So, yes, if you want to sight read fluently complete intimacy with scales (and I would add chords too) is mandatory.

Other thing that Robert found unhelpful:

"Play every note of the Bach Chorales hands alone, without looking, one octave displaced."

The idea of using Bach chorales as sight reading material is in itself brilliant. Bach harmonisations are the ultimate teaching material in harmony classes. This immediately ties up the study of harmony with the study of sight reading.The efficiency effect here is so obvious that I can only conclude that Robert is very ignorant (I do not mean it in an insulting way, but in the real meaning of the word: someone who does not know much or does not have all the information). The particular exercise he refers too (diplaced octaves) is simply excellent.

I was able to follow much of Richman's text only because I recognized what he was trying to say. I found little clarity in his writing and I was annoyed by his many ungrammatical sentences.

My advice is to buy an old standby such as "Learn to Read Music" by Howard Shanet.  

So Richmann is ungrammatical. So is Abby Whiteside’s “On playing the piano”, and yet I learned more from her books than from any other resource.

My advice is to completely ignore Robert and get Richmann (by the way I do not receive a commission from Richmann from saying so – maybe I should! )

I will not bother with the Malibu reviewer.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[goalevan]

Yeah I agree with Bernhard, the reviewers seem to have dismissed the book before they put effort into the drills and exercises. So I suggest you dismiss those reviews . It is a short book, maybe a little bit on the disorganized side - but I'm keeping track of all the drills I do and saving them in excel to try to keep it organized as possible. Richman says the drills together should take 3 months plus to completely finish. For me, after 2 weeks of following the book it's already worth the money I paid for it.

also, let us know if you have any questions about the book, some of it was unclear at first from his explanations and took some figuring out, but it's mostly clear to me now.

[donjuan]

Thanks everyone for your selfless time and energy.  I put down an order for Richman's book.  But, to qualify for their free shipping, I had to order other stuff as well.  So I ordered "Le Festin de Esope and other works for solo piano" by Alkan, and Liszt's transcriptions of Wagner's Operas.
Thanks again for your help!
donjuan

[rlefebvr]

Please, do give your own review when your done or have had a chance to give it a good go.

Another point of view would be really good.

[donjuan]

hey!! Richman's book finally came in the mail today.  I will have a look at it during my vacation- something to read during the 10 hour car rides!
donjuan

[maxy]

How to not look at the keys...
I would suggest starting with a lot of Mozart and some Bach.  I find these particular composer's pieces can be played eyes closed (or eyes on sheet).  There are no real jumps. Most of the time when hand positions change, there are common notes with the previous position.  Therefore finger substitution may apply.

Common notes between positions are your friends! Knowing when to go for black/white keys also helps.

[donjuan]

How to not look at the keys...
I would suggest starting with a lot of Mozart and some Bach.  I find these particular composer's pieces can be played eyes closed (or eyes on sheet).  There are no real jumps. Most of the time when hand positions change, there are common notes with the previous position.  Therefore finger substitution may apply.

Common notes between positions are your friends! Knowing when to go for black/white keys also helps.

Yeah, Richman's book talks about that sort of stuff and there are a number of keyboard orientation exercises I can do to keep my eyes on the music.
donjuan

[goalevan]

I'm playing mozart right now and I think it's fun being able to play it in the dark/not looking

[donjuan]

I just finished a practice session of Keyboard Orientation drill No.2, and I find it fascinating how it ties right in to scale fingering!