Flats vs. sharps

[outin]

Now why is it that I cannot read anything with flats?? It really annoys me because there's a lot of music that I'd like to play but not memorize at this point 

With sharps I can reasonably do up to 5, but when the key signature contains flats I am completely lost. I cannot keep in my head which notes to flatten and forget all the time or even go up instead of down. I can't even handle b minor, when it should be simple to just use all the blacks. With accidentals it's not a problem so obviously I do know the difference between a flat and a sharp 

I wanted to practice my sight reading this summer once again even though I can only handle short time periods before my eyes start deceiving me. But so much of my favorite music has these impossible key signatures 

The irony here is that I distinctly remember being the opposite when I was a kid, I always had trouble with sharps. I guess something has changed (the earth's magnetic fields have switched?)...

I've noticed I cannot even visualize scales on keyboard in my head with flats the way I can with sharps. So any ideas? I don't see any progress with choosing more pieces with flats because I just end up memorizing them faster. Obviously I don't want it to just change back to the other way round 

[hfmadopter]

Outin really, of all the problems we can get ourselves into with piano and music, leave it to you to come up with this one ! I think you just simply are going to have to put your mind to it and work through this. The only real way to do that is go to work on some pieces in those key signatures. I.E. Tackle It Head On ! Try a piece in one of the keys and also a scale and chord set in the same key. I have a page favorited that I go to to download the scales and chords from. Worth a try.

An example PDF from that page for D Flat Minor :  https://www.music-for-music-teachers.com/support-files/key-of-dm-page-1.pdf

[outin]

I think you are right about scales...It's true I have not done much of the ones with flats...sigh...better get to work then...

Edit:
Done some scale work, which reminded why I haven't bothered so much with these scales, they are technically easier for me so I have concentrated on the ones that I have trouble with. Anyway, I'll try to do some every day for a while and see if it helps me get rid of my flatophobia  

Thanks for the link btw, nice sheets!

[magic_sonata]

As always, do your regular flat scales that you usually would. Here's another challenge that a lot of people surprisingly can't do without stuttering.

Play a chromatic scale, starting from middle C. Name each note as you go up. This may seem easy when going slowly, but it will get harder as you go faster. This is a drill that I have some of my students do when their mind just goes blank, and when they are having trouble on naming notes.

Good luck!

[hfmadopter]

I think you are right about scales...It's true I have not done much of the ones with flats...sigh...better get to work then...

Edit:
Done some scale work, which reminded why I haven't bothered so much with these scales, they are technically easier for me so I have concentrated on the ones that I have trouble with. Anyway, I'll try to do some every day for a while and see if it helps me get rid of my flatophobia  

Thanks for the link btw, nice sheets!

Ya, my wife loves pieces in minor keys and I rather like many of  them myself, so had the minor page favorited and forwarded the PDF link. But I think at that site you can find about any scale you could want from the main page. It seems I end up on another new search in my browser though.. In the end I have always found what I wanted there for chords and scales at any rate. I've taught a few people early piano, they may or may not continue but I use these sheets plus one form or another of early piano book as well. Useful for more than just myself !

[outin]

As always, do your regular flat scales that you usually would.

I don't do much scales anymore...cannot concentrate at all on things like that so it's kind of useless. I still mix the fingerings on the C major scale every other time 

Play a chromatic scale, starting from middle C. Name each note as you go up. This may seem easy when going slowly, but it will get harder as you go faster. This is a drill that I have some of my students do when their mind just goes blank, and when they are having trouble on naming notes.

The black keys have such confusing names in my language, I can't get them to my head 

Anyway, I just realized WHY I have this problem... When I look at the keyboard I always see the black keys as sharps, sort of tied to the note before, I just cannot consider them as being flats. That would need to change somehow...

[j_menz]

I had the same problem, but in reverse. Just persevere and play stuff with flats - sightreading especially. I still am a flat or two ahead of sharps as far as comfort goes, but by now that tends to manifest itself in double sharps. You'll get there.

[evitaevita]

I've never had any kind of problem with sharps or flats. Basically, they were the same for me...

For most people, the more sharps or flats there are in a piece, the more difficult it is for them to read it. So, a good and effective way to become better at it is to read and play music as much as you can in difficult keys.
But, I believe that this methode can be applied to your problem too. Playing pieces with a lot of sharps or flats would help you.

Finally, I'd like to say that sometimes it's more difficult to read in the keys we know (and are used to) the least. Therefore, repeat scales! (You may have no problem with them, but I'm saying it just in case!...)

[nyiregyhazi]

I don't do much scales anymore...cannot concentrate at all on things like that so it's kind of useless. I still mix the fingerings on the C major scale every other time  

Sorry, if this isn't what you want to hear, but how do you expect to progress to the ability to fluently read off music from key signatures that contain nothing but notes associated to standard scales, if you take that attitude towards the basic means of becoming properly familiar with their notes? Instead of telling yourself you can't concentrate and then giving up, remind yourself how useful and important scales are and find out how to to concentrate properly. This is almost certainly tied in to why you cannot cope easily with flats in pieces. The trick is to start with awareness of the basic letters and associated white keys, while playing scales. With every black note you play, remind yourself which letter and white key you adjusted to that black key FROM and in which direction. Don't just memorise orders of notes and blast them out by mere physical habit, but get an overview of how each of the 7 reference pitches are being adjusted to form every possible key. From here you will learn to think properly in a key- in the precise manner that must be mastered for fluent execution of key signagures. If you mentally adjust g to g flat every time you play D flat major, it's not long before its second nature to adjust all gs in a d flat major piece. If you simply run your fingers over a number of keys in memorised order, however, you learn nothing about the mindset required to play in that key. Likewise f sharp major and g flat should feel significantly different. If not, you're just repeating physical habits and not using the part of the brain that makes key signatures second nature. I don't believe that merely playing through plenty of music will help, unless you first learn to acquire the ability to think in terms of the adjustments that make a key. You need to picture the whole octave of the basic scale this way before you play a note- both in scales and in repertoire.

Back to the scales - none of the famous pianists who you hear of that don't practise scales anymore have problems with scale fingering. That's because they learned them properly first, not because they left them aside because they couldn't concentrate, before achieving mastery.

[outin]

Sorry, if this isn't what you want to hear, but how do you expect to progress to the ability to fluently read off music from key signatures that contain nothing but notes associated to standard scales, if you take that attitude towards the basic means of becoming properly familiar with their notes? Instead of telling yourself you can't concentrate and then giving up, remind yourself how useful and important scales are and find out how to to concentrate properly. This is almost certainly tied in to why you cannot cope easily with flats in pieces. The trick is to start with awareness of the basic letters and associated white keys, while playing scales. With every black note you play, remind yourself which letter and white key you adjusted to that black key FROM and in which direction. Don't just memorise orders of notes and blast them out by mere physical habit, but get an overview of how each of the 7 reference pitches are being adjusted to form every possible key. From here you will learn to think properly in a key- in the precise manner that must be mastered for fluent execution of key signagures. If you mentally adjust g to g flat every time you play D flat major, it's not long before its second nature to adjust all gs in a d flat major piece. If you simply run your fingers over a number of keys in memorised order, however, you learn nothing about the mindset required to play in that key. Likewise f sharp major and g flat should feel significantly different. If not, you're just repeating physical habits and not using the part of the brain that makes key signatures second nature. I don't believe that merely playing through plenty of music will help, unless you first learn to acquire the ability to think in terms of the adjustments that make a key. You need to picture the whole octave of the basic scale this way before you play a note- both in scales and in repertoire.

Back to the scales - none of the famous pianists who you hear of that don't practise scales anymore have problems with scale fingering. That's because they learned them properly first, not because they left them aside because they couldn't concentrate, before achieving mastery.

Why would I not want to hear that? But I am not a famous pianist and I never will be so there's not much sense in comparing with someone who has been playing the piano practically their whole life and who has a very different goal.

Mindless practice is always useless. When say I cannot concentrate I really mean it. I have never been good with routines of any kind. I find the major and minor scales boring and can't help that. I have never been able to make them more interesting by the usual means, changing the touch or rhythm or doing different forms.

I do scales in little doses because that's the only way I can keep my mind focused on them. I don't do scales by just "moving my fingers in memorized order" because I cannot do that at all, that's exactly when I start mixing the fingerings. I usually need to mentally recreate the scale from scratch first, then figure out the fingering, no matter how familiar I am supposed to be with the scale already. I know perfectly well how the most common scales go, but after I loose the concentration my fingers do whatever they feel, all consistency is gone. So repeating something several times every practice session is not useful. Considering another post by the same poster I assumed when he talkes about regular scales he means a routine set repeated in every practice.

I am pretty familiar with my brain and it's limitations that are in no way restricted to playing piano. I am not in denial of the importance of scales, I simply need to make a choice on how to use the limited time I have to practice and what I have seen is that for me scales are only useful when done in very small doses. I have not given up on them, just given them less priority. Since my teacher and I are still working on my tumb issues, I haven't done so many different scales lately, but mostly the one's where the problems are most pronounced.

[louispodesta]

I have waited patiently to poke the two "trollers" of this website in the eye, and now I am able to do so.

For the record, this is a student "beginner" forum.  Beginner means beginner!

Next, and I could not phrase it better:

"I do scales in little doses because that's the only way I can keep my mind focused on them. I don't do scales by just "moving my fingers in memorized order" because I cannot do that at all, that's exactly when I start mixing the fingerings. I usually need to mentally recreate the scale from scratch first, then figure out the fingering, no matter how familiar I am supposed to be with the scale already. I know perfectly well how the most common scales go, but after I loose the concentration my fingers do whatever they feel, all consistency is gone. So repeating something several times every practice session is not useful. Considering another post by the same poster I assumed when he talks about regular scales he means a routine set repeated in every practice."

I have in my possession Earl Wild's Memoir wherein he spends a portion of a chapter stating that the way he was able to maintain his enthusiastic interest in the piano, and at the same time develop his technique, was to play transcriptions with all of their different fingerings.  As I have said before, he strongly stated (one of the greatest pianistic techniques of both centuries) that playing scales and exercises everyday was a complete waste of time.

Therefore, as observed by Mr. Wild, a composer himself, is that if you have trouble with key signatures with flats, then you just change the flats to sharps.  This is why every decent coach I know of recommends that every pianist write chord symbols above their music.

That way, if it is a B# chord, then you write the chord as a C Major chord.  This is the way professional accompanists, and seasoned performers do it in their own minds.

[aksels]

if there are too many sharps or flats that make you uncomfortable to sight read, focus on the notes that are natural

[louispodesta]

 aksels:

KISS, as you have aptly stated, is the path best travelled on this subject.

Thank you.

[nyiregyhazi]

I have waited patiently to poke the two "trollers" of this website in the eye, and now I am able to do so.

For the record, this is a student "beginner" forum.  Beginner means beginner!

Next, and I could not phrase it better:

"I do scales in little doses because that's the only way I can keep my mind focused on them. I don't do scales by just "moving my fingers in memorized order" because I cannot do that at all, that's exactly when I start mixing the fingerings. I usually need to mentally recreate the scale from scratch first, then figure out the fingering, no matter how familiar I am supposed to be with the scale already. I know perfectly well how the most common scales go, but after I loose the concentration my fingers do whatever they feel, all consistency is gone. So repeating something several times every practice session is not useful. Considering another post by the same poster I assumed when he talks about regular scales he means a routine set repeated in every practice."

I have in my possession Earl Wild's Memoir wherein he spends a portion of a chapter stating that the way he was able to maintain his enthusiastic interest in the piano, and at the same time develop his technique, was to play transcriptions with all of their different fingerings.  As I have said before, he strongly stated (one of the greatest pianistic techniques of both centuries) that playing scales and exercises everyday was a complete waste of time.

Therefore, as observed by Mr. Wild, a composer himself, is that if you have trouble with key signatures with flats, then you just change the flats to sharps.  This is why every decent coach I know of recommends that every pianist write chord symbols above their music.

That way, if it is a B# chord, then you write the chord as a C Major chord.  This is the way professional accompanists, and seasoned performers do it in their own minds.

You have a persistent habit of misrepresenting sources, by rewording them in such a way as to load them with your own unattributed opinions. this often means attributing your own mistakes to others- which is both dishonest and unfair to the person you falsely attribute your own thoughts to. whether the evident oversight is down to you or a failure of Earl Wild to appreciate his sheer talent, I'll explain the glaring failure of logic in your objectively fallacious assertions:


in order to transpose any piece of music that contains additional accidental beyond the key signature you need a BETTER grasp of the original notation, not a lesser one. it's simply inaccurate to suggest that it's easier to switch to a simpler key signature. in order to do so with accuracy, first you must understand the complexity of the original key signature and next you must perform the often complex procedure of converting it.


by way of example, in e flat minor a C natural must be understood as a  "sharpening" of a c flat. you cannot possibly afford to be ignorant of the fact that Cs are normally flats. otherwise, you will have no understanding of the fact that the equivalent action in E minor is to SHARPEN a regular C and not to make a cancellation of something. There is no way to actually simplify via the act of performing transposition at sight- because accuracy can only come from the most advanced understanding of not one but TWO individual  keys- both the one you are reading from and that which you are converting to.


the supposed process of simplifying that you detail actually demands substantially greater understanding of every individual key - not the lesser understanding that you imply. Earl Wild's habit of transposing was a way of advancing his already advanced skills- not a way to cheat his way out of understanding the basic meaning of regular key signatures. It demanded all the more understanding of each key- and most certainly not less. Shame on you for providing such an grossly inaccurate spin on the whole procedure. I don't believe for a second that Earl Wild would have been so ignorant as to claim it to be "easier" to perform a transposition than to understand how to execute the original notation. you cannot transpose until you've first understood the initial notation. he may have found pieces easier to execute PHYSICALLY in other keys. what he never would have asserted is that it's easier to transpose a piece than it is to remember when to include the accidentals of the key key signature, when executing it in its original form.



PS I NEVER think of a B sharp major chord as a C Major. I observe that physically my hand is playing the same notes as C major. what I never do is think of those notes as being linked in to any other baseline than the letters and white keys they were sharpened from. I consider this especially important in the Schubert G flat impromptu. I only observe physical similarities to simpler chords. I never think a C flat major as if it were written simplistically as a B major chord, however. you speak for yourself and nobody else.

[nyiregyhazi]

Why would I not want to hear that? But I am not a famous pianist and I never will be so there's not much sense in comparing with someone who has been playing the piano practically their whole life and who has a very different goal.

Mindless practice is always useless. When say I cannot concentrate I really mean it. I have never been good with routines of any kind. I find the major and minor scales boring and can't help that. I have never been able to make them more interesting by the usual means, changing the touch or rhythm or doing different forms.

I do scales in little doses because that's the only way I can keep my mind focused on them. I don't do scales by just "moving my fingers in memorized order" because I cannot do that at all, that's exactly when I start mixing the fingerings. I usually need to mentally recreate the scale from scratch first, then figure out the fingering, no matter how familiar I am supposed to be with the scale already. I know perfectly well how the most common scales go, but after I loose the concentration my fingers do whatever they feel, all consistency is gone. So repeating something several times every practice session is not useful. Considering another post by the same poster I assumed when he talkes about regular scales he means a routine set repeated in every practice.

I am pretty familiar with my brain and it's limitations that are in no way restricted to playing piano. I am not in denial of the importance of scales, I simply need to make a choice on how to use the limited time I have to practice and what I have seen is that for me scales are only useful when done in very small doses. I have not given up on them, just given them less priority. Since my teacher and I are still working on my tumb issues, I haven't done so many different scales lately, but mostly the one's where the problems are most pronounced.

You miss my point. I didn't assume you'll magically have advanced skills that a concert pianist has. I said the very opposite. it's because you don't posses basics that all concert pianists have long had that you need to learn to focus better on scales- which is a fundamental building block for anyone who wants to understand how to play and think in all keys. my words were about a very basic skill set that gives more advanced skills the chance to evolve- not about some kind of lofty upper tier of accomplishment, that is only for an elite few. this an issue of basics, not an issue of rare accomplishments that are beyond mortals and which might only be expected of concert artists.


don't ever let yourself make excuses based on not being a concert pianist. you've asked how you can do better with flats. the answer is to know the notes of every flat key inside out- both physically and mentally. there's no quicker or easier route to that than thoughtful scale practise. if you're not prepared to ask yourself why you cannot concentrate on this issue don't expect any magical process to fix the issue. it's a case of either being brave enough to tackle the issue head on, or making excuses and losing out as a result. sorry if that's a blunt answer, but you need to be honest with yourself. it's no use saying that your scales are fine but then blaming concentration for the fact that they clearly are not fully dealt with or properly internalised. either you must learn to concentrate better and develop this aspect (until there is no need for excuses about concentration), or accept that failure to think inside the scale for any individual key with total reliability is going to limit your ability to do the same in sightreading. you can't have it both ways on this issue. either expect to develop both in an associated approach or give up on both. concentration is not an abstract thing. if concentration is failing, you need a better mental scheme by which to ensure that it doesn't. you first need to make your points of focus more consciously precise and exact- before looking to blame a lack of more abstract zen style concentration. 99 percent of the time, the background mental intent is not clear enough in the practise- which will be why it's not second nature to use the same required type of concrete visualisation of the baseline notes to sightread flat key signatures. sidestepping this issue will not help you to meet the greater demands of tuning into a particular key while sightreading. tackle it head on and it will improve.

[j_menz]

if you have trouble with key signatures with flats, then you just change the flats to sharps.  This is why every decent coach I know of recommends that every pianist write chord symbols above their music.

Well, that's the stupidest thing you've said so far. And God knows it's a quality field of competition.

How do you sightread. Anything?

[outin]

You miss my point.

People tend to do that a lot...ever wondered why?

Unfortunately I do not have time to assess all your incorrect assumptions about what I do or think. Being realistic about one's abilities and constraints is not the same as excusing oneself on "not being a concert pianist". Unlike a concert pianists or someone who is made to study piano by the parents, I actually have a choice. I can quit the piano or lessons anytime, start an easier instrument or take singing lessons where I could succeed with much less strain. If I did not reserve enough of my time on things I actually find interesting and enjoyable on the piano, I would end up quitting pretty soon.

You seem to have a basic belief that all problems are solved by "not being lazy or in denial" and just following some universal exercises that everyone can do the right way if they decide to do so. As a teacher it would be good for you to familiarize yourself with some research on learning disabilities, because if you ever run into them you can do a lot of harm with such attitude.

[hfmadopter]

As a teacher it would be good for you to familiarize yourself with some research on learning disabilities, because if you ever run into them you can do a lot of harm with such attitude.

Yes even without learning disabilities each persons learning habits can be different. Sometimes it takes just the right idea, slightly different approach to a problem or word grouping that gets through to someone who wasn't grasping a skill before that was stated. Then enter a disability and it's a whole different world again.

My grandson is dyslexic, he appeared to be a below average student till they discovered this ( public school system) and his whole attitude suffered because of this. Now that they know this about him and have him in the appropriate program, his grades and attitude have soared. The standard approach wasn't working for him at all. As dumbed down as the school system is these days ( Speaking of the US basic academics here), they do have a good handle on finding and adjusting for various learning problems, also for finding exceptional students and moving them forward into advanced classes. It's the run of the mill student that tends to lose out a bit in our system.

[nyiregyhazi]

People tend to do that a lot...ever wondered why?

Unfortunately I do not have time to assess all your incorrect assumptions about what I do or think. Being realistic about one's abilities and constraints is not the same as excusing oneself on "not being a concert pianist". Unlike a concert pianists or someone who is made to study piano by the parents, I actually have a choice. I can quit the piano or lessons anytime, start an easier instrument or take singing lessons where I could succeed with much less strain. If I did not reserve enough of my time on things I actually find interesting and enjoyable on the piano, I would end up quitting pretty soon.

You seem to have a basic belief that all problems are solved by "not being lazy or in denial" and just following some universal exercises that everyone can do the right way if they decide to do so. As a teacher it would be good for you to familiarize yourself with some research on learning disabilities, because if you ever run into them you can do a lot of harm with such attitude.

I didn't use the word lazy, so please don't falsely portray a personal attack where none was made. I'm simply telling you straight up that the scales thing and the reading thing are two sides of the very same coin. If you don't find out how to get to the bottom of why you can't concentrate well enough in scales, it's objectively unlikely that you'll get to grips with the massively associated flats issue in reading. I'm not attacking you, but honestly stating that if you tell yourself that your scales are "fine" (when your language elsewhere says that they are not reliable) then you will be shielding yourself from the underlying issue rather than making progress with it. Interrelated skills need to be developed in tandem, or their development will be inherently limited. you said that you usually need to calculate scales from scratch, I believe? If so, you don't know the keys yet. when they are known, you have the choice to think and refresh or just to do it in a split second. Anyone can work any key out on the spot, but that doesn't mean you'll feel at home with it- unless you've internalised it. having the option of thinking through or just doing (with equal fluency) is what tells you that you are truly acquainted with the key- which is what makes it second nature to apply the key signature during reading.


also, what are your learning disabilities? whether learning disabilities exist or not, the ability to read flats fluently will depend on the same skill set. If you want the fluency in reading despite learning difficulties, that will only make it all the more important to expose and learn how to deal with the holes that currently stop you reading flats well. You can either give up on achieving that and blame learning disabilities or (seeing as it's something that you clearly desire) you can accept that not every single moment of an optimal learning process is going to be fun and get on with acquiring the necessary background skills. learning difficulties or not, you're simply either going to have accept living without the fluency you have said you desire in flats, or set about becoming intimately acquainted with those keys.

[outin]

I didn't use the word lazy, so please don't falsely portray a personal attack where none was made. I'm simply telling you straight up that the scales thing and the reading thing are two sides of the very same coin. If you don't find out how to get to the bottom of why you can't concentrate well enough in scales, it's objectively unlikely that you'll get to grips with the massively associated flats issue in reading. I'm not attacking you, but honestly stating that if you tell yourself that your scales are "fine" (when your language elsewhere says that they are not reliable) then you will be shielding yourself from the underlying issue rather than making progress with it. Interrelated skills need to be developed in tandem, or their development will be inherently limited. you said that you usually need to calculate scales from scratch, I believe? If so, you don't know the keys yet. when they are known, you have the choice to think and refresh or just to do it in a split second. Anyone can work any key out on the spot, but that doesn't mean you'll feel at home with it- unless you've internalised it. having the option of thinking through or just doing (with equal fluency) is what tells you that you are truly acquainted with the key- which is what makes it second nature to apply the key signature during reading.


also, what are your learning disabilities? whether learning disabilities exist or not, the ability to read flats fluently will depend on the same skill set. If you want the fluency in reading despite learning difficulties, that will only make it all the more important to expose and learn how to deal with the holes that currently stop you reading flats well. You can either give up on achieving that and blame learning disabilities or (seeing as it's something that you clearly desire) you can accept that not every single moment of an optimal learning process is going to be fun and get on with acquiring the necessary background skills. learning difficulties or not, you're simply either going to have accept living without the fluency you have said you desire in flats, or set about becoming intimately acquainted with those keys.

I see no personal attack, just ignorance and lack of understanding. You ask questions, but you are not really interested in the answers, since you already think you know the solutions to everyone's problems even when you have never met them. That's the message you send, whether you mean it or not. You also seem to think that people who cannot do things in the conventional way are only looking for "fun", while often that couldn't be further from the truth (but I see you probably interpreted the word enjoyable as "fun", when for me it is enjoyable to do hard work as long as I see some results). Only an idiot would keep banging oneself in the head with a hammer without no progress expecting that to do any good.

Don't want to be unkind, but some of the advice you so generously offer seem as useful as telling a blind person to keep staring at the page and the image will eventually appear...it just doesn't work that way unfortunately. So don't really feel it worth my time to continue such discussions as this. I usually get paid to make people understand

[nyiregyhazi]

I see no personal attack, just ignorance and lack of understanding. You ask questions, but you are not really interested in the answers, since you already think you know the solutions to everyone's problems even when you have never met them. That's the message you send, whether you mean it or not. You also seem to think that people who cannot do things in the conventional way are only looking for "fun", while often that couldn't be further from the truth (but I see you probably interpreted the word enjoyable as "fun", when for me it is enjoyable to do hard work as long as I see some results). Only an idiot would keep banging oneself in the head with a hammer expecting that to do any good. Don't really feel it worth my time to continue such discussions. I usually get paid to make people understand

Don't want to be unkind, but some of the advice you so generously offer seem as useful as telling a blind person to keep staring at the page and the image will eventually appear...it just doesn't work that way unfortunately.

You asked for help and I gave you a straight to the point answer. I'm sorry if that wasn't what you hoped to hear, but it's what you need if you are to achieve what you wish. Until you know your keys properly, trying to sightread advanced key signatures is like to trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch. Your analogy about the blind person should be applied to the idea of hoping to play fluently in any flat key signature, without learning the ins and out of different keys properly. These things don't come by magic and there's no alternative path. They come by intimate knowledge of each key and nothing else. There's no better way to unshakeable certainty about each key than to know the scale- which is literally a neat practical summary of the key signature. When you know them properly, you will rarely forget a single accidental. If you have to sit and figure the notes out before it's possible to play them (as you directly stated) you don't know them- and it's small wonder that you have problems reading advanced key signatures. Shoot the messenger if you will, but I'm only putting 2 and 2 together. I'm also pointing towards the only guaranteed path to progress- which is to learn your keys.

I'm really not in the habit of making assumptions. I went on such explicit statements as:

I've noticed I cannot even visualize scales on keyboard in my head with flats the way I can with sharps. So any ideas?

Of course you forget key signatures if these are not clear to you. It's not rocket science to make the obvious association between these two things. Over the years I've held myself back more than I could describe trying to tell myself that something or other is fine when it clearly isn't, or kidding myself that I didn't need something that was holding me back. The human brain tries to look for positives, which is why we make excuses. But if we want advanced skills (such as the ability to read dense key signatures effortlessly) then we need to be honest about our limitations, in order to stop being controlled by these limitations and get on with transcending them. The reason I'm being honest with you is because I wasted quite so many hours myself, by taking the exact kind of defeatist/excuse based attitude on display here.

Foundations are essential. Some skills are simply not possible without them. If you're going to make the argument that you're not a concert pianist and therefore you are not prepared to to devote attention to learning every key inside out, then the logical conclusion to the argument is that you're not a concert pianist so you cannot expect to have the more advanced ability to read key signatures fluently either. I honestly hope that instead of that you'll simply stop imposing limitations on yourself and devote yourself to learning the basic skills that make advanced skills possible.

Be humble enough to be honest with yourself about your limitations and you will make leaps and bounds. Try to pretend that no such limitations exist/make excuses about not being a concert pianist anyway (regarding basic skills that more advanced reading is 100% dependent upon) and you will stagnate.

[aksels]

aksels:

KISS, as you have aptly stated, is the path best travelled on this subject.

Thank you.

ah glad I could help