Playing without looking

[greyrune]

I have a big problem with this.  I can't sight read much more than a simple one line melody really but i can play decent peices as long as i look.  I think my problem is that i memorise everything.  I tend to read music only once for each section, occasionally twice, and then it's kind of stuck there but this means i can't play aynthing difficult without looking at my hands.  I really need to improve my sight reading for the course i'm currently doing but first i need to be able to look at the score.  If anyone can give any tips for learning to play while looking at a score it would be hugely appreciated.

Also if anyone knows any good discordant (prokofiev, not more) peices around grade 7 that'd be great.

[abell88]

Practise with your hands covered -- if you can't get anyone to hold a piece of cardboard over them, rig it yourself. Start with easy pieces and work up. Good luck!

[lostinidlewonder]

First of all you have to be able to strike any single note at the keyboard without looking at it. So that would mean that you use the blacks as BRAILE almost to guide your hand. This sense of the keyboard is very important to develop.

To search for the notes i use 1 and 5 or 14 to feel for the sides of the black notes. So if I was to feel for the two blacks with my RH I would use my 1 to feel for the left side of the C# black note and the 4th or 5th on the right side of the D#. Now the thumb when it searches for the C# really uses the gap anomally that the BC white notes creates at the keyboard. The thumb may touch B and side over until it hits the left side of the C# black note. Similarly, the 4th of 5th may touch the F and side over the two whites that are created with the EF  until it hits the right side of the D#.

This technique needs some practice, I would say practice this searching for the blacks for a while. It may be a good idea to slide back and forth your 1 and 4/5 on top of the two white notes for the two black position and the three blacks position.

Once you have the sense for these black notes then discover the "holes" that are within those black notes. Like the two black notes C# D# have the holes C, D and E. C is on the left D is the middle and E on the Right. Same with the F# G# and A#, the holes are FGAB and their positions should be obvious. The "feel" of all the notes has an individual feel to it when you play blindly, so you have to develop that feel. Touch your piano gently, stroke the notes without pushing them down, this sense of touch is so important to blind people, we with sight neglect it so much.

[galonia]

I learnt the double bass for a while, and the fingering for double bass is completely different to the piano, plus there are no markings or frets to tell you where to put your fingers down.  So I got completely confused wiht learning "1st position" and "2nd position" like other string players (violinists, etc) use - and I never knew which finger was which.

My teacher then decided to scrap that way of teaching me, and said, "if you can sing a note, you can play a note".  So she would play a note on the piano, and I'd sing it, then I'd just put my finger down on a string, and bow it, and it would be the right note.  After a week or so, I was confident enough to play whole phrases like that.

From then on, when I learnt a new piece, I would sight-sing a phrase (sometimes I may sing it a couple of times to feel confident that I knew it), then I'd play it.  By practising this way, I found the most comfortable fingerings very naturally.

Then I thought, why not do this at the piano, too?  I tried, and it worked.  So I hear the music on the page in my head first, deciding how it's going to sound, then I play it.  The first few times, it may be awkward, but after a while, you work out the most comfortable and efficient way to get the notes and sounds you want, and you just keep doing that.