Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How did you get the ability to know where all the keys are?

Although your teacher probably wanted to get you out of the habit of looking at the keys too much while reading music, I'd point out that virtually all the greatest pianists do look at the keyboard a fair amount of the time when playing from memory, and Horowitz does this to the extreme.

So I don't think being able to play without looking at the keys at all should be a goal, although it is useful within reason(one does not want to have to be continually looking at the keyboard) to have this skill when sight reading or whenever one uses the score.

It just happens with practice, just like you learned to walk, to read or to speak. Don't feel discouraged if it sounds difficult right now. Keep practicing and you will get there...

what keys?

Neither. There's no forcing necessary, but it doesn't necessarily come naturally.

I take my students through what I did. I started out with easy material that fits within a 5-finger pattern. (These days, I use Kevin Olson's "A Perfect Start" series and a variety of other 5-finger pattern collections.) Once you're proficient with that kind of material, you move on to exercises that get you out of a 5-finger position. This includes extensions, contractions, substitutions, and crossings.

It also helps to have a great deal of technical proficiency and practice one's scales and arpeggios without looking at their hands.

Also, it should be noted that pianists do have to look down sometimes. But the score needs to be the "home base," and it's easier to keep your place in the music if you glance down with your eyes and keep your head relatively still.

I, too,like to start with the five finger, open position patterns.. and I have the student travel in fifths through the Circle, though, only five notes of a complete scale are explored. These five finger positions do have a benefit of encouraging a "feel" for the keyboard, and a sense of space and geography within smaller bounds. I also have the student play these in contrary motion, in legato, eventually adding staccato.

It is extremely useful not only for sight reading but for times when both hands have to leap and you don't have time to look at both hands.

Did I say it wasn't useful?

I said the goal shouldn't be (as some feel it is)to be able to play without looking at the keys at all because it's not necessary and because pianists don't play that way.

Most pianists at all levels look at their hands at least somewhat during sight reading and when making jumps. If one is making a jump where one can't look at both hands, one normally looks at one destination place and then at the other or at only the harder hand jump.

For me it's not a matter of knowing where all the keys are, that I believe would be impossible. It's a matter of knowing the relative distance between keys. If I have to make an octave jump I've conditioned myself through much repetition, to know what an Octave feels like. So it's knowing where the key you want to go to is in relation to the key (or Keys) you're currently playing. As you come to an interval jump in the piece repeat that interval over and over again, eventually you will be able to make that jump without physically looking at the keyboard. I've got a piece I'm working on now where both hands make large jumps in opposing directions at the same time, I've repeated those passages one hand at a time enough that now I can put the hands together and make the jumps by feel instead of looking.

Oh gee. Pianoloverus, I wasn't arguing with you. I was adding to what you said.

not having read the tsunami of responses, I would only say: it's a matter of education, from the age of (probably)5, I could read notes, that is before getting to know the alfabet, how difficult can it get?

The question was not to know what the notes are, but how your fingers can find the notes if you don't look at them.

To use your own words, it comes "naturally from years of practising". And also lots of mistakes!

I call it "knowing the geography of the keyboard". I can't think of any way except practise, practise, and more practise. Scales, arpeggios and "stride" bass lines as in Scott Joplin help. Just doodling bass lines in octaves at the keyboard with your eyes shut counts as practise.

Sight-reading stuff within say 2 octaves up and down from middle C is not too bad - hymn tunes, the Bach 371 chorales, the WTC, and heaps of other music lies in that compass. Outside that range, one is into lots of ledger lines and "8va..." signs and the going gets a bit harder. I find myself even now sometimes writing "F#" or D or whatever in the bass line until it gets into the finger memory.

Sight reading is even worse on an organ. The music is placed even higher than on a piano and you have your feet do deal with in addition.

To use your own words, it comes "naturally from years of practising". And also lots of mistakes!

I think that pretty much sums it up for everyone.