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I think your suggestion of Christmas carols is a good one. Hymns too. Those songs are meant to be easier so more people will be able to play and sing them. Just maybe stay away from "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)", that one is a beast!

The gang around here is giving you some good stuff to ponder and work on.

Let's talk about the highlighted question you had above a second ... no chords are given, your ears hear the chords coming up. Take "Silent Night" that Jotur mentioned earlier, when ear players play it, they already know how the melody goes like most people on the planet, they are listening for chord changes coming up (harmony), pick up tones if any ahead of the first strong beat, rhythm (in this case commonly played as a waltz (3/4) and rhythm patterns that work with waltzes. After your ears learn what to listen for, they will generally know all the information they need in a second or two.

Say in the key of C, "SN" begins with C chord (I) on the Silent, as the tune moves along the ears hear the first chord change coming up on the first "all" and it goes to G chord (V), the second "all" it returns back to the (I chord), at "round" it shifts to F chord (IV), and so on.

After your ears learn the sound of more and more chords beyond the I, IV and V chords, they will start to hear options that often sound as good or better then the basic major chords.

While it may sound daunting, once the ears get in the game, they can pick more and more of this stuff up at a pretty fast clip. There is the physical aspect involving the fingers responding to what the ears are telling them to do, and for me that was the bigger hill to climb than the ear part.

It gets to the point though that a tune as a kid comes to mind and you walk over to the keyboard, sit down and start playing a few phrases of it with both hands using good melody, harmony and rhythm.

"The gang around here is giving you some good stuff to ponder and work on."

They really are, thanks so much for the responses. From what I'm reading on here I should try to learn figuring out notes through intervals, and start learning chords better. Despite playing for so long, I am a beginner in many, many ways. I have relied on the little knowledge I had for way too long, and I'm glad I found this forum. I guess what I was trying to do was impossible, at least for most people. No wonder I wasn't getting any better.

What do you think of this article that says it is possible?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150528123917.htm

Nahum - Did you really get perfect pitch at 34? and if so how?

I don't know if anybody on here has heard of him, but Kyle Landry is one of my biggest inspirations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9vj-p1yGLw
Would you say he has absolute/perfect pitch?

Yes, most people here at least hear about K.L. and I don't know if he has perfect pitch... again, perfect pitch doesn't really gives you any particular advantage if not another layer to memorize music and, of course, the ability to know what to "replay" if you hear it... (but you still need the chops to be able to play the right notes, at the right time, with the right dynamic and phrasing... )

ipad/iphone apps, computer software... there is a whole world out there of applications to learn to do what you want...

but let's go back on what you said before:
"I can play a song 5,000 times and still play it all wrong. I am
pretty good at sight reading but that is the only thing I am good at. I've been sight reading constantly non stop since I was 13. I'm almost 30 now and in many ways I'm still stuck at beginner level. I feel like if I'm going to stop hitting wrong keys, I've got to not only get my eyes off the paper for once in my life and look down at the piano, but I've also got to hear it in my head, I've got to predict it, and know just which key makes that sound I'm predicting. I am so tired of being controlled by sheets of paper. I want to break away from it. "

I hope that 5000 times is just a hyperbole because otherwise you have other issues and perfect pitch isn't one of them.
as I said before:
1) you need to develop the chops to play correctly. knowing what differential calculus is and knowing how to use it properly are two different things... knowing the notes and being able to play them correctly is exactly the same way. or if you are a reader, reading a book, understanding the words and understanding the meaning of the book are two different things. I hope you will understand this concept.

if it's 17 years that you have this problem, MAYBE, you didn't learn how to learn a piece of music...
seriously in 17 years of education people do earn a master degree... starting from elementary school. Don't you think that getting a teacher would be a much more productive way to invest your time from now on?

let me be the bad guy here... in 17 years you should be able to sight read any major work from any major composer... you should be able to blow off the keys from any Kyle Landry of this planet. You are still on time, find a good teacher, trust him/her and move forward... you need to learn how to learn a piece. anything else, right now, is secondary.

Hi Walkingintheair,

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I personally would like to be much better at sight reading. But I tell myself it's OK as becoming a good musician is a lifetime process.

Interval and chord recognition can indeed be very useful and I believe anyone can become good at it. It's like mastering the keyboard, there's no real shortcut and it's practice, practice, practice.

I personally use my own "memory-pitch" trick to recognize an isolated note/key. It's certainly not as quick as true perfect pitch, but it works. Simply use certain favorite short excerpts of songs/pieces you know by heart since a long time. For example, I can easily hear in my head the beginning of Fur Elise, because I've heard it so often. The first note is E. Choose 12 which start on all possible keys (C, C# and so on up to B). Takes practice and time, just like interval/chords recognition.

Another example is when one plays a string instrument (guitar, violin, etc.). After some years, you can tell right away when there's an open string played. Oh, that's the low or high E on the guitar, the G on the violin, etc. There are studies showing that even non-musicians can remember the exact pitch of an old melody they heard when they were young. A particular documentary was also showing old people suffering from Alzheimer disease - they couldn't remember many important things anymore, but if they were asked about an old song they liked when they were younger, a surprising percentage of them could sing/whistle it at the same pitch as the version they used to hear from an old vinyl, etc.

Again, thanks to everyboy for the replies. I'm reading them all and learning so much.

Ataru074 - Don't worry about being a bad guy. I wish I had a super strict
piano teacher, the kind that would slap my hands if I played wrong.
I would like to get a teacher in a month when I'm no longer busy. I want to find
somebody that will teach at least an hour 2-5x a week, if such teachers exists
for adults not in music school.
I think I understand what you are saying. I'm not sure why I thought perfect pitch would help me. I don't know if it's quite 5,000x but it's way more than it should be. I can read the music well but I fumble while trying to get my hands to the right keys, and I think I use correct fingering most of the time. I don't look down at the piano at all. Perhaps I need patience and really just need to slow down, study the song more, break it apart, look for patterns like people suggest.

I would recommend you to try out the software called EarMaster. I occasionally make some videos for them, and do regular tech support. It is by far the most complete software or app i have come across, which is not something i am saying because i do a bit of work for them. This is purely my personal advice. There is a free trial available so you can see if it is something you like. Once you get a hold of the basics you can begin to listen for intervals and such in all the music you hear. It is quite fun actually.

I remember my second lesson with my teacher- he said "You should memorize this piece, your eyes are glued to the page!" I remember it because I thought, based on the internet, that was the proper way to learn, by never looking at your hands. When I asked him about that, well, let's say not being able to look away from the sheet is just as bad as not being able to look away from your hands while playing.

I found memorizing very difficult at first. To be honest, I never really fully memorized that first piece- "Scarborough Fair" in Alfreds #1. Since then, it has gotten easier- I believe practicing memorizing on different pieces really helps your memorizing skill.

Now, I find I if I want to really know a piece, explore subtleties of interpretation, etc, it helps immensely if I have it fully memorized. It can take a long time, several months even for a short piece, for me to reach this point though.

I would suggest trying again to memorize something. It will be difficult since you are a good reader and haven't successfully done it before. Just go really slow, even just working on adding a measure a day, for example.

I think of it as a "model." If it has been already written/composed, there exists a model. Be it written or recorded. If you are familiar with a tune, the model exists in your mind/memory. If the goal is to play the song without notation, as been said start simple. But the second thing I use to ascertain the "goal" is to find the key. It's not cheating to know the key ahead of time. The second thing I do when trying to ascertain the goal is experiment with chord progressions. Being able to site read is a great skill, no doubt about it. But the model is rather finite. Learning something by ear, the tune develops from an approximation. Knowledge of theory and prior knowledge really count. This only means the sooner one starts the better.
I know some ear training courses center around vocals. But to be honest, I probably never sang on pitch until I learned to play an instrument. With that accompaniment, one has a that reference to continuously check against. There you go; find out what key you sing Happy Birthday in. Joy to the World? Row, Row, Row Your Boat?

Just wanted to add this. There is a game I play to help me identify notes...well more specifically a songs key by ear. I put on the radio (pandora or spotify) and let it play. When each new song comes on I listen for a bit and then try to hit the root note of the songs key on my piano. Three strikes and you're out!

This has helped me tremendously in terms of hearing the tones in my head. I get such a great feeling when I get the key of the song right on the first try! Obviously some genres are easier (like rock) with some being much more difficult (like jazz). Try dance music (EDM) for a really easy session. lol!

This simple exercise can also morph into playing the bass line or melody by ear. With some time and understanding of the key/scales relationship it can become quite easy and almost second nature to pick out the key and then capture the melody.

For useful Ear Training exercises check the link :
musictheory.net Exercises