[MusicTlk] Question to low-vision piano players

[Mike Jolls]

Hello everyone, and particularly to low-vision piano players .. I have a question about sight reading and keeping track of where you are on the piano.
I’m a low vision piano student.  Luckily I have enough vision to use a telescope and can read standard printed music (although I can only read a measure at a time unfortunately, but it’s better than nothing).  My teacher has told me to sight read and not look at the keyboard.  Even if I do try to look at my hands from time to time, it’s difficult (depending on how far down the keyboard I have to look) because my low vision makes it difficult to see exactly where I am depending on the distance down the keyboard where I’m trying to look).  Therefore, I’ve come to the conclusion that if possible, sight has to be eliminated in piano playing, as far as looking at my hands.  In other words, I have to navigate by feel like a totally blind person.  To this point, I’ve been struggling with how to do this.  I’ve recently come up with a potential solution, but I wanted to run it by you all to see if I’m on the right track.

My idea is to play with my fingers engaging the black keys, and then using the black keys around my fingers as a reference to know where I am and how far I have to go to the next key.  As an example, Let’s say I’m playing a G with my right hand.  I COULD just play a G with my fingers on the white portion of the key (not engaged in, or in between the black heys) .  But then, let’s say I had to go to a D above it.  If I was just on the white portion of the key, I wouldn’t know how far to go to the D above it.   However, if I played the G with my finger in between the two black keys, I could then use the black keys to feel my way to the D above it, since I’d be able to feel the gap between Bb and C#, and I’d know the D is immediately after C# black key.

That’s a long way of saying, use the black keys as tactile navigation markers.

I was playing some Bach and trying to sight-read the piece, and it seemed that when the distances of the notes were fairly close together, being engaged with the black keys helped a lot in mentally keeping track of where I was, and realizing where the next key was located.  This was because I could use the black keys as tactile markers to help me know where the next key was located by feel, assuming I understand how the keyboard is laid out.  I had to feel to locate the next key, but that seemed to work and it seemed I made fewer errors as I sight-read the music without looking at my hands.

Now, I realize I can’t use this technique for everything.  Two octave jumps (for example) are going to have to be another thing altogether.  I might just have to look, if I can.  Or I might have to learn the piece and do that from muscle memory.  But at least for short distance passages, it seems this is promising.  If this is something you’ve all learned to do and actively use this technique, then I’ve at least solved one part of the navigation puzzle, and hopefully I can develop it.

So, has anybody used this technique of keeping their fingers engaged in the black keys to give themselves a tactile cue to help find their way around the keyboard?  Am I on to something?  Is this a bad method?  Would it slow you down, especially when you had to play fast passages?  I don’t want to continue this if it’s going to be a bad habit.

Please let me know.  I have to say I was pretty excited when I found I was more successful with this Bach piece with this method when I was trying to stay focused on the music.

Thanks for the information.

Mike Jolls



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