Piano Geography - The Secret to Successful Sight Reading

Piano Geography - The Secret to Successful Sight Reading 

 Through over 35 years of teaching experience on the piano, I have understood that one of the main hindrances to effective sight reading is poor “Piano Geography”. This is the ability to feel your way around the piano without looking at your hands. Be honest - when you sight read, are you continually looking at your hands? It’s something I call, "watching vertical tennis", where your eyes travel up and down between hand and book for virtually every note or chord. No wonder your sight reading is hesitant and lacking fluency.

 

Most students focus primarily on getting the notes the correct pitch at the expense of keeping the beat going. However, if you look at the ABRSM marking criteria for a sight reading test, the FIRST thing that is mentioned for a distinction is,

 

“Fluent, rhythmically accurate” 

(followed by “accurate notes / pitch / key”).

 

With this in mind this book available on Amazon has been specifically designed to improve your skills at feeling your way around the piano by touch. It is imperative that the exercises be played without looking down. Although this method is designed to improve sight reading, these Piano Geography Tests can be practised as many times as you like. The purpose is to train your ability to feel your way around the keys, not train your ability to read notes.

 

You should also try to play with good rhythm. It doesn’t matter how slow, but the beat should always be steady. With this in mind, I recommend playing with a metronome, initially set to something as slow as 60 crotchet beats per minute. Then feel free to gradually increase this speed only as and when you develop pitch and rhythmic accuracy (without looking at your hands).

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