How to Play the Piano While Reading Music

Introduction

To learn to play the piano while reading the notes on the pentagram you must first associate the white keys of your instrument with the Fundamental Scale.

White Keys VS Black Keys

To establish this association over time you can not start, as some teachers want you to think, directly from the white keys. In fact, it is necessary in a first phase of study to refer to the black keys, because they are arranged along the keyboard in two series clearly separated by a space. These sets of keys are repeated in sequence, one with two black keys and one with three black keys. The white keys, on the other hand, are arranged in a single series, anonymous both from a tactile and visual point of view. They cannot therefore represent an effective point of reference for our work of association.

Thinking of the black keys to go back to the white ones, and not only the white keys, you immediately find the position of each component of the Fundamental Scale. The ability to immediately spot a white key without relying on the white keys you have nearby is essential to learn to play the piano while reading the Music, because during a piano performance you will not only play on keys that follow one another. On the contrary, you may need to read and locate on the keyboard a C immediately followed by a sol that is therefore not adjacent to it in the Fundamental Scale, or you may have to make a big jump with your hand from one end of the instrument to the other.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Since the white keys are arranged in a single series, if you really wanted to rely only on these, to play the piano while reading the music you would have to make an absurd calculation in your mind starting from a single point of reference, instead of simply thinking about the relationship that a certain black key has with its neighboring white keys.

Exceptions To The Rule?

In the case of the white key that we associate with sol it is not obvious to know which of its two neighboring black keys should actually be taken into account to go back to the white key in question, since looking at our keyboard we see two neighbors in the same way. The same happens with the la and with the king. Let's see how to precede in these cases.

The white do button has only one adjacent black key; the same happens for the other keys taken into consideration (the mi, the fa and the si). This first set of white keys belongs to the area of the piano that is easiest to remember from a tactile point of view: that space that exists between the two series of black keys. However, they are not the easiest keys to find with your eyes closed because, according to the considerations made so far, they have common characteristics: in fact, the C and F keys have a black key to their right and the mi and si keys have a black key to their left. In short, it is easy to exchange one for the other. In addition to this, remember that the same keys can be lowered by any of the fingers of one hand, and that therefore changing fingers may even increase the difficulty. Lowering, for example, the C with the little finger and extending the other fingers with a steady hand towards the black keys, it will not be possible to understand what is to the left of this key: this will be easily confused with king, fa, sol and la. Also in this case, as proof of what we said earlier, you will risk even more to get confused if instead of orienting yourself with the black keys you will do it with the white ones, because you will focus your attention on that space that lies between the two series of black keys. As we have said, to play the piano while reading the music you do not have to consider this space as "a space formed by two white keys", but on the contrary as a precise distance between the two series of black keys or, at the limit, as an absence of the same from which to derive the two white keys. It is necessary then, to conclude, a different sensitivity, which starts from the way in which the series of black keys are found compared to the series of white keys. Look at the keyboard again with open eyes, this time paying attention to the different distances with which the black keys are distributed on the adjacent white keys in both directions:

These distances are not all the same. As evidenced by this scheme, all ten distances are sometimes smaller, sometimes larger. Since a finger cannot proceed in both directions of the keyboard at the same time, it is extremely useful for playing the piano while reading the music you notice how these ten distances, if divided into two groups (one ascending and one descending) by five, are all unique to each other in the two senses of the keyboard (right and left). Proceeding to the right, no distance between one white key and the next black key is equal; the same happens by proceeding in the other direction of the keyboard.

The Solution

The only tactile reference you will have to rely on to play the piano while reading the music, from this moment on, will be that of the distances of the black keys with respect to their respective two adjacent white keys. It will now be necessary to develop a very special sensitivity for this type of distance, practicing, through touch alone, the identification of the white keys through the sensation of the black keys: during this practice you will not only have to look at the keyboard, but the upper part of the piano, the one where the score would normally be located.

Practical Exercise

I do not recommend from now on to perform this exercise with your eyes closed: you will have to look at first at the point where the score would normally be, and then repeat the exercise by looking at different points of the room where you are, in any case never the keyboard or your hands. It begins by identifying the keys examined so far, then the C, the mi, the fa and the si then continuing with re, sol and la. Later, you will find that the distances examined are symmetrical starting from the centers of the two sets of black keys. This last consideration will be taken up and deepened in the following articles of the blog, where we will demonstrate its fundamental technical importance.

Playing the Piano While Reading: Beginners VS Experts

To fully understand the considerations made up to this point, it is important that you recognize that there is a huge difference between a pianist and a neophyte who is learning to play the piano while reading the Music. For a pianist, the considerations made so far are too marginal, while for a neophyte it will be necessary to follow them to the letter. It is necessary that he begins to build with humility starting from small forms, recognizing in other words that one cannot learn only by imitation. If so, you just have to watch the concert footage of a great pianist to learn to play like him. But learning in this way would be like trying to run the hundred meters just by looking at an athlete. As much as you may ask him to run slowly to study in detail the structure of his movements, each of his moves is the result of hard preparation and constant training. Just as the preparatory training to which the athlete undergoes cannot be clear to a spectator at the time of the race, the same is for you who are learning to play the piano while reading the Music: looking at a pianist, you realize that he observes things from a different perspective and needs to insist on other topics than reading while playing. Therefore, if you do not see a direct comparison between the considerations we have made in this article and the recordings of the great pianists, this will not be due to the fact that this blog or the pianists in question are wrong: it will be so since the methodologies that I propose to you are to be contextualized from time to time in a precise didactic purpose. Most of these learning techniques serve to focus you on an important part of all your difficulties, so as to build one step at a time your ability to play the piano while reading music. So do not pretend to be able to directly apply what I told you in a concert performance: just as you would not eat a cake in a single bite, the dissolution of your reading difficulties requires first that you focus your attention on some preparatory techniques.

Conclusions

To conclude, if you want to learn as soon as possible to play the piano while reading the Music you must never forget that, whatever the white key you have to play, this will always be considered in its relationship (right or left) and distance (greater or minor, in the two verses) compared to the black keys. Over time this process will become natural and spontaneous, but if you want to speed up learning take a look at our Piano Reading Method.