Hi there! I've just started teaching myself how to play the piano and am currently learning about position playing (C and G position etc.). My question to you is: for playing basic (grade 1/2 pieces) that require changing finger position a lot, do you read the music and play the notes based on remembering what position you are currently in, so knowing what notes each finger is on, or do you play by intervals i.e. by judging the difference between notes on the stave and playing an appropriate number of keys higher/lower. The latter seems like a much easier way to play but seems like cheating somehow. What is the correct way to do it?

i dont think there is a correct way, whatever you feel comfortable doing.i think u should just find that once you know a piece your fingers will just move anyway!!

hope this helps and good luck with the learning!!

Nat

Thanks Nat!

Many people have told me that sight-reading becomes a sub-concious, fluid process as one becomes a better pianist. It's just that at the moment I find it really hard to remember what position each hand is in at any one time, and thus to look at a note and think: 'If I'm in this position, what finger would play this note'. It takes ages to do this before playing each note and I wasn't sure if that was the way that everybody learnt. This is one of the major pitfalls in teaching yourself I guess: you never know if what you are doing is going to limit how good your future technique is; akin to learning how to drive a car with your parents and then finding out that you have developed numerous bad habits when you have your first real lesson with an instructor.

what books are you using to teach yourself?!

Music for beginners usually has some fingering in, at least at the points where a change of hand position is needed. They are normally a pretty good guide to decent fingering.
As for actually reading what the notes are then reading by interval is a good way to go.

I don't see why using intervals should be cheating - I teach my students that interval recognition is an important part of sight-reading. If you can recognise patterns in groups of notes it may be quicker and more efficient than working out each and every individual note as you go.

I have just inherited a student in her third year of playing piano, who is not a great sight-reader (yet !) and whose note-reading is not particularly efficient. She is playing pieces of around grade 2 standard.

I am trying to get her to look at patterns and intervals in her pieces as I think it will help her reading. I notice that beginners' books often introduce interval recognition relatively early on now; it's something I don't remember using as a student until quite a bit later, but I find even young beginners get the idea of a third (miss a finger!) and a fifth in five-finger positions, and it seems to help things along in many cases, and is easily extended beyond the five-finger position.

If it works for you by all means stay with it!

Maggie