Some people can play without having to look at the notes on the piano or not looking at the strings on the violin or looking where their fingers press on the flute. Which instrument is it easier to do it on?

You cannot look at your fingers while playing a flute cos then you wouldn't have your head & embouchure in the right place to get any sound out of it. You can look in a mirror to see what you're doing but that would be the only way?!

Oh yeah, whoops

So how did you go about learning to learn the notes of by heart. Did it take a long time?

Yeh looking at your fingers on a flute is a little difficult!! Althoug I did used to do that when I first started! I think its just like people who can touch-type. Once you get to know what it feels like you can play with out looking. Its all down to practise really. But it shouldnt take too long to learn.

I don't have any real experience on flute or violin but I would guess it's harder on the piano than those instruments (that is not to say that the other instruments are easier, just different in these respects). My reasoning: on the flute one doesn't have to move one's fingers laterally (I don't think, guessing from recorder playing) but just lift them up or down on the same keys so the fingers are always pretty much in the right place all of the time, so looking at them wouldn't help; on the violin even if one did look at one's fingers there's not really any marking that tells one where to put one's fingers so I don't think it would be as great a help as one might think (having said that if I do ever play the violin I look at my fingers ) also one has to learn to do it by feel on the violin to play pretty much.

On the piano, however, one has to move one's hands a greater distance than on any of these instruments and more frequently to different positions too: looking at one's hands is also a more easy temptation because the keys are all laid out. However, as Kenm pointed out in a post a while ago: to be a good sightreader one really needs to develop a good sense of keyboard geography because it's not possible to look at two lines of music and two hands at the same time!

Oh yeah, I didn't think of it like that

you CANT look at your hands when playing the sax. its not possible (when you are playing)

If I know a piece well then I don't really have much trouble playing without looking. I may get a few notes wrong but not many.

While trying to encourage an 8 year old piano pupil not to keep on looking down at his hands I got him to keep an eye on me during a church service to see how often I looked down.
He counted 5 times (11 hymns).

I probably had a few more quick looks which weren't noticable though .

if you are sight reading music you cant really look down at the same time in piano, but i tend to fail and look down when i know the piece...whoops

But when you know something well and don't need to keep your eyes constantly on the page you have to look somewhere.....
I think that most people will be looking down at the keyboard to some degree in this situation, especially if playing form memory.

true...sometimes looking at my hands puts me off and i forget what i'm doing! So i guess its good that we;re not meant to...

As a demonstration at a musical festival I once entered, the adjudicator propped the piano lid open with a match box and played the set piece to demonstrate that it wasn't necessary to look at one's hands all the times - he commented that many of the competitors, when performing, stared at their hands and not the music at all.

A lot of pianists who play on stage without the music just stare into space or close their eyes and look really funny...

I think thats partly why my sight-reading is so bad.

lol. Yeah, I was watching a piano concert and T.V. and the pianist looked so passionate just playing that she amde it look as if it hurt or something.

lol. Does he still do that?

I do that in my exams. When I make a mistake I sometimes for get what I'm playing and look at the music but it looks completely foreign beacsue I've learnt the music by memory, but not where certain sections are in relation to the music.

Work on this then: you seem fairly resigned that your sightreading is bad and always will be. Forget that idea and work on it, there's no secret to sightreading other than practise: practise lots for several years and you will get there and be a much better pianist for it .

In a piece I know well...I usually look at the music not my hands for some reason...my fingers jsut tend to move where they are supposed to go!

Sight-reading. Is it basically a technique where you can look at a note and know exactly wehre it is on the piano without a seconds thought like speaking a spanish sentence without having to say it in English then translate it before hand?

I can cope without looking at the piano. My only problem is when there are soooo many notes(especially chords) and when they are more than 2 ledger lines!

I have problems with this even when I look at the keys

You need to practice......play more pieces. When I was in Grade 6 my sight-reading was very bad and I had to look at keys. After Grade 6, I did this Michael Aaron book which was very helpful.And it's much easier to sight-read now.

I'll try it, thanks.

it does look really bad when you look down.....a lot of people who do look down a lot tend to bow their head.

My teacher keeps telling me if i really need to glance down to use my eyes not look with my head. apparently it makes the sound better

I glance down, i don't completely look down. It's herder to play, you have to maintain a straight back to play.

Voice!

Some instruments- I am thinking of wind and brass- have only one or a limited number of positions for each finger. Like the recorder where the finger can be covering the hole or not (or partially, but it is still only one hole)- no particular need to look for that. Others like the piano you can play middle C with any finger, but there are other patterns to the fingering. I think it is not so much a case of which instrument it is easiest on as some people are more alive to how their bodies feel and spatial awareness and others have to work harder to learn the spacings without looking. Also whether your teacher made you learn this or not.

As a pianist you miss out on orchestral rehearsals which are wonderful to watch how other instruments work.

I know, I wanted to, but they give you pathetic parts to play, so I didn't.

Hehe - I must say (without boasting, of course) that I have mastered the incredibly difficult skill of playing the flute without looking at my fingers! *applause*

woo! go you!
i have succesfuly learnt to do this on clarinet and guitar and stuff, but the piano?
i can do the right hand stuff, but i must keep my eyes close to the left, for fear it may stray!

If the Blindfolded Mario Pianist can do it, why can't you?

As for me I have no chance of playing ANYTHING blindfolded. I'm just not fully used to every single key on the piano, and when I have to guess I am a very bad guesser...

I have been playing the keyboard for about a term and a half now and after the fist couple i didn't look at my hands at all cos i quickly learnt where the notes were! and i also play the flute and i found that for the first few lessons i had 2 look at the flute before i stated playing 2 make sure that i'd got the fingering right but now i'm taking my grade 3 next week and can play beautifully without looking!

I play the piano. If i have mastered a song, i can play even without having a glimpse at the notes. I guess playing the guitar or the voilin will be much easier though i never play any of those instruments.....

I only look down at my hands if it's a piece that leaps everywhere or if I don't have any music to look at... I usually look down at my hands anyway. Especially my left hand.
For violin, I don't look unless I'm playing in the really high positions. With flute, I never look. You can't really...

When you play the organ you CAN'T look at the pedal board (mainly because there are three or four keyboards in the way!). That's fairly tricky, but you can get used to it!

If you watch a lot of rock guitarists they can play all their solos while doing mental stuff (ie. ruinning around like lunatics, or playing behind their back). That's quite impressive......