I did a piece with my wind band at school in a concert a few weeks ago and i had been used to playing on an up right,as i had not memorised the piece i was constantly looking at the music then my hands.I lost my place because of that and that was a result of the music stand being too high.Do you find the same problem as the uprights tend to have their music nearer the keyboard?

they are but you can adjust the music stands for grand pianos

How ?

Friend of mine's piano pupils also had trouble when taking an exam on a grand, after practising on an electric piano. In fact my friend found it quite strange when he was accompanying for my exam! All pianos are different - that's one disadvantage of being a pianist, you can't take the piano you're used to with you - usually!

Played for a funeral yesteday .... the organ music stand was so high and far away I needed binoculars to see the book!!

That's the thing I find really difficult playing different pianos - not only are the music stands at different heights, but the tone sounds so different. I played in the North West Forum Users Concert last week- - I practised on the day on a rickety old piano in a back room, which I soon got used to - but so lost it when I came to perform on the better piano used for the concert (apart from following Yet Anotherpianist, who was a class act to follow).

Perhaps I'll take up keyboard - you can carry that with you!

Some days I need binocs anyway and better go to bed or tomorrow will be one of them!

*note to self - ask not to have to follow YAP at all closely in any forum concert...* I know he's a pianist but... I still don't want to get shown up!

I used to have this problem. With and upright, it is much easier to retain eye contact with the keys and music at the same time.

However since I have owned a grand piano, I find that I am used to the wider gap between keys and music.

When we are not playing from memory, we tend to look at the keys more than we need to, generally speaking.

The only answer is to try to get access to a grand piano for regular practice.

I see reference to an electric piano here. Usually with those, the music is positioned right above the keys. Another reason why I think that the electric piano is a poor substitute for a proper acoustic piano.

My teacher got a grand piano just before the summer holidays so I only had the pleasure of playing on it once before the end of term but I had exactly the same problem with the height of the music. It felt really weird having to look up at the music rather than it being in front of me. I didn't realise that I'm not the only person to find this awkward. I hope the problem will become less the more lessons I have playing it.