h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was thinking about the argued question of whether to read the music you are playing, or play from memory/by ear/imagination and it occurred to me that music is a lot like cooking in that when you don't know the recipe well, it helps to follow it in writing.

So most of the time, if you can boil water without a recipe, you can play a tune without the score

Hello Kitty. I know that people have very habitual attitudes to reading; I feel myself that once the score has nothing more to tell you you should stop looking at it. A lot of people simply don't know where else to look. In this connection I like to quote Couperin who said "Look at your audience, as though you were occupied with nothing else".

The only attempt at a counter-argument that I have seen is from a pianinst who remarked that a certain string of minim chords (in a Beethoven sonata? can't remember) had a wonderfully calming look to them, or something like that.