Score reading is a part of training for piano playing skill acquisition. When provided with a score, a piano player is able to mentally simulate how to play it with the piano by just reading the score without actually playing the piano. To date, it has not been clearly understood how piano players visually scan the scores while mentally simulating playing the score with the piano, and how visual scanning patterns, or strategies, would change depending on the difficulty level of the scores for individual piano players. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for visualizing score reading strategies and discover differences between the strategy that is applied when the score is easy for the piano player and the one when it is difficult. Eye tracking experiments were conducted for nine participants, one skilled piano player and eight non-skilled piano players, using scores with six different levels of difficulty. The results showed a strategy for reading easy scores and another for reading difficult scores; the former is characterized by smooth horizontal scanning suggesting relatively large reading span, on the other hand, the latter is characterized by frequent vertical scanning.
