Ferreira Coelho 1 Barbara Ferreira Coelho COM 111 Ashley Telman 11/07/13 I pledge that this paper was

written without any unauthorized assistance and neither stole nor cheated during the writing process.

Sight singing: how to sing a song just by reading the music sheet
Sight singing is an important technique used by singers, primarily opera singers or choir singers. This technique consists of singing a song without knowing the melody at first, what is, to sing a song just by reading the music sheet. To sing by sight, singers have to learn a new language, or code, the music code. In music there are many symbols that can represent rhythm, tonality, volume, the duration of a sound, tempo (rate of speed) which shows how fast the song has to be performed, etc. It is difficult to say exactly when it started, but Steven M. Demorest says in his article Choral Sight -Singing Practices: Revisiting a Web-Based Survey that Since the early 1700s American choral directors have explored the most effective methods for teaching sight-singing. (3) Learning this technique is very important for singers, so that they can improve their performance in singing, as said by Berkowitz, Fontrier and Kraft in their book A New Approach to Sight Singing: Before singing a melody it is necessary to understand thoroughly the system of music we use today. The five-line staff with the clef signs, time

Ferreira Coelho 2 signatures, tempo indications, and expression markings constitute a musical code, all the elements of which must be decoded simultaneously in order to transform what has been set down on paper into music. (1) This is an essential skill for people who sing in choir or opera singers, as Berkowitz, Fontrier and Kraft said: a mastery of sight singing is essential to the performer, the scholar, the composer, the teacher, to any musician or intelligent amateur (ix). This technique can lead singers to independence: the singers do not need anybody to teach them the melody; they are able to know it just by reading the sheet. This leads to efficiency in choir practice, since nobody has to know the song previously, but can figure out how to sing it just by reading the sheet. Also, when a person learns to sing by sight, she/he develops her/his hearing and the ability to determine the tonality of a song as well, in short, his/her musical skills are improved. A singer who does not know read a music sheet is like a reader who has to spell the words firstly and the speak them. (Giddings 2). With these examples it is easy to see how important sing at sight is for singers. Besides being an essential technique, sight singing also brings mental benefits for singers. Music is based on a code, and to sing just by looking at a music sheet, you have to learn how to do it, you have to learn a new code, which keeps the mind active. A person who can read a sheet fluently is actually decoding at a subconscious level (Crowell 18). For example, Crowell says: Sight singing is at first and foremost a method of training your brain to understand relationships between musical notes (). For example, a jazz musician improvising a solo on the saxophone needs to be able to imagine a

Ferreira Coelho 3 melody, and understand the relationship between the imagined pitches so as to be able to translate them into fingerings. (17). Learning sight singing can help people learn a new language, for example. Stansell says in his article that: Melodic recognition, contour processing, timbre discrimination, rhythm, tonality, prediction, and perception of the sight, sound, and form of symbols in context are required in both music and language. (3) To sing by just reading the sheet, after learning how to do it, the singers have to practice it. This skill can only be achieved when you practice it constantly (Berkowitz, Fontrier and Kraft xi). It requires a lot of training and dedication; it is like learning a new language. For example, to achieve excellence in sight singing, a person should spend time on it, so that he/she would not forget what he/she learned before. As in language learning, he/she always has to be in contact with music. As said previously, music is a based on a code, therefore, to learn music a person has to learn to decode this code. First of all, he/she has to know the musical symbols, what they represent in music. Second, a person has to be able to use a symbol correctly, for example, Berkowitz, Fontrier and Kraft say: The eye should be trained to observe them; the mind to implement them. (2). To develop this skill of reading music, a lot of practice is necessary, there is no other way of achieve this goal. Once a person learns to decode a musical code, he/she is able to proceed to the next step: singing. There are some techniques to teach sing at sight, but there is no single best way to do it (Demorest 36). All of them have strengths and weaknesses, the music teacher should choose the method that best fits his student. The two best known methods are: the movable do, and the fixed do. Before talking about these methods, it is

Ferreira Coelho 4 important to give some musical background. In music there are seven notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, or Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, when using solfeggio syllables. These seven notes are in sequence, the lowest note is C, and the highest note is B. One of the methods used is the fixed Do. In this method, Do always represents C, which means that a person will sing the syllable Do only if the tonality of the note is C. That is to say that Do will always represents C, Re will always represents D and so on. Another method is movable Do, as its name shows, in this method Do can represent anyone of the notes (C, D, E, F, G, A, B), regardless of the tonality of the note. For example, a person can sing the seven notes in sequence, but starting by the note G, and in the movable Do method, in this case, Do will represent G, Re will represent A and so on. There are other methods, for example, you can sing number instead of the syllables or singing pitch letter names (A, B, C) or singing the pitches on a neutral syllable, for instance la. (Floyd). Sight singing is really important for singers, as we can see, and besides being important, also can bring some benefits for the singers. However it is a difficult skill to be developed, it requires commitment, dedication and discipline from the singers. To improve it, is necessary to practice, to be in constant contact with music. It is also necessary to study it to learn the code, so that the person can decode it. But it is possible to do, and very useful for singers.

Ferreira Coelho 5 Works Cited Berkowitz, Sol, Gabriel Fontrier, and Leo Kraft. A New Approach to Sight Singing. New York. W. W. Norton. 1997. Print Crowell, Benjamin. Eyes and Ears: An Anthology of Melodies for Sight Singing. 2004 Demorest, Steven M. Building Choral Excellence: Teaching Sight-Singing in the Choral Rehearsal. New York. Oxford University Press. 2001. Print Floyd, Eva, and Kelly D. Bradley. Teaching Strategies Related To Successful SightSinging In Kentucky Choral Ensembles. UPDATE: Applications Of Research In Music Education 25.1 (2006): 70-81. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2013. Giddings, Thaddeus Philander. School Music Teaching: for Superintendents, Music Supervisors, and Grade Teachers. Chicago. C. H. Congdon. 1910. Print Stansell, Jon Weatherford. The Use of Music for Learning Languages: A Review of the Literature. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. September 2005. Web. November 2013.