Sight-Singing: What Is It Good For, Absolutely Everything!


For decades, choral music teachers have recognized the


importance of teaching sight-singing and continue to use a variety of teaching methods as Kodaly, solfege syllables and Curwen hand signs, numbers, pitch names, and intervals to teach sight-singing to their choral ensembles. Teaching singers to sing from notation without hearing the music first remains a perennial challenge for choral music educators. Why is sight-singing important for choral ensembles? Sight-singing gives choral ensembles the opportunity to sing through choral selections with more musical independence. As the choral ensemble becomes more musically independent, choirs develop more confidence when sight-singing. By using sight-singing, how can choral ensembles improve their overall musicianship skills? Choral members improve overall musicianship skills through sight- singing with the ability to sing ascending and descending intervals correctly using solfege syllables. Sight-singing also provides choirs the opportunity to improve rhythmic patterns as well as melodic phrasing and dynamics. What are the methodologies being used to teach sight- singing? Are choral teachers only using sight-singing to improve state musical performance assessments?


Sight-singing is defined as the ability


to sing from notation without assistance of a musical instrument or without hearing the melody first. The ability to understand musical notation to sight-sing is a useful skill for choral musicians. Without this understanding, singers will be dependent on other singers or the choral teacher playing their respective part to learn the music. This phenomenon grew out of the idea for improving congregational singing in church music in hopes the overall singing would improve. In order to improve overall singing, choral members need to be made aware of the problem. Once the problem is established, a sight-singing teaching method is then put into place to assist the choral members in eliminating the problem. The teacher must show a visible enthusiasm for singing, for music, and for the people he or she is teaching in order to teach people how to sing.


Solfege Syllables and Curwen Hand Signs In 1841, John Curwen was commissioned to find the


simplest way to teach singing by note. This teaching method was used for choirs and in congregational hymn singing. His method evolved leading to publication in 1858 of The Standard Course of Lessons and Exercises in the Tonic Sol-Fa Method of Teaching Music (Curwen & Zinar, 1983). Through these lessons and exercises, Curwen employed the moveable “do” concept in conjunction with a system of hand signals to illustrate the scale degrees. The hand signals became known as the Curwen Hand Signs. These hand signals represent each syllable in the scale degree and the relationship each degree has to the tonic or home tone, “do”. Tapping into a


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Dr. Jeramy A. Nichols


student’s kinesthetic learning mode is an important pedagogical feature to Curwen hand signs (McClung, 2008). By using kinesthetic and visual models when learning pitch patterns, scale degrees, intervals, etc., students have the opportunity to reinforce their auditory skills. A study of trained high school students using solfege


syllables with Curwen hand signs and without Curwen hand signs was conducted by McClung (2008) at the University of North Texas. He selected a random group of trained high school students and had them sight-sing two melodies. His findings produced no statistical significance between using hand signs and not using hand signs. According to McClung and other researchers, movable solfege syllables (movable “do”) and movable pitch numbers (scale degree numbers) are the two dominant pitch systems used to sight-sing in American classrooms. Educators list the approaches they have used in teaching sight-singing: moveable “Do” with solfege, moveable


“Do” using numbers, fixed “Do” in addition with solfege, neutral syllables, letter names, and/or intervals. It is safe to say that the moveable “Do” with using solfege syllables is the most widely used teaching method for pitch accuracy. In addition to using solfege syllables and hand signs, teachers continue to explore different ways to use sight-singing to improve pitch accuracy for choral ensembles. Some of these ways has included the aspects of groups versus individual achievement, individual assessments, the use of tonal patterns, using pitch names versus solfege symbols, the pitches as they relate to the harmonics, and the use of visual-spatial representations as Curwen hand signs or similar actions. Interestingly, singers that have had instrumental experience tend to be better sight-singers than those singers who have had only a choral background. By using the above aspects of sight-singing and with some preparation prior to the performance, choral musicians have more opportunities to become a stronger sight-singer.


August/September 2017


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