Why do we, choral music educators, teach sight-singing to


our choral ensembles? We want to instill and equip our choral singers with independent musicianship skills in hopes of developing musical literacy. With proper and consistent implementation of sight-singing in the choral music classroom, choral students are given the opportunity to become stronger sight-singers, choral musicians, and can promote musical literacy. Johnson’s (1987) survey of choral directors from the North Central region of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) revealed there needs to be an emphasis on music literacy, but little time is dedicated to sight- singing in ensembles. Although sight-singing is important, giving rehearsal time to it is a different matter. With concerts, special performances, and musical assessments throughout the year, giving rehearsal time to focus on sight-singing could take away from learning repertoire. However, choral teachers find a variety of ways to incorporate sight-singing into the rehearsal. One way choral teachers incorporate sight-singing into the rehearsal is to use a portion of the warm-up to sight-singing. After singing ascending and descending patterns, a diction exercise, and a chordal pattern, choral teachers can use the next portion of the warm-up to sight-sing. As all choral teachers know, the use of warm-ups are to help vocalize the choir prior to a rehearsal and/or performance. As part of the warm-ups, choral teachers teach ascending and descending patterns. Choral teachers also use solfege syllables in those patterns. Often, there is a short exercise that is made up of solfege syllables and with numbers such as:


do, do re do, do re mi re do, do re mi fa mi re do, do re mi fa sol fa mi re do, do re mi fa sol la sol fa mi re do, do re mi fa sol la ti la sol fa mi re do, do re mi fa sol la ti do ti la sol fa mi re do


1, 121, 12321, 1234321, 123454321, 12345654321, 1234567654321, 123456787654321


By using these short vocal exercises, choral teachers are able to teach musicianship skills of solfege, intervals, and eight-note scale patterns. The vocal exercises can also be used in a round setting. When sung in a round, the vocal exercise teaches listening skills, independent singing, and tuning to assist in pitch accuracy.


Pitch Accuracy Choral teachers continue to use a variety of techniques to


assist with vocal pitch accuracy. One vocal technique used to assist in pitch accuracy is choral members singing unifying vowel sounds by using unifying vowel shapes. By having a more unified sound and shape of the mouth and lips, choral singers can have better pitch accuracy. As long as the singers are demonstrating “pure” vowel shapes with a unified sound, the choir has a higher chance of having better pitch accuracy. Another technique used is the dropped jaw. By dropping the jaw, this creates space inside of the mouth. Space inside of the mouth helps with the resonance of the sound; which in return supports the vowel shape. Unifying vowel shapes and dropping the jaw both assist in pitch accuracy. When sight-singing, pitch accuracy is very important. It allows the singers to sing through a melody with ease. As choral singers sing through melodies with ease, the singers continue to build confidence. In addition to dropping the jaw and unified vowel shapes, choral teachers often demonstrate the pitch by an echo-sing or playing the pitch on a piano. This helps the choral members to hear the pitch to internalize or audiate before singing the pitch. Although, this technique can be a controversial topic among choral music educators. It becomes an argument of teaching by rote. Teaching by rote is singing or playing


ala breve


the respective part and having the choir sing the part back until the melody is learned. However, there are times in a rehearsal when it is necessary for the choral teacher to demonstrate a respective voice part by either singing or playing the part on the piano. Choral teachers are demonstrating phrasing, dynamics, style, etc. for choral singers to understand their part in reference to the piece of music. So, therefore, it may not be considered as teaching a piece of music by rote, but instead using correct vocal technique and proper vocal demonstrations to assist the choral singers with the respective vocal parts and the choir as a whole.


Sight-Singing Trends in Texas, Michigan, and Florida It is with no doubt that sight-singing is an important part


of choral music education and that choral music educators use a variety of method books, vocal excerpts, and rhythmic exercises to teach sight-singing. Texas choral educators (80%) reported that they provide sight-singing instruction at least four days a week; Florida choral educators (22%) allow an average of 14.3 minutes to have opening activities centered around sight-singing; and 97% of those choral educators were convinced that sight-singing resulted in the ability to read music faster (Norris, 2004). However, and since sight- singing is a requirement in state musical assessments, these percentages might be influenced by those state musical assessment requirements.


At the expense of developing sight-singing and enhancing


overall musicianship skills, choral music educators are often criticized for rote teaching and placing emphasis on performance aspects. As a part of state musical assessments and competitions, sight-singing is required of all choirs. Choirs receive a participation and sight-singing rating which determines the overall rating of the choir. Choral educators (86%) surveyed from Texas reported rehearsing sight- singing more than 25 weeks of the regular school year while 80% rehearse four to five days a week and 78% practice sight-singing between six and fifteen minutes a day (Demorest & May, 1995).


The Michigan State Adjudicated Choral Festivals require


choirs to sight-sing three eight-measure melodies within a twenty- minute time frame as part of the adjudication. The choral directors select the grade level for their groups and each group can be adjudicated for a rating or just comments. If the initial sight-reading is unsuccessful, a second attempt may be allowed and taken into consideration in the final rating (Stegman, 2009). The Florida Musical Performance Assessment (MPA) requires each choir to perform one rhythmic exercise and one melodic exercise for the examples provided. Just as in Michigan, choral teachers are able to choose the appropriate exercises for their choir. Surveys have shown that Florida middle school choral teachers are teaching sight-singing by using sight-singing methods and elements of melody and rhythm, whether the piano is being used, and if they taught aural skills and staff notation. Results have shown that choral teachers use solfege syllables or Kodaly hand signs, rhythm syllables, physical movement, and movable “Do” during warm-ups. In addition, choral teachers use current concert literature, self-composed rhythm, and melody examples.


Surveyed Florida participants used choral textbooks that


included sight-singing, rhythm, and melody exercises. In addition, other Florida choral teachers used published method books like The Sight Singer, Melodia, Successful Sight Singing, and The Jenson Sight-Singing Course (Kuehne, 2007). However, there were a small portion of choral teachers who used a technological based program through


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