Tuesday 15 September 2009

Learning to be Musically Literate

By Victor King

There are not many online lessons on how to sight read music. Have you found any? The ones that are there usually try the subject logic approach. Do you know the difference between the subject logic approach and the developmental / sequential approach? It is as if no one even knows about how to teach developmentally or sequentially.

What we need is for someone not just to tell us how but instead, we need someone who is going to teach us how by doing it with us. We need someone who can break each step down into small achievable goals. If we could hear examples and sing with the example then we could learn.

Do you know how to sing the melody? What about a harmony part like alto, tenor or bass? Good vocal training is training that helps us to be able to read the music so we can sing a part other than the melody. Amazingly enough, in order for one to sing intervals accurately, one must hear harmonically, but this does not mean that we need to practice dry interval dictation. Interval learning can be fun!

Choral parts practice will go much faster when we the choir members can actually sight sing our parts without having to have it played for us on the piano. Maybe we could eliminate sectionals altogether. Do you think that would save time?

It may save some time if the choir director sang it for the choir since a voice is better support for the voice than a piano. Even so, if all could sight sing, even that would not be needed. In one sense, the piano is quicker but in reality, it is much slower than if everyone knew how to sing on sight.

If we are going to learn, then we have to set aside a time each day to discover something new about music and to review previous musical elements. What we need is someone that teaches in the lesson and not one that says, "Take it home and learn it." Each lesson should build on the preceding one.

As soon as it is time to learn a new musical component, we can return to previously learned songs or learn new songs. We all will learn to sing in a similar way that we learned to talk. Concisely, the entire process is to hear first, then sing, then comprehend, then read, then write and finally create!

I hope no one has ever told you that you cannot sing, because it just is not true. I hope the choir leader has never asked you to stop sing. How could they know more than God, who commands us to sing! It really is just a matter of learning to control our own spirit and voice.

Learning to sight sing is for everyone. Online sight singing lessons are possible and you can learn to sing over the internet. How significant is music to you? If you are a teacher who wants to teach music successfully - you can! If you are a student who wants to learn music to sight sing, be musically literate and sing beautifully - you can. Do not let anyone tell you different.

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