music guide article

Introduction

I’ve trawled the internet for tips on sight-singing and this is what I’ve come up with. The one cardinal rule which appears to come through loud and strong is that nothing can replace practice and “having a go”. I’ve split the advice up into different sections but the advice should be taken as a whole.

Andy Miller

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Main Advice

• HAVE A GO!
• Keep up with the beat
• Don’t dwell on errors – there will be errors but deal with them later
• Don’t wait for others – make your own mistakes rather than repeating the mistakes of others
• Find help from the music – starting notes, repeated notes etc.
• KEEP AT IT! – You WILL improve

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Getting Started

A good start can go an awful long way to improving your sight singing and your confidence in your abilities to sight read music.

Find out where in the accompaniment you get the first note from

Get help from wherever you can get it! A great source of this help is any music which is played / sung before your entry.

Have a quick scan of the music to see if your starting note appears anywhere in there – I always circle a few of them.

For an example let’s look at the start of the singing in Schubert’s Panis Angelicus together with the last two bars of music.

The Normal Score

This is what you’ve got to work with – are there any “clues” to your starting notes in the two bars of organ which are playing before you sing?

(Hint – yes there are!)

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Starting Notes for Sopranos and Altos

Firstly the sopranos and altos should note that they should be starting on the same note (although and octave apart) – the easiest notes to “hear” will be those in the bass clef rather than the one “hidden” in the chords of the treble clef.

Starting Notes for Tenors

Like the sopranos and altos it is easier to “hear” your notes when they are not part of a chord so listen to the “tune” in the bass clef (the fourth note is your starting note)

Starting Notes for Basses

Like the sopranos and altos it is easier to “hear” your notes when they are not part of a chord so listen to the “tune” in the bass clef (the first, fifth and end notes are your starting note)

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On which beat of the bar do you start?

There are few things more embarrassing (and damaging to your confidence) than coming in on your own when the rest of the choir should be singing with you. If you start wrong then sight singing becomes incredibly difficult. What you must not do is wait for the person next to you to start singing as you will immediately be behind and it will be very difficult to catch up again (the person next to you might well be waiting for you to start singing – if this is the case then be prepared for chaos and for the above music to sound like “P p p p p p pan n n n nis s s an n n n ng g g g gel l l l lic c c c c cus s s s s s”).

For this reason it is worth looking at what beat in the bar you come in on – I often write it in. If you start half way through a beat use “1 & 2 & 3” etc to split a “1 2 3” bar into half notes. The music to the left is Durufle’s “Tu Es Petrus” and it depends really heavily on all the different parts coming in confidently at the right time – get this start wrong and you can wave goodbye to the whole piece. As it is in 2/4 time we will be counting two crotchets in each bar – the conductor will indicate how fast these beats will be. First in are the tenors on the second beat of the first bar (in other words “one, sing”) followed by the basses (“one, two, sing”). The first ladies in are the altos on the second beat of the second bar (“one, two, one, sing”) and the rear is bought up by the sopranos (one, two, one, two, sing)

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Keeping Going

	The most important piece of advice is to keep going – if you make an error, forget it and carry on, do not stop and have a post mortem over every wrong note. Be confident (even if you don’t feel it) as you will find that the more you do sight singing the easier it will be – the first time you try you may get 10% of the notes right, next time it may be 20%. Do not get disheartened, you will get better! There are only so many notes that we have to make a piece of music out of and there are often patterns in the music which you can see and use to help you sight sing. Let’s look once again at Durufle’s “Tu Es Petrus” which at first looks (and sounds) more than a bit complicated. Don’t get overawed by any piece of music – break it down into its parts and it becomes a lot less daunting. Although the following advice sounds like a whole evening of homework the more you use the “rules” the easier it will get until it all becomes automatic
Look for a note you “know” Scan the music for a note with which you are comfortable with – I often use the first note I sing. Scan ahead and see where it turns up through the piece. This will give you a very solid point of reference and also give you a “pick-up” point if you make a complete mess of a section. If this happens just join in a bar or so later on your reference note. This will help you carry on instead of getting hopelessly lost when you make an error. Remember that everybody makes errors when sight singing – the important bit is to try and keep these errors to a minimum.
	Looking for notes to “return to” Moving off a note can often be scary as you introduce the uncertaincy of whether you are going to get the new note correct or not. You can help yourself a lot if you can recognise the note you’ve just left so that you can then return to it – that makes the pressure of getting the changed note wrong much less as you have an “anchor”. Reading ahead of the music you can spot these easily. As you gain confidence you can spot these return notes over four or five note phrases. Incidentally it never hurts to read ahead when sight singing – you get much fewer surprises that way.
Look for repeating phrases Repeated phrases can be as small as two notes or as large as several pages of music – either way if you can recognise them you can sing them more confidently the second or third time around as you get “more bites of the cherry”. Usually repeated phrases are all over a piece of music, sometimes, when you get more confident at spotting them, you can see that your part is a repeat of a phrase sung by another section of the choir – this is even better – let somebody else do the hard work before you have a go yourself! This will also keep you in touch with what the other sections of the choir are singing and make singing as a choir rather than four separate parts.

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General Advice

Get Rhythm!

Have a look at the meter and tempo – if you can feel the “beat” and the speed that beat is going (general hint: look at the conductor – he/she is there to tell you how fast/slow the music is going by conducting the beat).

If you get the chance “talk through” the rhythm of the words to the music before you start singing it. For an example if you have a look at the last piece of music above you can see that the soprano line can be talked through as “Tu-u e-es Pe-trus, tu-u e-es Pe-trus” (the beat is underlined) while the alto talk-through sounds like “Tu-u e-es Pe-tru-us, tu-u e-e-es Pe-e-e-e-e-e”

If you stick rigidly to the tempo and beat, no matter what sort of mess the middle will be, you will start and finish at the right time (and hopefully with everybody else).

Another good tip is to clap through the rhythm before all those annoying words get in the way.

Move On!

Don’t stop and correct your errors – you made an error, so what? Just make a mental note and deal with it next time.

What is more important all the time when you are sight singing is what is coming up, not what has (or has not) just happened. Reading ahead all the time in the music while you are singing can help you greatly with this.

If you see a difficult bit coming up don’t worry. Grit your teeth, take a deep breath and give it your best shot – it may be horrific but most of the time you will pleasantly surprise yourself of how much of it you’ll get right.

Look Out for Traps

Scan ahead while you are singing, or have a look at the piece before you start and look for any pitfalls or traps – look for things like:

• first and second time repeat bars and coda bars – if the music jumps around the page make sure that you are one jump ahead.
• changes in key and time signatures (if you suddenly find yourself singing out of time or with very peculiar harmonies then you’ve probably missed one of these)
• dynamic changes (especially sudden loud or soft sections – saves a lot of embarrassment)

Don’t Follow the Herd

If you wait for your neighbour to get the note you will be late and the whole piece will gradually grind to a halt so be bold – make your own mistakes, not somebody else’s! Keep up with the beat.

If you start tripping over the words then revert to the time-tested “la” or “dum” but try to get back onto the words as soon as you can – you’ll have to sing them in the performance so you might as well get to grips with them as soon as possible.