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Argh sight-singing
Ok, tonight I finally had the epiphany about what makes sight-singing so hard for me. I mean, I've known I've been struggling with this for... ever? Ever since I actually learned how to read music in a systematic way and wrapped my head around intervals, at least. But it finally hit me:
Sheet music just doesn't encode intervals in a uniform way. In order to be able to sight sing, you just have to *know* if an interval is major or minor and the only way you know that is that you've (a) memorized what all the internal intervals within a scale are, (b) you can glance at the key signature and know what key you're in and if you're in major or minor. Without that separate memorization work you're SOL--the transmission system simply doesn't record that there is a difference in the distance between, say, a D and an E vs. between an E and an F.
(b) takes me probably a minute the first time I see a new piece for all but the most standard keys (I'm better at flat keys than sharp keys) while I work my way around the circle of fifths, look at the first and last triads of the piece to figure out if it's major or minor, etc. (a) I just don't have and so I spend 500 years calculating things out when I'm actually called upon to sight sing and things go painfully slowly. So I mostly learn by ear, and when I get stuck on hard bits I circle it and then come back and sit down and do the actual work of reading the music.
So, I have a question to those of you who are more functional site singers than I am. Is there a secret way to learn (a) that isn't one of the failed techniques of my past? Or do I just really have to sit down in earnest and do the hardcore memorization and quiz myself all the time if I'm ever going to be an acceptable sight-singer?
Also, how do you normally think of it? Do you say to yourself: "Ok, we're in F major, so that C is sol, and that E is ti, and the distance between sol and ti is always a major third, so this is a major third" Or do you say to yourself "Ok, I am imagining a keyboard and there are six half-steps between those notes, so this is totally a major third"? (This is what I do when I get stuck--you will often find little erased pictures of keyboards on my sheet music. Less often now than you used to because I've gotten lazier about sight-singing and have gone back to learning by ear.) Or do you do something else entirely?
Enquiring minds need to know. At least mine does, anyway.
ETA: Also, is there a BOOK that you recommend that will teach me these things? When I took music 101 there was a very excellent book we used in class, but we only got as far as music that contained Do, Mi, Sol and La by the end of the semester. I actually aced the sight singing part of the final on those grounds, but that amount of knowledge doesn't actually get you very far in the real world. I wish I knew what that book was, because it was excellent.
ETA 2: Do all of the people who can sight sing secretly play another instrument that gives them another mental schema for thinking about reading music. Is this THE SECRET WAY TO LEARN? Apparently as my speculating on this subject goes on it gets less rational, since I am now starting to think of people who play instruments that aren't the voice as DIRTY CHEATERS AT MUSIC READING.
Sheet music just doesn't encode intervals in a uniform way. In order to be able to sight sing, you just have to *know* if an interval is major or minor and the only way you know that is that you've (a) memorized what all the internal intervals within a scale are, (b) you can glance at the key signature and know what key you're in and if you're in major or minor. Without that separate memorization work you're SOL--the transmission system simply doesn't record that there is a difference in the distance between, say, a D and an E vs. between an E and an F.
(b) takes me probably a minute the first time I see a new piece for all but the most standard keys (I'm better at flat keys than sharp keys) while I work my way around the circle of fifths, look at the first and last triads of the piece to figure out if it's major or minor, etc. (a) I just don't have and so I spend 500 years calculating things out when I'm actually called upon to sight sing and things go painfully slowly. So I mostly learn by ear, and when I get stuck on hard bits I circle it and then come back and sit down and do the actual work of reading the music.
So, I have a question to those of you who are more functional site singers than I am. Is there a secret way to learn (a) that isn't one of the failed techniques of my past? Or do I just really have to sit down in earnest and do the hardcore memorization and quiz myself all the time if I'm ever going to be an acceptable sight-singer?
Also, how do you normally think of it? Do you say to yourself: "Ok, we're in F major, so that C is sol, and that E is ti, and the distance between sol and ti is always a major third, so this is a major third" Or do you say to yourself "Ok, I am imagining a keyboard and there are six half-steps between those notes, so this is totally a major third"? (This is what I do when I get stuck--you will often find little erased pictures of keyboards on my sheet music. Less often now than you used to because I've gotten lazier about sight-singing and have gone back to learning by ear.) Or do you do something else entirely?
Enquiring minds need to know. At least mine does, anyway.
ETA: Also, is there a BOOK that you recommend that will teach me these things? When I took music 101 there was a very excellent book we used in class, but we only got as far as music that contained Do, Mi, Sol and La by the end of the semester. I actually aced the sight singing part of the final on those grounds, but that amount of knowledge doesn't actually get you very far in the real world. I wish I knew what that book was, because it was excellent.
ETA 2: Do all of the people who can sight sing secretly play another instrument that gives them another mental schema for thinking about reading music. Is this THE SECRET WAY TO LEARN? Apparently as my speculating on this subject goes on it gets less rational, since I am now starting to think of people who play instruments that aren't the voice as DIRTY CHEATERS AT MUSIC READING.
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Um, that pretty much hits the nail on the head as far as what I was going to say. When I sight-sing in treble clef, I have the fingers of my left hand tapping against my leg as if it were a violin-- I haven't played violin in years, but if I tap the fingerings I can hear the intervals. If it's in bass or tenor clef I use bassoon fingerings, which I still do play. I only run into trouble if it's in alto clef, even though I played viola for a while, because I always thought of alto clef only in relation to treble.
But having said that, there are other ways! In my solfege class, whenever we get a new melody to sight-sing, we're not allowed to start until we've sung an arpeggio in the home key, as well as identifying the highest and lowest notes and singing arpeggios up and down to those, and identifying which intervals are going to give us trouble once we get to them. Which maybe is cheating a little bit, but even just singing an arpeggio before you start will help.
I had never used the solfege system before I got to university, and now that I'm here we use fixed do (which I do not understand the usefulness of! If do is always C, why not just call it C?!?!? Ugh, whatever.) So instead of thinking "Ok, we're in F major, so that C is sol", I think "We're in F major so remember to always sing B-flat." So, yes, you probably just want to memorize the keys... which even that is easier for me because I can relate it to an instrument, because for me the sharp keys are like the strings of a string instrument-- the lowest sting on the viola is C, which is no sharps; the next G, which is one, the next D, two, then A, three, the highest string on the violin is E, four, if you play a fifth up from that it's B, five, etc. I don't know if you know the trick for flat keys-- the key signature is always the second-last flat.
The book I have is called "Music for Sight Singing" by Robert W. Ottman and Nancy Rogers. I'm not sure how exactly to judge its helpfulness... it's mostly just progressively more difficult melodies and rhythms to practice.
ETA: Don't take this to be me saying "you will never be able to sing if you don't play an instrument first!", though. I know I rely on my instruments way more than most people do, both because I've played an instrument in every clef and because I have way less actual theory training than most music majors have at my age-- basically I never did theory before university, so I use my mental constructions of instruments as a crutch. So don't get discouraged! You probably just need advice from a non-instrumentalist :/
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On the basis of your comment and
Fixed solfege does seem to be a really odd concept for memorizing scales, because it's not like you're saying Ti-flat when you're in F major. That seems like it would take away from the normal benefits of solfege.
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Auurrggh I HAD a version of Cancer which was almost done, but I hardly ever keep anything on my computer so when I installed a new OS I gave about three seconds thought to what I needed to save and completely forgot about it. I'm planning on redoing it at some point, though, because sextets with myself are fun. So I'll post it when I do!
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I would love to hear your version of Cancer so much--I hope that re-recording it works out for you. A sextet with yourself sounds like awesome levels of fun. And I bet you don't have scary eyes like the people in Pomplamoose.
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I rarely use solfege, didn't learn any more of it than that song from The Sound of Music until college. But you're right, we're dirty cheaters. I compulsively play or sing the scale of the song before starting to sight-read or sight-sing it, in order to get the notes that fit that tonality to stick firmly in my head before attempting. I do this even with a piano in front of me-- makes it easier for me to remember what's sharp or flat without having to glance back at the key signature as I play or sing. There are other methods, but I just play or sing a scale first. And I do early music where there's higher predictability and not so many sharps and flats as there are, in, say, the score to Wicked Part of my method is sticking to my strong suits and avoiding the hard stuff! :)
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