Product Description

Using an abundance of meticulously organized melodies drawn from the literature of composed music and a wide range of the world’s folk music, Ottman and Rogers provide the most engaging and comprehensive Sight Singing text on the market. Arranging its 21 chapters to study both pitch and rhythm, this book presents melodies and over 1200 exercises that enable readers to develop the skills of reading pitch, reading rhythm, and combining these two essential elements. The Seventh Edition contains 30% more rhythmic exercises and new structured improvisation exercises.  For professionals with a career in music, music education, and composition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #194286 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Spiral-bound
• 448 pages

From the Publisher
Ottman blends step-by-step guidance with frequent practice to cultivate an understanding of and the skills for sight singing--the ability to hear mentally a piece of printed music without using an instrument. The Fourth Edition provides a finely organized collection of melodies taken from music literature mostly ranging from fundamental works of the past to representative excerpts taken from recent twentieth-century music.

From the Back Cover

Key Benefit: Ottman blends step-by-step guidance with frequent practice to cultivate an understanding of and the skills for sight singing—the ability to hear mentally a piece of printed music without using an instrument. Key Topics: The Fourth Edition provides a finely organized collection of melodies ranging from fundamental works of the past to difficult excerpts taken from recent twentieth-century music.

About the Author

Robert W. Ottman, deceased, an internationally renowned music theorist, was an important contributor to Music Theory education. He wrote eight textbooks and co-authored four others, all which are used to educate English-speaking students worldwide. Dr. Ottman also was a professor and chair of the Music Theory Department at the University of North Texas and a conductor of the Madrigal Singers. He earned both his BA and MM from Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, NY, and his Ph.D. from what is now the University of North Texas in 1956. He was honored with the University of North Texas President's Citation for outstanding service to the university in April 2004. 

Nancy Rogers is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Florida State University and the current Secretary of the Society for Music Theory; she is also a Faculty Reader and Consultant for the Advanced Placement Test in Music Theory. She received her Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music, where she won both school-wide and university-wide teaching awards. Dr. Rogers' primary research interest is music cognition and its pedagogical implications, and she has presented papers at national, international, and regional conferences. Her recent publications may be found in Music Theory Online, the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and Indiana Theory Review.

Customer Reviews

An excellent resource for developing an essential musical skill
Typically, music students resist their music theory courses and enjoy the sight singing exercises associated with them even less. My experience as a student and as a teacher leads me to believe that this is usually because by the time the students first get around to learning this skill, they are already confident musicians on their instruments or have learned to sing some other way. To have to learn a new skill from scratch is disturbing and seems unnecessary to them. However, learning to sight sing brings many benefits.

Singing music helps one internalize the music more fully. One also develops a greater confidence with pitch than having it done in an instrument. It also helps one learn to sing through one's instrument - that is, to play even more musically. And by developing strategies to sing chromatic music, one has to think through the relationships within the piece. Once the skills are more fully developed, one can learn to come to terms with a new piece of music quite quickly. Therefore, one becomes not only more professional, the whole of one's musical experience deepens.

We used the second edition of Ottman's book when I was an undergrad in music in the late seventies and early eighties. This seventh edition is a much richer and more useable book. There are more than a thousand melodies, all nicely arranged to teach something specific. They are actual melodies from the literature rather than some abstract theoretical nothing. And there are lots of rhythmic exercises, so the student can gain skills in becoming more precise in rhythm and especially in rests (you know, letting the silence be silent). A new chapter with melodies from the 20th century is also a nice addition. The new edition also adds some exercises with structured improvisation for the student to experiment with his or her own melodies.

The spiral binding actually makes the book more durable and useable. It lays flat on your piano or music stand and the spine won't break and the pages won't be falling out. The print is crisp and clear which makes reading easy. This is important for a book you will be using in your theory courses for several terms.

Not only is this great for college students, I think high school and private music teachers would do well by their students to use this as part of their regular music lessons. Their students might fight it a bit (they always seem to), but they will become better musicians and more musical students if they develop the skill to sight sing.

Great educational material!
This is a wonderful compilation of singable melodies from the folk and art music repertoires. Singing these melodies is far more appealing than just reading through purely made up solfege excercises. Each chapter contains melodies which are progressively harder and will help you, with practice and patience, to become a good sight reader, a skill any choral singer, composer, and musician in general should have.

Excellent, but what's the real excuse for the high price?
I agree with the reviewer who highlights the usefulness of the Ottman text; the additions and improvements (such as adding contemporary melodies) are indeed welcome. That's five stars for the book. Four for the high price.

However, I also understand the other reviewer's complaint about the very high price, particularly in the case of this particular sight-singing text. College book stores are frequently asked why their textbooks cost so much, and their current excuse is that "since textbooks often come bundled with CD-ROMs and other extras"--that is why the high price.

THIS price is just for a spiral-bound, soft-cover book. "1000 melodies," perhaps, but in a sight-singing text like this one most of these are simple and short (less than a page each). There are none of the above-mentioned "extras" bundled with it. This book, though excellent, has ALWAYS been, in my opinion, OVERPRICED.

The publisher is interested in profits, THAT IS their business, and that goal is in itself is not necessarily bad, when pursued honestly. We sometimes are oblivious that THAT is the main reason that standard college textbooks are constantly being revised (read: slightly altered) every couple of years. Older editions of the same textbooks would be just as effective, for instructive purposes. But business is business.

Addendum: Making money, in itself, is not a sin. In fact, isn't that one of the main reasons most people attend college, so that that they can become more effective at "making money"? Music majors have to recognize this fact, that their art has a business side. A great book on that subject is Angela Beeching's "Beyond Talent: Create a Successful Career in Music."

Finally, check out the comments about the business of music and art, made by the fictitious composer Richard Halley in Ayn Rand's 1957 novel, "Atlas Shrugged."

--Majok