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: #22277 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

Music for Sight Singing
I never recieved my book and Amazon still has not refunded me for cancelled orders. I am extremely dissatisfied and will not use Amazon in the future.

Lots of great melodies....
...but it doesn't make any sense to pay so much money for a bunch of melodies that ottman didn't even write!

Unfamiliar Melodies
Students don't like to practice the material out of this book because they often find it boring and difficult. There are many more beautiful and efficient ways to hone ones aural skills. The main thing is to practice, but if the material is a turn off practicing is unlikely.

An article out of the Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 206-217 by Michele L. Henry titled The Use of Targeted Pitch Skills for Sight-Singing Instruction in the Choral Rehearsal states there is no significant difference between singers taught targeted pitch skills with unfamiliar melodies and singers taught targeted pitch skills with familiar songs.

Henry's article combined with the boredom brought on by the abstractness of Ottman's book makes me believe training with familiar music is more effective. Maybe something like the Classical Fake Book published by Hal Leonard would not only help the music student with aural skills, but would also familiarize the student with the serious repertoire. Maybe tv themes, hits, anything one likes that they can get sheet music for is better than not practicing at all which is far too common with Ottman's book.

Ottman's book is repackaged in a nice shiny overpriced 7th edition, but other than moving things around the material is unchanged. All new approaches like that in the book Progressive Sight Singing by Carol Krueger should be explored. The bulkiness of the book may also make students turn away from it. It's not one specific melody in the text that is boring. It's that if a teachers requires students to take it upon themselves to get something out of it with very little structure and specific spoon fed guidance they wont. That is unless they are so advanced they can already sight read almost every melody in the book, but then why get it at all.