Product Description

Many voice students are incorrectly taught to sight-sing by memorizing the sounds of intervals. This book is for you if you'd like to be able to look at any melody and instantly know how it sounds. It will show you how to memorize the sound of each scale degree in both major and minor keys, sing chromatic tones, and much more. Packed with tips and tricks, this new book is essential for every vocalist.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #376623 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Customer Reviews

Sight-Sing Any Melody Instantly??
The title of this book promises to teach you to "Sight-Sing Any Melody Instantly". A more appropriate title would have been: "An Introduction to Sight-Singing".
The author rejects the 'interval method' as "flawed" - he says it "doesn't work". Yes, it is true that this time-honoured method has its limitations, but so has the method ("trick") that the author advocates. In fact the author writes "as you become more proficient in sight-singing, you'll gradually memorize the sounds of the various scale degrees and thus be able to sing pitches automatically; that is, you won't actually have to go through the ordeal of pretending you're going to sing a famous song for every note you see." Towards the end of the book the author concedes that "although in general I strongly oppose the use of intervals in sight-singing ... sometimes they are indeed the best (or only) choice." The author then provides a very brief description of how you can learn intervals and includes an appendix listing and describing them. The author also uses another time-honoured method to learn how to sing at sight - memorising the relationships the various scale degrees have to each other in major and in minor keys, eg memorising what degrees 1, 3, 5 sound like across major keys.
The main shortcoming of the book (a thin book) is that there are not nearly enough practise exercises to be able to "sight-sing any melody instantly". And, the exercises that are provided do not include markings to indicate tempi, dynamics, articulations or phrases (these are all part of singing a melody). Also, the author writes that the "exercises presented here contain no difficult or tricky rhythms ... I wrote all the examples in common keys only ... and in the treble clef only." Finally, the author seems to imply (at least at the start of the book) that you can learn to sing at sight without using an instrument. I would strongly recommend an (inexpensive) electronic keyboard so that you can check the accuracy of the pitches you sing (not necessarily for every note or exercise).
The 'trick' the author describes is one way to begin the journey and it is a useful strategy to sing the first note of an unseen song (when there is no accompaniment or pitch pipe). Personally I found the general approach adopted by other sight singing books to be quicker and easier, ie going straight to learning the relationships the tones have to each other in different keys (the author's second method). To memorise scale degree relationships, to sing challenging rhythms, phrases, staccatos, crescendos etc requires consistent practice with a LOT of carefully graded unseen material. For most of us there is no short cut to acquiring the skill of sight-singing "any melody instantly".

What no CD??
Ok, the book itself is good, however without a cd its almosy useless! You learn by doing and hearing. So, without an example how can you be sure you are understanding the examples correctly???? Ok well you can not, I have played and taught for 27 years and u need it all not just a book! So if you really need, or want to understand this you will not to well without a teacher, or an example cd... got it?? ok....

Ummh! ..the well known song thing again ?
I just got this today - I,m giving it four stars on the basis that many other people have given it 5, - minus 1 star for my reservations about this method and as a result whether I am actually going to use it. The core of this method involves the use of 'famous' tunes (the first recommended one of which i had never heard of ever in my life! - possibly a US and not a UK thing).. you learn to identify the scale degree of the note(s) you are just about to sing (eg. if you are in C major and you have an E then this is the major third - C,D,E) then refer to a mental inventory of famous songs you have identified as having this scale degree as the first note eg. three blind mice has the major third as the first note. Apparently as you progress this process of calling up songs becomes increasingly automatic and unconscious until (hopefully) ultimately you become entirely unconscious of the mental mechanics going into singing the note or in fact the song business totally sidestepped by your mind/brain since it no longer needs it. The problem with this to me would seem to be the risk that this process does not in fact become totally unconscious and that one becomes 'contaminated' with unwanted song associations (likely trivial ditties such as Three Blind Mice) jumping into your mind however fleetingly every time you see or hear a particular note. As I say i only just got this and this fear could be completely unfounded but do I want to run the risk ! Another highly regarded method, Bruce Arnold's 'A Fanatics's Guide to to Ear Training and Sight Singing' stresses the undesirability of introducing such 'ploys' in favour of just purely and intuitively learning the sounds of all scale degrees - I think I'll be following this rather than the Mark Phillips 'Yellow Brick Road'.