26 Sight Singing Instructions

Building Musicianship Through Sight-Reading

When you sight-read a melody for the first time, take note of certain crucial parameters before you begin. For example:

• Clef
• Key signature (major? minor?)
• Time signature (number of beats? beat note? simple? compound? is there an anacrusis?)
• Where are the harmonic signposts, such as do, mi, sol and sol, ti, re?

To ensure that your singing goes well, preface your sightreading with the following:

• Sing few arpeggiated tonic triads, e.g. “Do mi sol mi do mi sol mi do.”

• Sing up and down a one-octave scale in the tonic key.

• Conduct confidently, perhaps giving yourself a practice run where you only chant the rhythm, or say the solfege without adding pitches.

• If you struggle with keeping your voice in tune, turn on a drone of the tonic pitch and attempt to sing “against” it to cultivate your relative pitch and build confidence in your singing voice.

Melodies With Tones from Chords I and V

By now, you should have the solfege of the tonic and dominant triads – do-mi-sol and sol-ti-re – firmly committed to memory. This week’s melodies will feature tones from chords I and V (our tonic and dominant triads), illustrating that we can gauge the implied harmony of a melody even when no harmonic line is present.