52 Sight Singing Instructions

More Complicated Rhythms and Leaps

Rhythms

• This unit’s sight singing examples will include more complicated rhythms, including double dotting. This rhythmic concept is very common in music of the French Baroque, including in French Overture form. Composers such as Jean-Baptiste Lully pioneered this form, which ended up influencing later composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach. As you know, adding a second dot to a dotted note adds the value of half the first dot. Therefore, careful subdivision is crucial to success.

Melodies

• The material in this chapter will also include more difficult leaps within the melodic line. As always, find a way – using your knowledge of scales and chords, for example – to create an intermediary step that will guide you from one note to the next.