About
When I first started teaching, there were two things I really wanted to do well. I wanted to make sure that my students could read music, and that they were assessed and graded fairly. Frequently I would ask other teachers how they handled sight singing and grading. I was surprised how many times I heard:
“Get more band kids to join chorus!”
But what about the kids who aren’t in band? I wanted to make sure they learned to read too. I also struggled with grading techniques. Some methods seemed very cumbersome and time consuming, and some seemed to be based mostly on student behavior.
As I searched for sight singing method books and researched different grading techniques, I finally decided to just put something together myself that met both of my goals.
Two things were clear to me. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend correcting, and I didn’t have a budget that would allow me to purchase a sight singing book for every student. By creating something myself, I was able to address both of those issues. I created a sight singing workbook that we used daily in rehearsals.
Students were asked to do three things in the workbook each day:
- Write the note names under each note
- Write the sol-fege under each note
- Write the rhythmic counts under each note
This went very quickly after we developed a daily routine. They knew which example was next and often students would begin the assignment as I was taking attendance.
The workbook provided many immediate benefits for my choral program. It legitimized my class in the eyes of my students. They could see I was asking for academic work from them and that made them treat it more like a “real” class. It gave me a concrete assessment tool and I could easily see what they were learning.
It was cheap and disposable. At the end of the year, I gave students the option to keep it, otherwise we recycled them and they started with new books the following fall. But most importantly…
Their sight singing improved ten-fold.
I began to see huge gains in their level of self confidence with regards to reading music. They learned music faster, and asked better questions in class. Instead of questions like, “I’m lost.”, I was asked, “The altos are missing the jump from the G to the Bb in measure 27. Can you go over that again?”
More students felt comfortable auditioning for regional and state wide festivals because they were not afraid of the sight singing component of the auditions, and because their reading had improved, more students were accepted into these festivals.
I even had students contact me after they had graduated to tell me they were grateful they had the workbook, because what they learned led to a successful college audition.
However, there was a missing piece – independent practicing. Students were not able to truly practice sight singing on their own. Sure, they could bring the book home and sing through examples. But how would they know if they were right? Without a teacher to give them feedback, the practice was aimless. Nothing can replace a good teacher, but online sight singing – with audio – fills that gap.
Students can use a Tune Up tool and a Steady Beat to add their practice and then Hear the Answer! after they’re done to assess how things went.
The Practice Room is a culmination of everything I learned as a choral music educator over the past twenty years. The goal of this site is to provide an effective, affordable approach to sight singing to other choral educators.
Happy Practicing!
