United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Later on they will learn that these notes often introduce modulations to the dominant, subdominant, and relative minor keys respectively. Instruction in sight-singing should begin by teaching the staff notation through the Tonic Sol-fa method.
Thus in the majority of cases sight-singing in classes resolved itself into the musical children leading, and the others following. It is rare to find a large class in which there is not one musical child, and the only sure test of progress is to make the less musical children sing at sight alone from time to time.
Musical people, who have not the same experience in such matters as the ordinary teacher, constantly do this, and will even hide the greater part of a blackboard when pointing to notes of a tune. In beginning a lesson the maximum effort will be gained if communal work be taken before individual, i.e. sight-singing before dictation, extemporizing, &c.
In the case of sight-singing, the mental picture has to be immediately translated into action, it is the essence of the proceeding. The child is thus developing not only the mental faculties, but is also acquiring increased power of regulation and co-ordination, through the training of the faculties of the cerebellum.
For those between eight and twelve sight-singing in minor keys and in two parts should be added, also the dictation of melodies and of two-part tunes. When this work is securely grasped the treatment of chords can begin, also extemporizing of melodies with the voice, together with transposition and harmonizing of easy phrases at the piano.
Now, if those who have 'picked up' the knowledge of sight-singing without knowing how they did it be asked to explain how they arrive at their intervals, it will be found that tonality plays a large part in their consciousness. In other words, they are perfectly certain of their key-note, and at any moment could sing it, even after complicated passages. This fact is the root of the Sol-fa system.
By taking the crotchet as the unit to start with, the old-fashioned plan of exalting the semibreve, the least used note in music, to a primary place, is avoided. If the order given in Somervell's Fifty Steps in Sight-singing be followed, the question of complicated time will not be forced too early on the attention of the children.
For children who take this work between the ages of eight and twelve, no better scheme for sight-singing can be found than that contained in Somervell's Fifty Steps in Sight-singing, supplemented by the children's books, A Thousand Exercises, published by Curwen. It is essential to read carefully the appendices to this work, especially that concerned with the minor keys.
Word Of The Day