Solfege de Solfèges, Book 1 Review

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(More customer reviews)I used to have a friend who won an organ and improvisation prize from the Conservatory of Music in Paris. He was an excellent musician. He never hummed a tune without using Solfege notes as his guide. I always envied him his skill, and I finally decided to try to learn Solfege myself.

Once, from Sheet Music Plus, I ordered what I thought was a guide to learning Solfege, but what turned out to be something else entirely. Sheet Music Plus, at least at that time, provided a very scant product description and no customer reviews. Caveat emptor.

The reason I'm reviewing this purchase is that it really does enable anyone with basic music notation familiarity to learn to sing the Solfege syllables. This is the first of three volumes. Now all I need to do is to find the time to practice my Solfege singing!

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This solfege book is a great tool for teaching ear training and note reading to beginning singers.

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Sight-Sing Any Melody Instantly Review

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(More customer reviews)The title of this bookpromises 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, iegoing 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 etcrequires consistent practice with a LOT ofcarefully graded unseen material. For most of us there is no short cut to acquiring the skill of sight-singing "any melody instantly".

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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.

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Sight Singing Made Simple (Book/CD Pak) Review

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(More customer reviews)As a sight singing teacher and author of the Sight Singers Resource web site ..., I was using a variety of methods to teach people to sight sing, until discovering Mr. Bauguess' Sight Singing Made Simple course. Now by just using his materials I can impart this skill in the easiest and most enjoyable way to my students. It's a straight-forward approach dealing with one thing at a time and slowly adding the layers of skills of this multi-sensory art only as necessary. I strongly recommend the Sight Singing Made Simple course for learning this skill which is, through Mr. Baugess' creative efforts now available to anyone interested in acquiring it. He has virtually democratized the fundamentals of the art of sight-singing.
Since I posted this review originally in October of 2000, many others have also now been posted reviews and the array of different reactions is interesting and helpful.They point out just how tricky this skill is to learn and how often frustrating.It is very true that if one finds matching, or mimicking pitches (as is required when used the CD) difficult or impossible, prior ear-training is essential.There is a wide range of ability in this facet of "musical intelligence" (see Howard Gardner's work on Multiple Intelligences).Some people, on the other hand find rhythm and "keeping a steady beat" more problematic than re-producing sounds accurately. This has more to do with "kinesthetic intelligence". Everyone is different. Vocalizing music notation (sight-singing) is a multi-layered activity/skill and all these separate skills must be coordinated in order to sight-sing.It is also true that Sight Singing Made Simple teaches just the very basic fundamentals.This means step-wise intervals within the major diatonic scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do), skips (or intervals) within the major tonic (beginning on 'do') chord, and a blending of these two types of intervals.Rhymtically, one learns to sing whole, half, quarter, eighth, and dotted half notes with these intervals.A more advanced set of exercises (which comes with manuals that explain how to use the exercises, either for use by a teacher or student who has successfully used this introductory course) can be bought through music stores.It's called the Jenson Sight Singing Course.It's basically a two year course and goes into reading in minor keys as well as chromatic tones. It takes one through intermediate sight-singing.I use other texts after this.
But the important thing, in a basic course, is not how advanced one gets but rather that a good and firm foundation in the approach to the skill is established.This, more than any other such method, is accomplished in this first course.
The reason for teaching the entire scale (all seven tones) at once, from my perspective is that it forms an integrated organic whole which if cut up into parts does not convey the true structural foundation upon which most music we in the United States listen to, is based.Most people intuitively know how this scale sounds and Mr. Bauguess capitalizes on that fact by presenting it in its entirety and showing the student how the sounds that make it up move in an up and down, step-wise fashion from one note to a contiguous note.Again, if one cannot by oneself mimick these sounds as heard on the CD then preparatory work must be done with the aid of a teacher.There may be some kind of feedback software out there to help one do this on one's own, but I have never come across it and would recommend, in any case, the personal touch here that is so important of an experienced teacher.Just one secret in this process: Very few people DO NOT actually hear the correct pitch in their minds.It's just that some find it difficult to translate accurately the sound they hear mentally into physical sound through the vocal mechanism.Why?Because they don't take enough time to assimilate the sound they hear by actually hearing that sound in silence for 5-10 seconds before they sing it.This gives for the brain/body system to coordinate the message and render it properly in sound. It can be a very tedious process but I've seen someone who actually teaches people who were thought to be 'tone deaf' and this is the approach he uses and makes it not so tedious because of the creative interaction between himself and the student.It was quite an eye opener for me to watch him work.

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Product Description:
This easy-to-use audio course for self or small group study is a step-by-step introduction to music reading skills. From the creator of The Jenson Sight Singing Course, this resource will be an effective tool for building student confidence and skill. Includes exercises on reading note and rest values, meter, echo drills, reading pitch from syllable letters and notes on the staff, movement by step and skip, key signatures, and clef signs. Available: Book, Cassette, CD, Book/CST Pak, Book/CD Pak, Book/CST Intro Pak (5 Books, 1 Cassette), Book/CD Intro Pak (5 Books, 1 CD). For Gr. 4-9.

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