Klarinet Archive - Posting 001279.txt from 1999/03

From: "MARY A. VINQUIST" <kenshaw@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Tuners and Sight Singing
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 12:45:34 -0500

Bruce Keplinger wrote:

>... instrumentalists were better sight singers than singers, =

>and pianists were the best.
>Could it be that the addition of audible cues to what we =

>are doing (sounding and hearing a pitch) is reinforced =

>by visual cues (seeing the readout of a tuner)? =

>(This of course implies one's brain being engaged...)

I don't think so. First, to be useful in sight singing, the cue has
to come *before* you sing the interval or phrase, so that you
already know what you will sing before doing it. Adjusting to the
tuner readout can only help you correct what you've already done.

Musicians almost by definition favor touch and hearing over =

seeing. At least for me, I sight sing/sight read only a little bit by =

following visual shapes on the printed page. Mostly, I "finger =

along" and hear how it would sound on the clarinet. =

(Fortunately, I have no trace of perfect pitch.)

Also, of course, as clarinetists we come up in bands, where we =

learn to surf over shoals of 16th notes. Singers seldom have to =

go faster than 8th notes. When they get to 16ths, or a wide =

interval, they don't surf, they drown. More charitably, singers
don't have instruments that automatically produce (approximately)
correct intervals and so don't learn to hear them in advance.

Finally, instrumentalists tend to learn something about music
theory, if only by practicing scales and arpeggios, which singers
don't do nearly as much. I wonder if jazz singers do better.

So -- what has been other people's experience? What do you
do to help hear the music before you start?

Ken Shaw

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