SIGHT

SINGING for
Instrumentalists

O
by Robert Rawlins

f all the skills required to master a musical instrument, perhaps

none is more important than a well-trained ear. Proper embouchure,
breath control and good technique are essential components for learning
a wind instrument, but unlikely to yield positive results in themselves, unless
guided by the ear. Every single activity associated with making music depends on
hearing. Just as an artist needs to visualize what a painting is going to look like
before setting the brush to canvas, a musician needs a clear mental image of a
musical passage prior to playing.
At some level, everything we know about proper pedagogy as it applies to
instrumental performance, is dependent on the ear. We may think we know what
a properly formed embouchure looks like, but the “correct” embouchure pro-
duces the desired tone; it cannot work the other way around. If a student cannot
form a clear mental image of the desired tone, all the coaching in the world will
not bring about a beautiful sound.
Surprisingly, teachers sometimes fail to heed this observation. Conscientious
instructors routinely devote a great deal of attention to embouchure formation,
breath support and a relaxed throat, while neglecting to consider whether the
student shares a common aural image of the desired sound. If the student and

26 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2005/2006

teacher do
not have a mutual
goal, the entire search is futile.
One might as well be giving advice to
an archer on how best to hit the bull’s
eye when the two are looking at differ-
ent targets.
While it may be evident that tone and
pitch are closely dependent on the ear, it
may not be readily apparent that all
musical parameters depend on a prior
mental conception. Performing rhythms
accurately is not a process of mathemati-
cal calculation, but rather a process of
deciphering and hearing what is on the
page prior to actually executing it.
Similarly, technical fluency is not simply
a question of moving fingers quickly
and smoothly—it results from hearing
the passage the way we desire it to
sound and making it happen.
MENTAL IMAGERY
This kind of mental imagery is well
known among athletes. Tennis players
Robert Rawlins,
department chair
and coordinator of
music theory at
Rowan University in
Glassboro, New
Jersey, earned a
Ph.D. in musicology
and an M.A. degree in music history
and theory from Rutgers University.
He also has master’s degrees in
humanities and public relations. He
performs regularly on saxophone,
flute and clarinet.
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
visualize the
ball going
over the net.
Golfers concen-
trate on the relaxed
control that will put
the ball where they want
it, and baseball players trying
to hit a homerun see the ball
traveling into the bleachers a split
second before actually making the
attempt. In all these cases, the mind
forms a clear picture of what it desires
and tells the body, “Make it hap-
pen”––the fact that musicians do this
with sound does not change the
process.
But, there is a level of complexity
when musical pitch is involved that
requires special attention. There is
nothing arcane about looking at the
left-field wall and visualizing the base-
ball sailing over it. While meeting this
objective may not be so easy, there is
little doubt regarding what one wishes
to accomplish. Now, suppose a clarinet
player is confronted with a new, unfa-
miliar passage. Let us further suppose
this player is well-advanced with a full-
bodied tone and good technique.
Imagining the passage performed in
good tone and even rhythm is one
thing, but what are the pitches? How
can you possibly hear a passage well
enough to form a clear mental image
of its execution if you don’t know the
pitches? You can’t. And this is where
the specialized role of ear training
comes into play.
Simply put, an instrumentalist can-
not play any passage accurately and
musically unless there is a prior mental
conception of how the passage is going
to sound. If the notes resulting from
execution come as a surprise to the
performer, so will the tone, pitch,
articulation and rhythmic accuracy.
True, even the untrained ear may have
a general idea of what a passage will
sound like based on shape, contour
and register––but a vague preconcep-
tion simply is not good enough. Each
forthcoming note must be heard as a
complete entity, in tune, with all musi-
cal parameters in place. An ear that
cannot go beyond anticipating the
general shape and approximate register
of a passage is incapable of producing
a proper musical interpretation.
In a sense, only a trained ear is capa-
ble of a bona fide musical perform-
ance. While definitions of music may
vary, most agree that, on some funda-
mental level, music involves human
expression. A person makes a musical
statement by reproducing what is first
conceived in the mind. Of course, we
all hear things slightly differently, even
when the music is written, which is
what makes music so personal and fas-
cinating. The simple translation of
written notes into sound is something
a computer can do, but arguably, is
not music. By the same token, a per-
formance rendered in a machine-like
manner, where tones are physically
produced but not in response to prior
hearing, is not a musical one.
SIGHT SINGING
The need for an instrumentalist to
have a well-trained ear has been firmly
established for centuries. The central
component of this training always has
been sight singing––the ability to sing
a piece of music upon seeing it for the
first time. While dictation skills––the
ability to write down music that is
heard––are important, especially in the
study of harmony, the use of the voice
clearly is the best way to train the ear
during the early stages of musical
development. Moreover, singing is the
only true test to see if the instrumen-
talist actually can hear the music being
played with the mind’s ear, without an
instrument.
Skill in sight singing comes from
reading a great quantity of compara-
tively easy music. Thus, the seemingly
obvious advantage vocalists have is
slight. Learning even hundreds of
songs and arias will not offer the kind
of practice that will lead to strong
sight-singing skills. Sight-singing skills
will improve, but slowly, through
27
concentrated practice on a small
amount of challenging material. It is far
more beneficial to read through a large
amount of material with a difficulty
level well below the student’s ability.
Acquiring a repository of melodies
for sight singing is not difficult. A
wealth of textbooks has been published
for this specific purpose. While some of
these texts offer instructional commen-
tary, others are little more than antholo-
gies of short melodies, combining
newly composed and pre-existing music
in varying degrees. Some have gone
through numerous editions, but, typi-
cally, changes involve only slight modi-
fications and re-organizing material.
Accordingly, for personal study, stu-
dents may as well work from whatever
books are available without the need to
acquire the most current editions.
Since at least the 11th century, when
Italian Benedictine monk Guido
d’Arezzo put forth his methods for
choir training, many teachers have
agreed that associating specific syllables
with specific notes can facilitate sight
singing. Known variously as solmisa-
tion, solfeggio or solfège, numerous
systems have appeared over the cen-
turies, all fashioned to meet specific
needs or based on divergent theories.
While many systems and variations
of solfège systems are in use today,
three basic systems prevail in the
United States: Fixed Do, Movable Do
and La-Based Minor. Each is based
upon specific theories, and each offers
its own advantages and disadvantages.
Curiously, sight-singing textbooks
rarely adopt or even suggest a specific
system, presumably to keep the book’s
market for adoption as wide as possi-
ble. This minimizes the possibility of
acquiring a book employing a system
that one might not wish to adopt, but
it also implies that specific solfège
instruction is not going to come from
the text itself. The student must either
learn from a teacher or find some
other source for solfège information.
Fortunately, none of the systems are
difficult to learn.
28
FIXED DO
Fixed Do is the traditional European
solfège system and is used by about 20
percent of music departments in the
United States. The premise is simple:
the notes of the C scale are named Do,
Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. Vowels are
pronounced in the European fashion,
thus “do, ray, mee, fah, sol, la, tee,
do”––Europeans generally say “Si”
instead of “Ti.” It is important to
understand that in most European
countries, these are literally the names
of the notes. In other words, in Italy
the note between the bass and treble
clef is Do. Accordingly, D is Re, E is
Mi and so forth. Therefore, Italians do
not translate notes into a solfège sys-
tem, but, rather, simply say the names
of the notes.
This being the case, would it not be
best simply to say the names of the
notes in English? Not necessarily. The
fact that the American system, and
that of many other countries as well,
borrows the names of the notes from
the alphabet, adds a level of confusion,
since each note no longer has a unique
name. In a simple experiment, those
who have already learned solfège
demonstrate that letters of the alpha-
bet are not inherently easier to say:
sing a C scale rapidly, saying the
names of the notes (C, D, E and so
forth). Now sing the scale in
solfège––unexpectedly, the solfège is
much easier to pronounce.
Oddly, the Fixed-Do system does
not address accidentals. A note has the
same name, whether it is sharp, flat or
natural. This is troubling to American
students who confront the system for
the first time. It is somewhat difficult
to accept that the diatonic melody in
D major would be sung with the same
syllables as one in D-flat major.
Fixed Do has two advantages over
other systems. One, conductors use it
throughout the world. With the great
number of keys likely found in an
extended work, there is no way a con-
ductor is going to make an instant
determination of what key he believes
the piece to be in at a given moment
and sing it in Movable Do. Invariably,
international orchestral conductors
refer to notes by their Fixed-Do
solfège names.
The second advantage of Fixed Do is
that it encourages a sense of absolute
pitch. When one says the syllable Do,
a C is heard, unless it is sharp or flat.
Educators who promote Fixed Do
believe that, in time, those who use
this system will acquire some degree of
absolute pitch. Every time the Fixed-
Do system is employed, one constantly
is reminded of exactly where pitches
sound, no matter where the tonal cen-
ter lies.
MOVEABLE DO
With its roots in the original con-
cept of d’Arezzo, Movable Do became
fashionable in the late 19th century
and remains the most widespread
solfège system used in the United
States today. The theory behind it
diverges from that of Fixed Do.
Advocates of Fixed Do maintain that
solfège names always should refer to
the same pitch, whereas advocates of
Movable Do counter that it is the rela-
tionship between solfège syllables that
is crucial. The distance from Do to Re,
for instance, should always be a whole
step; the distance from Do to Mi a
major third and so forth. In Fixed Do
this certainly will not be the case. For
the Fixed Do singer in D-flat major,
Do to Re is a half-step and Do to Mi
is a minor third. In other words,
Movable Do abandons any sense of
absolute pitch to achieve relative pitch.
One makes logic of the music by
establishing the tonal bearings.
Everything is heard in relationship to
the tonic, and the tonic is always Do.
The drawback of Movable Do,
besides abandoning any sense of
absolute pitch, results from the prob-
lem of accidentals. A system that
affirms the constancy of every relation-
ship between intervals, no matter what
the key, must specify accidentals. The
standard procedure for doing this is to
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2005/2006
change the syllable to an “ee” sound
for sharps, and to an “ay” sound for
flats (utilizing the sound of European
vowels in the spelling, of course). Since
Re already has the sound of an “ay,” it
is changed to “rah.” Below is the chro-
matic scale, both ascending and
descending:
Do Di Re Ri Mi Fa Fi Sol Si La Li Ti
Do Ti Te La Le Sol Se Fa Mi Me Re
Ra Do
The concept is simple, but it takes
much practice to master the chromat-
ics in Movable Do––remember, this is
a method for sight singing. Those who
have mastered this system, however,
proclaim its effectiveness.
LA-BASED MINOR
La-Based Minor is a subcategory of
Movable Do. The premise is that the
major key always prevails and all
minor keys should be sung in terms of
the relative major. Studies have proven
that this system is clearly advantageous
during the early stages of learning to
sing in minor keys. On the one hand,
the fundamental rule of Movable Do is
maintained: relationships between syl-
lables always represent the same inter-
vals. Sol to Do will always be a perfect
fifth. The problem occurs in minor,
when Sol to Do now represents the
relationship between the natural sev-
enth of the scale and the third. Some
Movable Do advocates are troubled by
this, arguing that scale-degree relation-
ships, as well as harmonic implica-
tions, also are part of the Movable Do
system and should not be tampered
with. This line of thinking reasons that
the resolution of the leading tone, for
example, must be rendered by Ti to
Do; Si to La, as occurs in La-Based
Minor, simply will not do.
WHICH SYSTEM?
To be sure, there are those who
advocate sight singing without the use
of any system at all, where one simply
progresses from note to note based on
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
the size and quality of the interval pre-
sumably singing “la” to every note. But
there are drawbacks to this approach.
For one thing, music reading is facili-
tated by the use of words or syllables.
When notes are distinguished by
something other than pitch alone, the
mind has another tool available to
make sense of the music. Moreover, a
sight-singing system is more than just
a mechanism for generating the correct
pitches. The larger goal is to make
musical sense of the passage being
sung.
A musician who has mastered Fixed
Do and acquired nearly absolute pitch
is able to grasp an entire musical
phrase at once. Notes not perceived as
isolated entities, but rather as parts of
a larger whole, can be grasped in a
musically logical sense. Those who
have mastered Movable Do, including
La-Based Minor, are likewise able to
hear pitches in their musical context—
to hear where notes are headed and
what purpose they serve. For example,
the sight-singing student who depends
upon intervallic content alone in ren-
dering pitches will view the passage C-
D-E-F as two whole steps followed by
a half step. The pitches will be accu-
rate, but the musical logic will be miss-
ing. The student using a solfège
method must first make sense of the
passage. Are these the first four notes
of a C scale? The last four notes of an
F scale? Could it consist of scale
degrees 7, 1, 2 and 3 in natural minor?
As all musicians know, all the possibili-
ties require a different treatment when
rendering the passage. It seems only
logical to adopt a sight-singing system
that puts the same demands on instru-
mentalists that they will face with
actual music.
The question of which solfège sys-
tem to adopt should not be traumatic.
The conventional wisdom of “pick one
and stick with it” has merit, and I
advocated it for a long time. Recently,
however, it occurred to me that most
of my students end up teaching them-
selves. Some find their way into school
systems where a solfège system is
already in place, and then they must
urgently learn a new system well
enough so they can teach it. I have
come to believe that, ultimately, one
should have some familiarity with all
the common systems. Which one is
attempted first is not a crucial ques-
tion––the important thing is to get
started. g
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adler, Samuel. Sight Singing: Pitch,
Interval, Rhythm. 2nd ed. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Benjamin,Thomas, Michael Horvit
and Robert Nelson. Music for Sight
Singing. Florence, KY: Wadsworth,
1994.
Benward, Bruce, Maureen A. Carr and
J. Timothy Kolosick. Introduction to
Sightsinging and Ear Training. 2nd
ed. New York: McGraw-Hill
Humanities/Social
Sciences/Languages, 1992.
Berkowitz, Sol, Gabriel Fontrier and
Leo Kraft. A New Approach to Sight
Singing. 4th ed. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 1997.
Bland, Leland D. Sight Singing
Through Melodic Analysis. Chicago:
Burnham Inc. Publishing, 1984.
Fish, Arnold and Norman Lloyd.
Fundamentals of Sight Singing and
Ear Training. Long Grove, IL:
Waveland Press, 1993.
Hindemith, Paul. Elementary Training
for Musicians. 2nd ed. Germany:
Schott; Associated Music Publishers,
1949.
Levin, Robert D. Sight Singing and Ear
Training Through Literature. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1988.
Ottman, Robert W. Music for Sight
Singing. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Yasui, Byron K. and Allen R. Trubitt.
Basic Sight Singing. New York:
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social
Sciences/Languages, 1989.
AMT
29
Rawlins, Robert, "Sight singing for instrumentalists", American music teacher: The official journal of
Music Teachers National Association 55/3 (Cincinnati, OH: December-January 2005-2006), 26-29.

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