Your Guide to Sight-Singing Success

Sight-singing is one of the most valuable tools that a singer can have. It is also one of the most
frustrating elements of choir for many singers, because everyone has to work at it. Let’s repeat
that for emphasis: sight-singing is not a talent, or a born skill. It is developed, sometimes helped
through piano or instrumental lessons, but always, always, through time and energy. If you do
not put time into it, it will always be scary. But you cannot be bad at it. You can only be less
experienced. So let’s get experienced, shall we?

Writing in solfa syllables is sometimes incredibly helpful. There is no shame in writing them in!
It can become a crutch, though, once your ear hears all of the syllables easily and you are
choosing to write the syllables in to create less work. Always try to begin once without the
syllables, and see if and when they need to be written in for you to continue.

1. In any exercise, piece, or excerpt, you must figure out the key (where doh is) before you
begin singing.
2. Once you know where doh is, try to isolate the tonic triad (doh, mi, soh) wherever you
can find it, because it will be the way that you ground yourself throughout the piece.
[writing them in if needed]
3. Look for any large leaps, and try to establish what the leap is in advance
[eg. You are singing in C major, and you see a leap from A to D – la to re – in the third
measure. That will be harder to find than something in your tonic triad. So try singing it
in isolation before you begin the piece. Once you’ve heard it, it’ll be easier to find it in
context.]
4. If the rhythm is something that will challenge you, write strokes in quickly to assist you
with keeping the beat. That might apply to the whole excerpt, or just to a short bit with a
more difficult rhythm.
5. Look for patterns, either rhythmically or melodically. It helps to know that the rhythm is
the same for three measures in a row, because then you can focus entirely on the
melody.
6. If you come to a leap that you cannot be sure you are singing correctly, quickly and
quietly sing all of the pitches in between until you find the note and are certain of it.
This is an intermediary step, but it’s way more useful than guessing and being wrong,
since that stops you from continuing with confidence. Don’t guess!

Always:
take your time – even and slow is better than fast and wrong!
do your prep work (as listed above)
know that it’s a process, not perfection – even for professionals!