Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Do you want to learn how to sight sing music? In this post we look at sight singing with solfege using shape notes. Read to learn more.
Today’s post continues to look at sight singing with solfege using shape notes. The four keys explored today: C, Db, D, and Eb major.
You will first sing the scales, and then sing a tune, which will be transposed to each key. The more keys you practice in, the better your sight singing with solfege will become.
This post uses music terms. See the Glossary at the end for definitions.
Shape Notes and Sight Singing with Solfege
In the last sight singing post, we talked about how shape notes make it easier for anyone to sight sing. However, it is particularly important for special needs, ADD, ASD, and LD students. Shape notes make reading easier by giving each note its own shape – thus the name. For a detailed discussion on sight singing with solfege and shape notes read:
Sight Singing with Solfege: The Power in Singing
In Harmonize with Sing-Along Songs, we talked about how to get a strong vocal tone. This post looks at how to get power in your singing.
- To do this you need to sing with a supported tone. Without the ability to control your breath, you can run out of air. This can cause your pitch to drop, making the note go out of tune.
- For beginner singers, it can be tempting to try to draw in a breath using the chest muscles. For true power, you must go lower. Specifically, you need to breathe using your thoracic diaphragm muscle located below the lungs.
- To understand how this muscle works, lie on a flat surface, such as a bed or a couch. As you lie on your back, rest your hand on your tummy.
- Breath in and out in a relaxed manner. Your hand rises and falls as your diaphragm expands and contracts. You draw in your breath from this place in your body. From here you draw your power.
- In other words, when you take in a breath to sing, your shoulders should not rise too much. Rather, your tummy expands outward.
- As you sight sing with the solfege syllables, you should always pay attention to your breathing.
Scales and Melodies for Sight Singing with Solfege
Sing with the sing-along songs. As you do this, make sure to sight sing with the solfege syllables under the notes in each music example.
- Start by singing the scale in each key. Notice how the note relationships remain the same even as the scales sound progressively higher. After singing the scales, try singing “Merrily We Roll Along” in each of the four keys.
- Make sure you sing the solfege syllables. “Merrily We Roll Along” makes a good sound model for Do, Re, and Mi.
- Also, whether the note head is hollow or not, and has a stem or not, affects the rhythm. Make sure to notice how this element affects the sound of the melody. (For more on this read Sight Singing with Rhythm Syllables.)
- Once you’ve sung the “Merrily We Roll Along” short phrases, you can sing the whole phrase with the sing-along video. The video provides the words.
- When you feel secure singing along with the sound tracks, try the sight singing quiz at the end. It does not have a sing-along sound track, so you need to imagine the sound of the solfege syllables in your head.
- The song tracks use synthetic voices rather than actual voices. Research has shown that this will help with the ability to identify and produce absolute pitch information. For more information, read Why Use a Synth Voice Instead of Real Voices.
Mobile users: for best results reading the music, tilt your screen 90o to the right.
Scales
C Major Moveable Do Shape Notes:
Db Major Moveable Do Shape Notes:
D Major Moveable Do Shape Notes:
Eb Major Moveable Do Shape Notes:
Merrily We Roll Along
C Major Merrily We Roll Along:
Db Major Merrily We Roll Along:
D Major Merrily We Roll Along:
Eb Major Merrily We Roll Along:
Merrily We Roll Along Video
Shape Note Sight Singing Quiz
Conclusion
The more keys you practice, the better your sight singing with solfege will become. This becomes particularly important for autistic, LD, and special needs students.
As you practice, remember to sing from the diaphragm. Have fun!
© 2021 Geoffrey Keith
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Glossary
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Shape Note Sight Singing Success
Have you always wanted to sight sing music, but found it too hard? Shape notes can help. Also, last post centered on singing melodies with a specially tuned synth-organ sound. Namely, we focused on harmonic tuning. This week we will look at the same melodies, but from the angle of melodic tuning. Most of the examples have sing-along sound tracks, but the last example is a shape note sight singing quiz. Read more to experience shape note sight singing success. Estimated reading time 6 minutes.
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