Choral Sight-Singing Practices: Revisiting a Web-Based Survey

Steven M. Demorest

36 citations0/0 files stored

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Diverse Music Education Insights Musicology and Musical Analysis Music Education and Analysis

Abstract

The survey reported here was originally created for the book Building Choral Excellence: Teaching Sight-singing in the Choral Rehearsal. However, that book presented results in a limited form from a smaller sample of participants. This report includes responses from an additional 94 participants, limits the sample to only middle and high school choral directors, and presents the findings in much more detail. The survey asked choral directors who were active sight-singing teachers to identify how much time they spend teaching sight-singing, the methods or materials they prefer, and how they assess student progress. Results indicated some significant differences based on whether or not sight-singing was a part of contest participation, preferences for certain pitch and rhythm reading systems, and a varied approach to assessment. Such findings could help beginning teachers decide how to organize their curriculum and might guide decisions by state organizations regarding the role of music reading in contest and all-state events Sight-singing is one of the most important, and perhaps most difficult, skills for the choral singer to master. Since the early 1700s American choral directors have explored the most effective methods for teaching sight-singing. Music publishers continually present us with new and improved methods for teaching sight-singing and, more recently, even The Rough Guide series has become involved.1 While most choir directors agree on the importance of teaching sight-singing, they often differ in the amount of time they spend teaching it and the methods they use. In 1988 Daniels stated “The development of competency in sight reading is a subject that is frequently neglected in the field of choral music ” (p. 22). Surveys and other research on instructional objectives and the use of rehearsal time in secondary choral programs have generally supported this perception. A 1998 review of sight-singing research (Demorest, 1998b) listed four surveys of sight-singing instruction conducted from

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 36 citations exist upstream.

References

1994National Standards for Arts Education: What Every Young American Should Know and Be Able To Do in the Arts.1996Time Use, Rehearsal Activity, and Student Off-Task Behavior during the Initial Minutes of High School Choral Rehearsals 1998Improving Sight-Singing Performance in the Choral Ensemble: The Effect of Individual Testing 1995Sight-Singing Instruction in the Choral Ensemble: Factors Related to Individual Performance 2007A Survey of Sight-Singing Instructional Practices in Florida Middle-School Choral Programs

Cited by

2006Teaching Strategies Related to Successful Sight-Singing in Kentucky Choral Ensembles 2013The Way We Do the Things We Do: A Survey of Middle-School Choral Educators' Sight-Singing Attitudes and Influences.2018The Relationship of Pitch Sight-Singing Skills With Tonal Discrimination, Language Reading Skills, and Academic Ability in Children 2015Melodic Dictation Instruction 2017Developing Melodic Dictation Pedagogy: A Survey of College Theory Instructors 2007Time Usage by Choral Directors Prior to Sight-Singing Adjudication 2017Pitch Systems and Curwen Hand Signs: A Review of Literature

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.