Sight Singing Instructions For Choir Directors and Choir Members

Choir Director Problems:

• Are you happy with your ability to sight sing?
• Are you happy with your choir member's sight singing ability?
• Can you hear what you see?
• Can you see what you hear?
• Does your choir have to learn everything, or at least the difficult parts, by having the pianist playing it for them?
• Even though your choir sings in tune is there still something about their singing you can't put your finger on?
• Do you know what will make the difference between a choir performance that will bring a polite complement and one that people would be willing to pay you for?
• Is your performance so good that people would buy a CD of it?
• Are new members entering the choir without any training?
• Does it bother choir members and audience that the music is not excellent?
• Do the mistakes detract from worship?

Rewards for overcoming the problem:

• Having a choir that can sight sing will increase the amount of repertoire you can perform.
• Just think how much time you could save in rehearsals if your choir members could learn the music without having it played on the piano for them.
• If your choir could look at the music and hear it in their inner hearing, like they hear when reading a book, you could sing a song for the first time and it would be close to being finished performance quality!
• When your choir knows how to sing the high notes without straining they will move from sounding like amateurs to sounding like professionals.
• Learning how to control the voice keeps the sound from getting harsh, pinched, or sound like shouting when the music is loud and high.
• Think how much more enjoyable for everyone if it was sung correctly the first time through?
• Starting a sight singing course to help new members get comfortable before entering the choir. An indigenous choir starts with a graded choir course.
• It is fun to learn and to do something better then you thought you were able to do.

What are the consequences for NOT overcoming the problem?

• If you don't start now, when will you?
• If your choir doesn't improve will they stay with you?
• If you don't improve your quality of sound you could loose your audience.
• Continuing to teach by rote from the piano can become boring and discouraging to your choir members who are more accomplished.
• Is the Lord magnified?

The way to overcoming the problem:

• There are several ways one could implement or introduce sight singing to your choir.
  • Spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each rehearsal teaching sight singing
  • Have an extra class, like a Sunday school class for intense study
  • Have one or two day seminar
  • Go on a weekend retreat
  • You could encourage your choir members to take private lessons.

by Victor King