Teach Yourself to Read Music!
Written: Dec 09 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to read, easy to follow. Audio examples make it even easier!
Cons: Lacks a section that teaches by absolute pitch rather than solfege.
The Bottom Line: Sight Singing Made Simple really is a simple book of musical instruction that people with little or no musical training can use to learn music skills.
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| bob_tomato's Full Review: Hal Leonard Sight Singing CD Made Simple |
Veteran choral director David Baugess has written an easy to use, self-guided instruction manual for learning to read music at a basic level. Published in 1995 by the Hal Leonard Corporation, Sight Singing Made Simple is a step by step introduction to reading music.
This 43 page book keeps everything very simple, very easy to follow. The lessons are laid out in a logical order and are written in such a way that all ages can understand. The book/compact disc combo pak is of particular value because the audio tracks on the disc duplicate the lessons you read in the book - these tracks allow you to hear what you see on the page, so you can practice with the CD as much as is needed until you can perform the exercises by yourself.
As a skilled musician, I can appreciate the simplicity of this book. At my church, I will be using the book to instruct members of our small choir - we have a wide range of ages in the group, and most members have little or no formal music training. I am confident that everyone in the group will be able to use this book to practice alone and improve sight singing and ear training.
Here's how a lesson works - you put in the CD, and choose the track number that matches the track indicator shown in the lesson you are working on. The narrator reads the text highlighted in the book, a metronome and a keyboard provide tempo and tone, and a male and female voice sing the exercise correctly.
For example, Track #2 demonstrates the time value of simple beats - quarter, half and whole notes. The narrator reads:
Here's what four quarter notes sound like:
Ta Ta Ta Ta
* * * *
The singers say "ta" in rhythm with the metronome. All you need to do is read and speak/sing along with the lesson. Repeated practice will begin to drill the concepts and the ability into your head and into your voice.
The book uses solfege (do re mi fa so la ti do) to introduce pitches. This is a familiar concept for many (thank you, The Sound of Music), and it is fairly easy to learn the system. The nice thing about solfege is that you learn how pitches remain relative to each other, no matter what key you are in. The one drawback to this book, and my only quibble with the instruction, is that all the lessons on pitch remain in solfege; absolute pitch values are only mentioned in order to introduce the concept of key signatures. Now, since this is a basic music instruction book, learning note names is probably not necessary, but I think it might have been good to have at least one section at the end that used actual music, rather than keeping solfege as part of the instruction.
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You don't need to have a talent for music to use this book. All you need is the determination to read and listen to the lesson, practice what you see and hear, and keep at it. In time, it is very likely that you will begin to learn to read music on your own.
David Baugess' Sight Singing Made Simple really IS simple - it's not a high-level theory book, and it's not something a trained musician would need to use. But if you are training music students, if you are interested in learning music on your own - this book is for you!
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Andrew
Location: Dallas Metroplex
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