Sight Singing School

For each song we suggest the following practice sequence:

Say the rhythm of the song while tapping the beat. (Using rhythm syllables for best results.)
Sing the recommended preparation exercise if there is one (noted at the start of each unit).
Sing the note set, up and down in sol-fa. (Using sol-fa handsigns for best results.)
Sing the song in sol-fa. (Using sol-fa handsigns for best results.) You can also sing the song to numbers, or any other way you find helpful.
If you are not sure whether you have sung it right, listen to the song.
You can also sing the song in letter names (so you learn these) and sing the song to the words (if there are any)

Practise each song thoroughly until it can be sung fluently. By practising the songs well you will learn the sound of the intervals and this is the essence of successful sight singing.

Handsigns

Rhythm syllables

Rhythm syllables are names we give to notes so that we can say and sing rhythms. The technical names are no good for saying and singing rhythms as they have too many syllables. There are various systems of rhythm syllables and it doesn’t matter which one you use, as long as you have a way to say the rhythm.

Simple metre rhythmic elements q w r

l	ta
L	(rest)
il	ti ti
h	too-oo
h.	too-oo-oo
s	too-oo-oo-oo

l. z	tam ti
jjjl	tika tika
ijl	ti tika
jil	tika ti
Kl	tim ka
z l z	syn-co-pa
z l.	ti tam

Compound metre rhythmic elements Y

l.	tam
iil	ta ti ti
l z	ta ti
Kil	tim ka ti
jiil	tika ti ti
ijil	ti tika ti
iijl	ti ti tika
jjjjjl	tika tika tika

Names of rhythmic elements

Technical names for rhythmic elements are:

Symbol	British name	US name
l	crotchet	quarter note
L	crotchet rest	quarter note rest
il	2 quavers	2 eighth notes
h	minim	half note
h.	dotted minim	dotted half note
s	semibreve	whole note
l. z	dotted crotchet and quaver	dotted quarter note and eighth note
l.	dotted crotchet	dotted quarter note
iil	3 quavers	3 eighth notes
l z	crotchet and quaver	quarter note and eighth note
jjjl	4 semiquavers	4 sixteenth notes

The stave and treble clef

The five lines on which music is notated is called the stave (or staff).

The symbol at the start of each stave is the clef, which indicates the pitch of the notes on the stave. In Sight Singing School we will only use the treble clef (as shown above), although the bass clef is also commonly used.

Time signature and bars (measures)

The time signature is the 2 numbers after the treble clef at the start of the first line of music. The upper number of the time signature generally tells us how many beats there are in each bar, and the lower number the type of beat. Bar lines are used to indicate the bars (sometimes called measures) in the music. In the example below there are two beats in each bar. There are 8 bars in the melody.

The beat is the underlying pulse of the music. It is generally steady and constant, and continues underneath the rhythm of the song. The beat is not normally notated in music, but in the following example it is shown as dots above the stave.

In Part A you will find songs in:

q two crotchet/quarter note beats in a bar

w three crotchet/quarter note beats in a bar

r four crotchet/quarter note beats in a bar

In Part B we introduce:

Y two dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) beats in a bar (or 6 quaver pulses)

In Part C we introduce:
R two minim/half note beats in a bar

Songs in R metre can be learned as if they were in r. Its just that to sound right the beat pulse happens every minim (half note) rather than every crochet (quarter note).

If performed with the same beat tempo, the two examples below will sound exactly the same. (The beats have been notated.)

t y M and U are introduced in Part D.

Key signatures

The sharps ( ♯ ) or flats ( ♭ ) on the stave after the treble clef (at the start of each line) are the key signature. The key signature tells us the key of the music (and what our starting sol-fa should be.) In Sight Singing School parts A and B we indicate the starting sol-fa for you above the first note.

In Parts C and D you will need to work out the starting note from the key signature. In most cases, the following guide will help you find do:

“Where sharps there be, the last is ti”

“Where flats there be, the last is fa”

If there are no sharps or flats in the key signature, C is do.

Note letter names

Remembering note letter names

Space Letter Names

F A C E spells ‘face’ and this helps some people remember the space letter names.

Line Letter Names

E G B D F
Some people remember this with a rhyme –
‘Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit’

Higher and lower notes can be worked out once you can name the lines and spaces.

The letter names of notes are fixed – they always stay the same. You will see some notes have their own small line. This is called a ledger line and we use it to show notes lower and higher than the stave. Letter names are written using capital letters.

Singing letter names
When singing songs using letter names there is a convention to make it easier to sing the sharps and flats. Instead of singing “F sharp” which would be two syllables and therefore interrupt the rhythm of the song we sing “Fiss”. C sharp becomes “Ciss”, G sharp “Giss” and so on. To sing the flats we add “ess” so B flat becomes “Bess”, E flat “Ess”, A flat “Aess” (pronounced “ice”) and so on.

About tonic sol-fa

Sol-fa names of notes
In Sight Singing School we use tonic sol-fa (also called movable do sol-fa) where the key note (tonic) of any major scale is always do.

For example:

C major

F major

G major

D major

The key note (tonic) of any minor scale is la. This preserves its relationship with its relative major scale and ensures that the intervals between sol-fa notes stay the same.

A minor

D minor

E minor

B minor

In the examples above you will also see dashes next to some notes. A high dash is added to sol-fa notes to show they are higher than those in the home octave. d’ is an octave higher than d. A low dash is added to notes below the key note of the home octave. (t, l, s,). The home octave is the octave where most of the notes in the melody are found.

Chromatic notes in sol-fa
In Part C the raised seventh in a minor scale is introduced (sol-fa si) so that we can sing melodies using the harmonic minor scale. In Part D other modal and chromatic notes are introduced.

As can be seen below, we create the sharpened sol-fa name by adding “i”, so do sharp becomes di, re sharp becomes ri and so on. The flattened sol-fa names is created by adding “aw”, so ti flat becomes taw, la flat becomes law and so on.

Scales and modes

Knowing how to sing common scales and modes will improve your sight singing. Here are the scales and modes you will encounter in sight Singing School.

They can start on any note, but are written here starting on C as this is a good key for singing them in.

Major scale