Book Description

Abstract: Sight singing has long been a challenge for performing choral ensembles. Sight singing is defined as the ability to reproduce music symbols vocally at first sight by converting them into actual pitch sounds. Using the movable do system has provided many teachers with a method with which to teach sight singing in a choral setting. However, although many students have success with the movable do system there are still many strides to make in the teaching of sight singing. Prior research has suggested that students perform sight singing exercises more successfully with the addition of harmonic accompaniment to traditional movable do exercises. It has been hypothesized that knowledge of tonal harmonic function would improve students chances of sight singing success. This experiment was designed to teach twenty-six high school students using two different methods of instruction. Both groups received traditional sight singing instruction using movable do solfege and harmonic accompaniment. The treatment group received additional instruction in the form of tonal harmonic theory. Students were randomly assigned to each group and performed a pretest consisting of eight measures written in common time. Students then received ten weeks of instruction, consisting of two lessons a week for twenty minutes each lesson. At the conclusion of the instruction students performed a posttest similar to the pretest. After the experiment was concluded, two independent evaluators judged the pretests and posttests. Evaluators listened to tapes of the students' pretest and posttest performances and judged the number of pitches sung correctly by each student. There was no significant difference between groups on either the pretest or the posttest. However, when the groups were combined, there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest performances.