Sight-Singing and Ear Training

If you are a beginner musician who has only ever played music casually, you may not think it’s necessary to learn to sight-sing. Sight-singing is challenging, and it’s only something you need to do if you’re a classical singer or singing in a choir, right?

Not necessarily! Sight-singing is a valuable tool that makes any musician a better player, regardless of your instrument. Sight-singing will not only improve your sigh-reading abilities, allowing you to easily pick up and play any piece of music the first time you see it, it will improve your sense of pitch and rhythm, and give you greater freedom when it comes to performing, improvising, and writing music.

There are several different approaches to learning sight-singing, and unfortunately, not all of them are created equal. In this article, we’ll explore the different methods for learning to sight-sing, and find out which ones are highly effective and which ones are highly ineffective.

What is Sight-Singing in Music?

What is sight-singing? Sight-singing is the practice of reading and vocalizing a piece of music out loud the first time you see it—or “on sight.” It requires an understanding of musical notation, a good sense of rhythm, and the ability to hear and reproduce notes inside your head (using your “inner ear.”)

You don’t need to have an amazing voice to be able to sight-sing. You just need to be able to vocalize notes on pitch, and at the correct time.

How to Check Your Sight-Singing?

There are four basic levels of proficiency in sight-singing. A basic understanding of musical notation and a knowledge of solfeggio are helpful at all four levels. If you’re wondering how to check your sight-singing, take a look at the four benchmarks below.

First, you should be able to sing a major scale up and down, after giving yourself a starting pitch.

If you can do that, you should next be able to sing degrees of the major scale at random, after establishing a tonality.

Next, you should be able to sing a simple melodic line without hearing it played. You can give yourself a starting pitch or a starting chord to establish a tonal center, and then try to sing each pitch. Don’t worry about rhythm yet.

Once you can do that, it’s time to start adding in rhythm. It’s helpful to practice rhythm separately, by clapping or tapping, first. Then, put the melody and the rhythm together. You should be able to sign along to a metronome without speeding up or falling behind.

The Importance of Learning How to Sight-Sing

Learning how to sight-sing will dramatically improve your musicality, no matter what instrument you play. It will improve your inner ear and give you a more solid foundation in pitch and rhythm. Even if you only learn how to sing very simple melodies, you will still gain a better sense of musicality that will in turn lay the foundation to recognizing melodies, chord progressions and underlying musical structures more easily.

However, in order to reap these benefits, you must learn how to sight-sing the right way. You must follow a tonal approach, learn your solfeggio, and not get caught up worrying about isolated intervals. More on this later.

Why Do Sight-Singing and Ear Training Go Hand in Hand?

In order to sing a note out loud that you see on a page, you must first hear the note inside your head. This is called audiation, and it is a basic component of ear training. It’s important to understand, however, that sight-singing and ear training only go hand-in-hand when you approach them using an effective method.

Scientific studies show that when we hear music, our perception of pitch is dependent on the tonal context (the musical key and harmonic framework of the piece). The sonic sensation of any interval, note, or chord changes depending on the role it assumes inside the musical key. So when we audiate, we naturally want to place the sound within a harmonic context.

This means that the same interval can sound very different depending on where it falls within the harmony. For example, a major third between Do and Mi feels very different than the major third between Sol and Ti. If you use an ineffective method to learn ear training and sight-singing, you will not know how to place those intervals within a harmonic context, and you may not even recognize that they are both major thirds.

Spoiler alert! Unfortunately, interval-based exercises don’t take this very important and science-backed aspect into account at all, this has serious negative consequences for students who practice them. More on this in the next section...

How to Learn Sight-Singing?

So what is an effective method of learning ear training and sight-singing? What are the methods for sight-singing that will help you improve quickly and effectively, today?

First, let’s talk about one ineffective method: interval-based training. Interval-based ear training means memorizing/recognizing different intervals and practicing them in isolation. You may have come across this method if you’ve researched ear training or “how to learn sight-singing” on the internet.

Practicing intervals in isolation (for example, singing a major third, then a minor sixth, then a perfect fifth, etc.) without establishing a tonal context for those intervals will not help you feel the sonic sensation of those intervals within a piece of music. When you hear a major third between Sol and Ti, you may not even recognize it as a major third.

Additionally, when you read sheet music, you may recognize the major third interval on paper, but you may not be able to reproduce the sound yourself if you have not established a tonal center for the piece. Also, if you approach every single note and interval separately (thinking “here is a major third, now here is a whole step, now here is another major third”) you will only be able to read very slowly, and the entire process is going to be very clunky, rational and not pleasant at all.

On the other hand, if you have established a tonal center and know your solfege, you will be able to recognize larger chunks of music more quickly, and easily flow through those chunks as you feel the sonic sensation of each note. This is possible since each scale degree has its own unique sensation that you can internalize and then recall/recognize quickly and intuitively.

Step-by-Step Sight Singing Practice - What to Focus On?

So the best approach for learning how to sight-sing is a tonal approach that slowly builds, step-by-step, the cognitive processes needed to recall pitches and rhythm very intuitively and quickly. Let’s take a look at some simple exercises you can do today to start improving your own sight-singing abilities.

Ear Training Exercises for Sight Singing

We are going to break down three exercises that help you improve your ear training and sight-singing at each level. Each sight-singing exercise will build upon the previous exercise, giving you a ladder to slowly improve, step by step.

Sing the Major Scale

Give yourself a starting note (on a piano if you have access to one, or use a keyboard app) and then try to sing the major scale up and down. Use solfeggio—it will help you to know where you are in the scale.

If you don’t know how to sing a major scale, start by teaching yourself the C Major scale. This is the easiest to play on a piano—just start at middle C and play all the white notes up to the next C. Play each note for yourself and then sing it. Once you can do this, start singing the notes without playing them first.

If you can do this, start singing different scale degrees within the C major scale. This is not the same as doing isolated interval practice, it’s very different indeed: you should establish the tonality by playing the scale, then attempt to sing different scale degrees by recalling their specific sonic sensation (without thinking of intervals, distances, etc. at all), always knowing where you are within the C scale. Check your pitches on the piano.

Sight-Sing Melody Only

Next, start reading simple melodic lines and vocalizing the notes. At this point, don’t worry about getting the rhythms right. Just focus on reading each note, hearing it in your head, and singing it out loud, using solfeggio. Write the solfege syllables underneath the notes at first.

There are online resources where you can find lots of short sight-singing exercises at increasing levels of difficulty, like this one. If you can, print them out so you can write on them.

Sight-Sing Melody and Rhythm

Once you are able to read notes and reproduce them with your voice, you should start doing so in time to a beat. Practice the rhythms alone first by clapping or tapping your finger so that you can focus on just getting the rhythm right.

Once you can do the melody and the rhythm separately, start putting them together. Use a metronome (there are apps for this if you don’t have one) to keep yourself on tempo. Start very slowly and incrementally increase the speed.

Tips for Your Sight-Singing

Let’s talk about a few basic tips for sight-singing that will help you improve your sight-singing practice, and by extension, improve your ear-training and overall musicality.

• Always establish a tonal center by playing the scale or tonic chord (the I chord of the key) first
• Do not think in intervals—use solfeggio and always think in terms of scale degrees (i.e. when you are facing a difficult melodic passage, sing the scale in your head to get all the notes right)
• Don’t practice interval-based exercises (i.e. recognizing or singing intervals at random)
• Don’t rely on an instrument to make the pitches for you. You can do this at first if you don’t know the major scale, but your goal should be to sing pitches without hearing them first
• Practice melody and rhythm separately
• Start slowly, without a metronome, then add a metronome and gently increase your speed
• Don’t rush! There is no secret to learn sight-singing fast, it takes time and dedicated practice

Want to Start Improving Your Sight-Singing Skills?

If you’re wondering how to best practice sight-singing or if you’ve struggled to improve your sight-singing in the past, don’t worry: you’re not alone! Lots of musicians struggle with sight-singing and ear training. Most of the time, it’s because they don’t know what to practice, and turn to ineffective methods without realizing it. This leads them to wrongly blame themselves for their lack of results instead of blaming those methods, which are the real cause of this issue.

The Most Effective Ear Training Method for Singers & Vocalists

The Use Your Ear method is not a sight-singing method specifically, but it is the ear training method that could have the most significant impact on your sight-singing skills. Use Your Ear is the only science-based, step-by-step method available for developing an advanced perception of musical pitch and training your ear quickly and effectively. Because what is sight-singing without ear training? Impossible!

If you are a musician or a singer that is struggling to get good at sight-singing (or ear training in general) due to lack of the ability to properly imagine, recall, recognize or sing the pitch of musical notes/chords, the Use Your Ear method is designed exactly to solve those issues and allow you to develop an advanced internalization and understanding of musical pitch, no matter your age or current level.

Our relative pitch video course is a fully immersive course that has been extremely popular among our students, who all report seeing real, noticeable and consistent improvement. It is the only science-based, step-by-step method available to help you master your understanding of musical pitch and develop a better inner sense of musicality. You’ll learn to intuitively recognize melody and harmony, quickly imagine melodies and chords from music notation, and will be able to apply your new skills to real-life musical situations like jazz jams, choir practice, songwriting, exams, auditions, etc.

Check out our free Use Your Ear workshop to get an overview of our method and some valuable insights into how to train your ears the right way while making sure you avoid creating bad habits. The workshop will help you to evaluate your current skill level and give you clear indications on what to do (and not to do) based on that. Lastly, you will practice free exercises that you can take with you to use in your own practice - no strings attached!

If you prefer a one-on-one atmosphere and want instant feedback or special assistance with specific problem areas, we can also help with that. Our one-on-one lessons give you access to a professional ear training instructor who is an expert in the Use Your Ear method and will provide lessons tailored specifically to your needs.

Conclusion

Don’t let your ears hold you back! Even if you’ve struggled in the past, you will make noticeable and consistent progress using our method. Whether you’re an experienced music student or a casual beginning musician, we can meet you at your level to provide support and instruction.

Check out Use Your Ear today. We can’t wait to help you get on a path toward greater musical freedom!