Sight Singing Made Simple (Book/CD Pak)

Rating:
Summary: Applause from a Sight Singing Teacher
Review: As a sight singing teacher and author of the Sight Singers Resource web site ..., I was using a variety of methods to teach people to sight sing, until discovering Mr. Bauguess' Sight Singing Made Simple course. Now by just using his materials I can impart this skill in the easiest and most enjoyable way to my students. It's a straight-forward approach dealing with one thing at a time and slowly adding the layers of skills of this multi-sensory art only as necessary. I strongly recommend the Sight Singing Made Simple course for learning this skill which is, through Mr. Baugess' creative efforts now available to anyone interested in acquiring it. He has virtually democratized the fundamentals of the art of sight-singing.
Since I posted this review originally in October of 2000, many others have also now been posted reviews and the array of different reactions is interesting and helpful. They point out just how tricky this skill is to learn and how often frustrating. It is very true that if one finds matching, or mimicking pitches (as is required when used the CD) difficult or impossible, prior ear-training is essential. There is a wide range of ability in this facet of "musical intelligence" (see Howard Gardner's work on Multiple Intelligences). Some people, on the other hand find rhythm and "keeping a steady beat" more problematic than re-producing sounds accurately. This has more to do with "kinesthetic intelligence". Everyone is different. Vocalizing music notation (sight-singing) is a multi-layered activity/skill and all these separate skills must be coordinated in order to sight-sing. It is also true that Sight Singing Made Simple teaches just the very basic fundamentals. This means step-wise intervals within the major diatonic scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do), skips (or intervals) within the major tonic (beginning on 'do') chord, and a blending of these two types of intervals. Rhymtically, one learns to sing whole, half, quarter, eighth, and dotted half notes with these intervals. A more advanced set of exercises (which comes with manuals that explain how to use the exercises, either for use by a teacher or student who has successfully used this introductory course) can be bought through music stores. It's called the Jenson Sight Singing Course. It's basically a two year course and goes into reading in minor keys as well as chromatic tones. It takes one through intermediate sight-singing. I use other texts after this.
But the important thing, in a basic course, is not how advanced one gets but rather that a good and firm foundation in the approach to the skill is established. This, more than any other such method, is accomplished in this first course.
The reason for teaching the entire scale (all seven tones) at once, from my perspective is that it forms an integrated organic whole which if cut up into parts does not convey the true structural foundation upon which most music we in the United States listen to, is based. Most people intuitively know how this scale sounds and Mr. Bauguess capitalizes on that fact by presenting it in its entirety and showing the student how the sounds that make it up move in an up and down, step-wise fashion from one note to a contiguous note. Again, if one cannot by oneself mimick these sounds as heard on the CD then preparatory work must be done with the aid of a teacher. There may be some kind of feedback software out there to help one do this on one's own, but I have never come across it and would recommend, in any case, the personal touch here that is so important of an experienced teacher. Just one secret in this process: Very few people DO NOT actually hear the correct pitch in their minds. It's just that some find it difficult to translate accurately the sound they hear mentally into physical sound through the vocal mechanism. Why? Because they don't take enough time to assimilate the sound they hear by actually hearing that sound in silence for 5-10 seconds before they sing it. This gives for the brain/body system to coordinate the message and render it properly in sound. It can be a very tedious process but I've seen someone who actually teaches people who were thought to be 'tone deaf' and this is the approach he uses and makes it not so tedious because of the creative interaction between himself and the student. It was quite an eye opener for me to watch him work.

Rating:
Summary: Only for true beginners to music
Review: I basically agree with Lee Goldberg's review and I wish I had listened to his review. If you have ever played a musical instrument or sung in a choir, then this book is not for you. It is extremely basic and clearly oriented for someone who knows next to nothing about music notation. I was able to sight sing all of the exercises in the book immediately.

Perhaps my daugther can use this book, but as a church choir singer trying to improve my sight singing, this books was a waste of money.

Rating:
Summary: Super-Duper Basic, and Somewhat Misleading
Review: I bought this book, hoping that I could study its CD and gradually learn to recognize pitches and intervals. Instead, I found an introductory primer on musical notation apparently intended for talented singers (e.g., choir members) who could easily match pitches with their voices but who couldn't read a note.

The exercises are mostly of the "sing after me" type. I just felt, "Thanks a lot! If I could sing the right notes just by hearing them once I wouldn't need your book!"

The notation primer is well done, proceeding sensibly from rhythm notation (the hardest part in sight-reading) to pitch and solfege, in for-the-most-part digestible lesson units. One quibble I have is that the author introduces the notes and solfege symbols for the entire major scale in one lesson, where a more gradual approach would have made more sense: say, first the keynote (DO) and its octave, then the upper and lower dominants (SO), then the notes of the major triad (DO-MI-SO), the major pentatonic scale (DO-RE-MI-SO-LA), and finally the remaining tones (FA, SI).

But readers like myself who desire a systematic ear-training tutorial, presenting tones and intervals gradually and teaching the student to discriminate among them and reproduce them, like a good phonetics course in a foreign language, will have to look elsewhere (just where, I wish I knew!).

Rating:
Summary: A Primer in Music Notation, Not an Ear-Training Book
Review: I bought this book, hoping that I could study its CD and gradually learn to recognize pitches and intervals. Instead, I found an introductory primer on musical notation apparently intended for talented singers (e.g., choir members) who could easily match pitches with their voices but who couldn't read a note.

The exercises are mostly of the "sing after me" type. I just felt, "Thanks a lot! If I could sing the right notes just by hearing them once I wouldn't need your book!"

The notation primer is well done, proceeding sensibly from rhythm notation (the hardest part in sight-reading) to pitch and solfege, in for-the-most-part digestible lesson units. One quibble I have is that the author introduces the notes and solfege symbols for the entire major scale in one lesson, where a more gradual approach would have made more sense: say, first the keynote (DO) and its octave, then the upper and lower dominants (SO), then the notes of the major triad (DO-MI-SO), the major pentatonic scale (DO-RE-MI-SO-LA), and finally the remaining tones (FA, SI).

But readers like myself who desire a systematic ear-training tutorial, presenting tones and intervals gradually and teaching the student to discriminate among them and reproduce them, like a good phonetics course in a foreign language, will have to look elsewhere (just where, I wish I knew!).

Rating:
Summary: GREAT TEACHING TOOL!!
Review: I'M A FULL TIME PIANO AND VOICE TEACHER IN LAS VEGAS. I CAME ACROSS SIGHTSINGING MADE SIMPLE SEVERAL YEARS AGO WHEN THE STORE WAS OUT OF MY REGULAR SIGHTSINGING TEACHING METHOD. WHAT A JEWEL I STUMBLED ONTO! THIS METHOD (WITH CD) IS EASY TO USE FOR BOTH THE TEACHER AND STUDENT. PITCH PROBLEMS DISAPPEAR. THE STUDENT LEARNS NOT ONLY HOW TO MATCH PITCH, BUT IS ALSO TAUGHT ABOUT MUSIC THEORY AND RHYTHM. THIS IS THE INTRODUCTION THAT IS SORELY NEEDED BY OTHER METHODS AND IS LONG OVERDUE.

Rating:
Summary: excellent for beginners
Review: Many beginners are daunted by the difficult drills in other books that make sight singing look like an uphill task. The structured exercises in this book makes a big difference by helping students "divide and conquer". The CD is useful in drawing studens' attention to not only the rhythm but also the duration of notes. The book is not intended to train students to an advanced level, but its value in helping beginners overcome the initial obstacle is tremendous.

This is the third book I've read on sight singing, and the most useful one.

Rating:
Summary: It's as easy as Do-Re-Mi!
Review: Over 20 years ago David Bauguess taught me to sight-sing in his choir. I thought he was the best then... and after going through his book again, I think he's still the best! Now, MY children have learned his techniques. EVERYONE can learn to read music by using this book!

Rating:
Summary: Super-Duper Basic, and Somewhat Misleading
Review: The strength of this book/CD package is its encouraging tone. None of that threatening, confusing, music theory by the learned professor in the first chapter, it really does make you believe that you, a regular person, can learn to identify and sing pitches by sight. I felt safe enough to--finally!--learn the solfege syllables by singing with the CD.

This "look, how easy!" attitude, however, also seriously damages the book's helpfulness, since many important "difficult" concepts are introduced breezily and scantily a couple of pages from the end. A troubling instance of this is the concept of key signatures and scales. Throughout most of the book, melodies are presented on staves without key signatures, therefore misleading the student about how melodies "lie" within a scale, and how the solfege syllables fit within a key signature. What would it hurt to slap the correct key signatures in there? The discussion about it could still be left for last, if the author were concerned about it being too scary. I was also disappointed that the CD concentrated on the easiest intervals--1,2,3 and 5. What about helping us out in a systematic way with fourths, sixths, sevenths, or--heaven forbid--minor intervals?

I think you'd have to be a real beginner trying to sight-read the nursery rhyme literature to feel tremendously helped by this. A launching pad at best.