Sight Singing Made Simple (Book/CD Pak) [Paperback]

David Bauguess (Composer)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1995

This easy-to-use audio course for self or small group study is a step-by-step introduction to music reading skills.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

David Bauguess is the author of The Jenson Sight Singing Course (published by Hal Leonard), a best-selling method for sight-reading training for choral singers. His sight-singing publications have been used to teach hundreds of thousands of students and adults to read music.

From the Author

This book introduces reading music to a non-music reader. It assumes no previous experience with or knowledge of reading music. It is an introduction of the fundamentals, for beginners, that should be appropriate for learners of about ages 11 and up. It is assumed the user is able to match pitches vocally. A book cannot provide feedback to confirm this.

A number of books teach music reading. In my judgment, most have one or two significant shortcomings: (1) they may have much to say ABOUT reading music but the reader does not HEAR the sounds they are reading about; and (2) too much attention is given to explanations of music theory that are not immediately relevant or applicable to the learner’s current skill level.

As an introduction of limited scope, two goals shaped the content and sequence of this book and address these shortcomings:

1) An emphasis on learning to actually read music by the inclusion of an audio component. Hearing the sounds notes represent is an essential requisite to reading them. Also, given the book’s limited length, it was deemed better to adequately practice core skills, such as the basic intervals, than to cursorily touch on a variety of greater difficulties.

2) Delaying or excluding aspects of music theory that are not relevant or supportive of the skills being taught. Key signatures, for example, are not introduced immediately because they are not necessary for learning to sight sing, including some melodies that might be considered "challenging." When they are introduced, it is to show how they can be used to determine the name of the starting pitch. To explain how key signatures are derived from constructing scales would be of little or no practical usefulness at the time one is beginning to learn to sight sing. At a later stage of study, this understanding is essential.

The "simplicity" of Sight Singing Made Simple is its focus on establishing fundamental understanding and skills and on building confidence.

Product Details

• Paperback: 46 pages
• Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation (March 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793599733
• ISBN-13: 978-0793599738
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #132,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Applause from a Sight Singing Teacher, October 30, 2000

By 

Marc Rubinn (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sight Singing Made Simple (Book/CD Pak) (Paperback)

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.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for what it is, January 28, 2007

By 

Alf (San Rafael CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sight Singing Made Simple (Book/CD Pak) (Paperback)

This is a great *introductory* book for someone who knows how to sing but is intimidated by sight singing. It is very basic--just a start--and you will need to supplement it with subsequent books or lessons. But it doesn't cost much and will get the student going. Here's a true story:

My wife has an excellent voice, but did not know how to sight sing and was convinced that she could never learn. I bought her this book and she went through it in one weekend. That Tuesday she auditioned for a chorus and was asked to sight sing a simple piece. She did, she passed, and now she sings in the chorus. I have her going through another book and she is progressing well.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Primer in Music Notation, Not an Ear-Training Book, February 17, 2002

By 

Lee Goldberg (Bowie, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sight Singing Made Simple (Book/CD Pak) (Paperback)

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!).