Running a little late tonight, because I just barely finished writing the second play (Safe and Sound) and submitted it mere seconds ago. I’ll write more about that on Blank Slate shortly.
In the meantime, today’s quick thought is this: when I took AP Music Theory my senior year of high school, I was absolutely pathetic at sightsinging. Couldn’t do it. I kept getting pulled off into irrelevant notes, and the intervals just weren’t happening the way I thought they should. I mean, I’ve been reading music for over fifteen years now, so it wasn’t that I didn’t understand what the notes meant. It’s just that getting from the page to my vocal cords was nigh impossible.
I’d also always sung the melody in hymns. But on my mission I learned a few bass lines — hymns like “The Spirit of God” and “Redeemer of Israel” — and it was good. Over the past couple of years, though, I’ve started trying to pick out the bass line each time we sing in church. And guess what: I’m learning how to sightsing!
Not spectacularly or anything, of course, but I’m getting it right more and more, and I’ve learned the bass lines for at least a dozen hymns this way. It feels great. I love making music. :)
Comments
Hooray for “music making!” I’ve been (range wise) a soprano my whole life so never really had the need to become proficient at reading other parts. In the last year or so I decided it was essential for my wellbeing to be a capable alto. I am still not great without someone sitting next to me (singing loudly) but it gets better all the time. There is nothing better than making harmony :). Carry on!
Congratulations! I know the feeling. I’ve been a decent to good sight reader since High School and earlier from singing in choirs, but it wasn’t until I became a music major at BYU that I learned how to sight sing properly with the hand signals and without the aid of accompaniment. It was such a revelation to discover that (entirely learnable) skill. And what a joy to experience greater freedom and independence in music making! It’s the “Aha!” moment that I really love, when the thing you’re learning just clicks.
It’s true! It just takes practice. In high school I started trying to pick out the alto line in the hymns, and it was really hard at first. The one real benefit in my eyes was for singing at the start of early-morning seminary–I could actually HIT the low notes that early. But it definitely gets easier over time. Like sight-reading for the piano. Now the old ladies in choir at home like to sit next to me and make me sing really loud :)
Carly: Harmony rocks. (Weak musical pun sort of intended. :P)
DL: I can’t wait till the day when I really can sightsing, without having to follow the organ. And it’s cool learning how to break apart the chord I’m listening to and be able to hear the individual notes.
Haley: Haha, that’s why I often don’t mind the initial stages of a cold, when my voice goes so low that I’ve got an awesome bass.
I remember hearing once that perfect pitch could be learned. Thoughts?
I think that it can in the same way that a person can learn the difference between forrest green and olive green and kelley green, etc. Similarly, I think that there are those who never will be able to differentiate in the same way that some people are colorblind. They are both issues of our brain interpreting wave patterns.
Learning perfect pitch would be really nice for composing, I have to say. (Or at least I assume it would be. Maybe I’m wrong.)