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Sight Reading Classes and Workshops |
Reading music poses particular challenges to singers. After all, there is no key a singer can press to generate a particular pitch. Even those who read music well for piano or other instruments may find it difficult to sing unfamiliar music at sight without accompaniment.
Classes
Just Voices offers an eight week series of 90-minute classes designed especially for singers who want to learn to read music or improve their sight-reading skills. The curriculum reviews the fundamentals of music notation including staffs, clefs, time and key signatures, notes, rests, dynamic markings, and other common musical symbols. The class will provide you with tools and materials you can use to continue to improve your reading on your own.
Students begin reading music on the staff without accompaniment from the very first class, and sight reading practice is built into every lesson. By the end of the eight weeks the class is reading in four-part harmony.
Exercises for ear and eye training include melodic and rhythmic patterns, major and minor scales, and arpeggiated chords. All class materials are included in the tuition. Members of Just Voices and Morningside Singers receive a discount on membership fees for the semester they are enrolled in these classes.
Feedback from participants:
"I feel I am now able to learn to sing a piece of music on my own." --Allen Bleick
"Just two weeks into your sight-reding class my pastor asked if I would put together some music for a service. I found I could now check the key signatures and sight-sing the melodies of tunes I didn't know!" --Andy Morse
"Very well thought out and wonderfully presented." --Bill Alderfer
Workshops
We also offer Pitch or Rhythm Reading Workshops to church or community choirs in an all-day format taught on location at your rehearsal site. These group introductions to reading will give your choir a common vocabulary and an understanding of music notation that will allow you to use a reading approach in future rehearsals.
Feedback from Participants:
"The time went by quickly and the leader kept us on task. I wish we had been taught this method in high school or middle school choir." --Karen Derry
"For a long time I have wanted to teach sight-reading to my choir. Your one-day pitch reading workshop got us off to a great start. The choir was enthusiastic and totally wrapped up in your presentation. We even gained some new members as a result! I am using the techniques you taught in my rehearsals. They are excited about their new musical literacy and eager to learn more. We look forward to having you come again." --Thomas Eisnor, Minister of Music, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Woodstock)
Please contact us for fees and a schedule of classes.
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