Five Tips For Teaching Sightsinging Effectively

• If students can sing steps and thirds, and find all notes of a tonic triad, they can sing anything.
• Start early, and have a plan. A little bit of practice regularly goes a long way.
• Be a thief – find a mentor or teacher who teaches sightsinging skills effectively, and steal their process.
• When something is too easy or difficult, you don’t have to change what you’re working on. Change how you’re working on it.
• There’s no ultimate book or method or process; whatever works for you and your students is the best approach.

We spoke with veteran music educator Denise Eaton, and she shared a plethora of tips on how to teach sightsinging in choral rehearsals, gleaned from her nearly thirty years of leading high school choirs. She's written down this approach in her SMART, STEPS, and InSIGHT sight singing books, which she created to help high school choral conductors like herself overcome the challenges of building independent musicians. These five quick tips are from our conversation. To hear each one explained (and more), listen to the full episode on Choral Sightsinging.

Notes From The Staff is a podcast from the creators of uTheory. Join us for conversations about pedagogy, music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education. Subscribe to Notes From The Staff on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.