5 min read

Sight singing for choirs

Choir rehearsal is the worst possible place to learn to read — everyone else is carrying you. Here is what to do in the six days in between.

Nathaniel School of Music

Why rehearsal does not teach reading

In a section of twelve altos, you do not need to read. You need to be roughly right, half a beat behind whoever is confident, and the sound that comes out is correct. This is a wonderful property of choirs and a terrible one for learning.

The result is familiar to every director: a choir that sings a piece beautifully in week four and cannot read the first line of a new one in week five.

What actually helps

Sing your part alone, against the other three

This is the specific thing rehearsal never gives you. You need to hear your line in context — with the harmony around it, so you learn where your note sits in the chord — while being the only one singing it, so nobody is covering for you.

That is exactly what the app's hymn mode does: pick soprano, alto, tenor or bass, the other three play, and only your line is scored.

A bass line worth knowing on its own terms, not just as the bottom of the chord.

Learn the shape of your voice's job

Soprano — usually the tune, usually stepwise, and the part most exposed when it drifts.
Alto — the hardest to read: narrow range, lots of repeated notes, and it rarely moves the way your ear expects. Alto is where sight-singing skill pays most.
Tenor — frequently the most melodic inner line, and often the one that decides whether a chord sounds finished.
Bass — you are singing the harmony's foundation. Learn to hear the root movement and half the guesswork disappears.

Know the chord under your note

A singer who knows they are on the third of the chord sings it differently — slightly lower, and with more care — than one who is just hitting a dot. This is the difference between a choir that is in tune and one that is merely correct.

A major triad. The ringed middle note is the third — the note that decides whether the chord is major or minor. If your part has it, you are carrying the chord’s colour: tune it with care. More on this in the chords guide below.

If “the third of the chord” is not yet a phrase you can hear, start with chords for singers — one triad, sung well, teaches six intervals.

A routine between rehearsals

Ten minutes on a hymn you do not know, singing your own part with the others playing.
Then the same hymn with the other parts off. If you can still hold your line, you know it.
Then something from the graded course in your clef, sung once.

Three times a week. Your director will notice inside a month.

Open the hymns →