Sight Singing With Children

Sight Singing is the ability to look at a piece of music you’ve never heard before, in our case a hymn, and sing it. While sight singing takes practice, it is not all that difficult. It is made easier with the notations we use in our hymnals — shape notes.

Click this link to see a sight singing class in action: I’m Happy Today

Have you noticed the different shaped note heads when singing hymns? If not, don’t feel bad. Many have been singing the same hymns in our books for years and never noticed. They are there for a reason. They are a crutch really. A shortcut to learning music. Instead of having to know the names of each note and the line or space it is on and the key it is in and whether it on the bass or treble clef (whew, it’s exhausting thinking about it all), just learn the shape and its name. With just 7 shapes this won’t take anytime at all and if you have watched The Sound Of Music, you probably already know their names and their relationship to each other. Now all you need to know are the shapes and which one goes with which name.

Although in this picture Do is on C, it is not always. And if you don’t know that Do is on C it doesn’t matter. The beauty of this crutch is that Do can be on any line or space. Re will be on the next one up and Mi on the next and so on. They are placed on the lines and spaces so that those who do not know the crutch but who can read traditional music can sing as well. Plus, seeing the note go up by one or two or more spaces gives a visual clue as to how far up or down the note is in relation to the previous note thus helping those who don’t read traditional music notation or shaped notes sing along with a degree of accuracy.

Now how to teach this to a group of children. I begin every session by drawing the shapes on a white board in order, singing the note name as I go. The kids are eager to participate so they join in. Then, pointing to each shape, we sing the note. At first this is done in order up and down the scale — Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do, Ti, La, So, Fa, Mi, Re, Do. After the kids are confident with the shapes we skip around, pointing to the note I want them to sing:

Do, Re, Mi
Do Re Mi
Do Mi
Do Re Mi Fa
Do Fa
Do Re Mi Fa So
Do So and so on

After a few sessions, the kids are pretty good at singing up and down the scale. They enjoy the challenge of singing different intervals. We always end this part of the class (usually 5 minutes) singing the very important notes: Do Mi So Do So Mi Do. Nearly ever hymn in the book will start with these notes. Learning to sing these notes automatically prepares your young boys on their journey to become an excellent song leader.

It is at this point I introduce another crutch. This one is a kinesthetic crutch incorporating another sense (movement) in the learning process. Some people benefit from this, others don’t so it is up to you whether or not you introduce it. I encourage all of them to learn these movements but I do not require them to always use them.
These hand movements help with the concept of high and low sounds. The lowest Do starts at the waistline and the highest Do is up at the forehead level.

After a few minutes of practicing the names and sounds of the shaped notes, we open our notebooks and begin practicing reading the notes on the staff. Remember the beauty of the shaped notes is that where Do falls on the staff doesn’t matter. What is important is that Do to Re to Mi sounds like the beginning of Do A Deer an so on. Encourage the kids to point to each note as they are sung so they don’t get lost. Some of the exercises have the note names underneath to help but soon the crutch (note names underneath) for the crutch (shaped notes) will not be needed and the class can run through the exercises fairly easily.

But what about rhythm? If rhythm notation is completely new to you, you are most likely very comfortable singing all kinds of complicated rhythms already. The only challenge is knowing how to sing what is written on the page. I don’t have any cool crutch like the shaped notes because the rhythm notation system used universally is very logical and easy to understand. If you need a refresher, here is a video that gives a brief explanation: Rhythmic Notation.

I introduce new note values (quarter note, half note, etc) as they come up in the exercise. The whole first page just uses quarter notes, half notes and one whole note at the very end. The next few pages offer more challenging rhythms. So far, I haven’t stressed counting. Instead we sing the notes (Do, Re, Mi, etc) in rhythm. Most of the hymns you will encounter have very simple rhythms. This part of the class should take no more than 5 minutes.

The last 5 minutes of our “15 minutes before class sight singing session” involves applying what we’ve learned to a real hymn. The first one in the notebook is God Is So Good. It is usually well known to most people and, even if it isn’t, it is easy to learn.

I find that reading a piece of music can be overwhelming for beginners There is so much on the page to look at: notes, lines, numbers, words, symbols of all sorts. To make things a little easier I separated the music into its four parts. Soprano/Lead, Alto, Tenor and Bass are all separated so the kids can concentrate on one thing at a time. Each part should be sung individually using the shaped notes and hand movements before attempting to put them together . Everyone will sing the Soprano (Lead). Everyone will sing the Alto. Everyone will sing the Tenor. Everyone will sing the Bass. Singing each part individually is like having 4 well written exercises — exercises with purpose.

The next step is to sing the words to each of the parts — individually. Then it is time to put it all together. Start off with just singing the Soprano and the Bass together. Once the kids are comfortable with that you can add Tenor and Alto one at a time. I borrow one of my sons to help us in this class. Having me on Soprano and Benjamin on Bass ensures that the parts are sung correctly. The kids can sing along with whoever they prefer. I encourage them to try different parts. Since they probably know the song already, singing a different part teaches them to sing what they are seeing, not what they already know.

After everyone is comfortable with singing a hymn in at least 2 parts, I introduce the idea of song leading. All of us learn to lead. It’s important for everyone to understand what it is the song leader is trying to do when he’s up there “waving his arms around”. As we sing, we are all using the proper hand motions. The ultimate goal is for the young boys in the class to gain the confidence in this small informal setting to be able to use their new skill in front of the congregation.

The result of this brief sight singing class is that I have a class of 4th-6th graders who are excited about singing. I have had parents tell me that their child is singing in our worship services where they had not even attempted before. I have students who want to come to class 15 minutes early so they can participate in the singing class. My hope is that these students will be able to sing hymns they’ve known from childhood but also learn new ones that are being written and revive old ones that have been lost through the years. I hope that these students will always be enthusiastic about praising God and encouraging their fellow Christians with song.