Sight Singing
Okay, this is going to be a rant. Just forewarning you all.
Sight singing might be the one class that would make me want to drop music all together. It's not because I'm a bad sight reader (which I am to a degree) but the shit that I have to do in that class makes no sense to me. First off, I had a hearing today. I'm losing my voice, so OBVIOUSLY some of the notes that I sing aren't going to be pretty, and may be flat because guess what, I CAN'T PHYSICALLY sing it at the current time. Theory teachers are relentless, they will make you do it anyway, and I said that I would try, but to bear in mind of my situation while grading. Well, needless to say there were a bunch of ugly sounds that came out of my mouth, but I obviously knew what I was doing during my prepared materials (melody, play and sing, and a one line rhythm). Then there's the pitch pattern, not bad, rhythm (I fucked up a bit, but that's because of major brain farts and I should have done better than I had on it), but then the melody. Oh the WONDERFUL unprepared melody. WTF?! Like, seriously, I should have transposed it. I should have asked her if I could have transposed it, because I couldn't sing like any of the pitches. I have almost an octave range right now from about a D4 to a D5 (and that was stretching it). Thanks for forcing me to sing in the range that I OBVIOUSLY couldn't sing. I mean, really, it wasn't THAT hard, I just couldn't sing any of the damn pitches, and because of that I actually stayed in the key of... Asia minor. So, I'm sorry that I couldn't hear what key I needed to end in because I couldn't actually sing the pitches that I need to to start. Plus the rhythm in the piece was really abnormal, asymetric 3+2+2 with some syncopations.
Wouldn't you think that you would give the harder stuff as things to prepare and the easier stuff as unprepared material? That's what's always happened in the past. It makes no sense. I would sight read an easier piece and prepare a harder piece if I had to choose which one I would sight read and which one I would practice. If you do that in the real world, why not that way on a test too? The test shouldn't be as easy as our prepared stuff was, but it shouldn't be as hard as the unprepared stuff was.
Rhythm is hard for the majority of vocalists that have never played an instrument. To all those that call vocalists dumb because of that, well fuck you. I played violin and viola for a majority of my life, and yeah, I had some weird funky rhythms that I learned what they were, but I'm still not the greatest at rhythms. And frankly, most of the rhythms that I'm seeing in sight singing I'm probably going to see maybe once or twice a year. Guess what, I'll fucking practice it, I'm not going to have to sight read it, and if I have to, oh well, I'm gonna fuck it up until I am given time to practice. A lot of the more complicated rhythms are seen in instrumental music. And it makes sense. The voice takes much longer to mature than that of an instrument (now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you can become a virtuoso instrumentalist over night). You can't give complicated rhythms to a young voice, it's detrimental. The physical demand of doing rhythms with the voice is crazy, especially with young singing. Hence the reason why at a younger age, instrumentalists are seeing more rhythmic notation than young singers. Because instrumentalists have seen this notation for a longer time, and have gotten to internalize it more so than vocalists, this creates a gap between the two. So I'm sorry if I'm sitting in class, and am slowly getting the syncopated rhythm while all the other instrumentalists are like, "boo, this is easy." I wish that I had been introduced to more complicated rhythms, but I wasn't, so it's not my god damn fault that I struggle more than you do because you've seen it most of your life and I haven't. Maybe if I had kept playing violin I would be better off.
Also, I'm sorry, I don't read other clefs. And I've gotten much better at them. But I think that it's gone a little too far when you're reading in a new clef (with either treble, bass, alto, or tenor at random) every other measure on note names with clapping a rhythm on the bottom. It's unnecessary and a waste of my time, especially since most of my life will be reading treble and bass clef behind a piano.
Grrrr....
Sight singing might be the one class that would make me want to drop music all together. It's not because I'm a bad sight reader (which I am to a degree) but the shit that I have to do in that class makes no sense to me. First off, I had a hearing today. I'm losing my voice, so OBVIOUSLY some of the notes that I sing aren't going to be pretty, and may be flat because guess what, I CAN'T PHYSICALLY sing it at the current time. Theory teachers are relentless, they will make you do it anyway, and I said that I would try, but to bear in mind of my situation while grading. Well, needless to say there were a bunch of ugly sounds that came out of my mouth, but I obviously knew what I was doing during my prepared materials (melody, play and sing, and a one line rhythm). Then there's the pitch pattern, not bad, rhythm (I fucked up a bit, but that's because of major brain farts and I should have done better than I had on it), but then the melody. Oh the WONDERFUL unprepared melody. WTF?! Like, seriously, I should have transposed it. I should have asked her if I could have transposed it, because I couldn't sing like any of the pitches. I have almost an octave range right now from about a D4 to a D5 (and that was stretching it). Thanks for forcing me to sing in the range that I OBVIOUSLY couldn't sing. I mean, really, it wasn't THAT hard, I just couldn't sing any of the damn pitches, and because of that I actually stayed in the key of... Asia minor. So, I'm sorry that I couldn't hear what key I needed to end in because I couldn't actually sing the pitches that I need to to start. Plus the rhythm in the piece was really abnormal, asymetric 3+2+2 with some syncopations.
Wouldn't you think that you would give the harder stuff as things to prepare and the easier stuff as unprepared material? That's what's always happened in the past. It makes no sense. I would sight read an easier piece and prepare a harder piece if I had to choose which one I would sight read and which one I would practice. If you do that in the real world, why not that way on a test too? The test shouldn't be as easy as our prepared stuff was, but it shouldn't be as hard as the unprepared stuff was.
Rhythm is hard for the majority of vocalists that have never played an instrument. To all those that call vocalists dumb because of that, well fuck you. I played violin and viola for a majority of my life, and yeah, I had some weird funky rhythms that I learned what they were, but I'm still not the greatest at rhythms. And frankly, most of the rhythms that I'm seeing in sight singing I'm probably going to see maybe once or twice a year. Guess what, I'll fucking practice it, I'm not going to have to sight read it, and if I have to, oh well, I'm gonna fuck it up until I am given time to practice. A lot of the more complicated rhythms are seen in instrumental music. And it makes sense. The voice takes much longer to mature than that of an instrument (now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you can become a virtuoso instrumentalist over night). You can't give complicated rhythms to a young voice, it's detrimental. The physical demand of doing rhythms with the voice is crazy, especially with young singing. Hence the reason why at a younger age, instrumentalists are seeing more rhythmic notation than young singers. Because instrumentalists have seen this notation for a longer time, and have gotten to internalize it more so than vocalists, this creates a gap between the two. So I'm sorry if I'm sitting in class, and am slowly getting the syncopated rhythm while all the other instrumentalists are like, "boo, this is easy." I wish that I had been introduced to more complicated rhythms, but I wasn't, so it's not my god damn fault that I struggle more than you do because you've seen it most of your life and I haven't. Maybe if I had kept playing violin I would be better off.
Also, I'm sorry, I don't read other clefs. And I've gotten much better at them. But I think that it's gone a little too far when you're reading in a new clef (with either treble, bass, alto, or tenor at random) every other measure on note names with clapping a rhythm on the bottom. It's unnecessary and a waste of my time, especially since most of my life will be reading treble and bass clef behind a piano.
Grrrr....