#Music prodigy vs smart music how to#

#Music prodigy vs smart music how to#

I simply didn’t know how to instill the skill sets required for them to successfully sight sing, and I didn’t respect how incredibly difficult this skill is for this special age group. Over time, I determined many reasons for my lack of success at teaching this important skill and none of those reasons had anything to do with their intellectual abilities or the types of students I was teaching. What was the problem? I had purchased the best sight-singing books! Shouldn’t that do the trick? Apparently not! I was completely unable to get my 300 inexperienced middle school students to be successful at sight singing and, most importantly, to enjoy the process of learning it. I can still hear the moans and sighs like it was yesterday. I’ll never forget the incredible dark cloud that seemed to descend over my classroom when I would ask students to pull out their sight-singing books. The Sight Singing Problem – i n Any Music ClassroomĪrmed with a master’s degree in music and a wonderful student teaching experience, I brought lots of excitement into the classroom at the beginning my teaching career. The challenge is in getting any student (not just instrumental students) excited about sight singing.

When students can sing their parts in tune with correct rhythm, it will increase their musical accuracy and ultimately help them become better at playing their instrument. Personally I have seen the way singing awakens kid’s brains. Furthermore, sight singing temporarily removes instruments from the equation, and this can help identify and isolate instrument and technique problems. It can improve intonation and help students develop their listening skills. There are many well-known benefits of encouraging singing in the instrumental classroom.