Solfège, sight singing, and sight-reading on piano?

iternabe

I am about to start learning a group of level 1 pieces in G major, and contemplating on to read them before practice.

Lately when learning new piece in C major, I've tried to sing the melody first (with limited success), and found it helps. The way I was taught singing (not formally, just elementary school stuff) was to use solfège (do re me fa so la ti do). Songs were printed using the numbered musical notation. It is quite easy to associate intervals with these single syllable sounds. And transposing to different key is easy because all that's needed is a different starting pitch.

Now I am learning piano, and the modern staff notation, it's taking me time to get comfortable (I am still not) with the letter alphabets. Especially when trying to sing, I feel letters are not as easily to pronounce quickly as solfège. And how do I speak out sharps and flats in a hurry?

What I am really wondering is when piano players sight read, if they somehow see or think in the way similar to solfège. I've read that people sight read by looking at the intervals rather than individual note. But do you also re-orient to the tonic note of the key signature? For example in a piece in G major, do you look at the notes by noticing their distance to G ledger and therefore their position in the scale. If so, this makes sense to me because that seems to be the same way I practice my scale in G major, and my fingers will just go to the appropriate black key naturally.

I am really interested in what you think and what works for you. Thanks!

https://youtu.be/drnBMAEA3AM

keff

iternabe

Some good questions here, although for my part not easy to answer. I am afraid that the piano has to do the singing for me. I sight read by reading intervals when they are close together but otherwise try to recognise patterns having trained my fingers (over many years) to feel for those notes. I tend not to think of alphabetic names as they are being played although it does happen occasionally if I'm jumping around the bass clef playing octaves.

MRC

When I sight read, I do not pronounce either solfège names or letter names. I do read in relation to tonality: I have registered the key signature in my head, but I also adapt if the piece modulates without changing the key signature. It always helps to be aware of the tonal centre of a passage.

Sight-singing is a great way of developing your musical awareness and certainly can help with sight-reading any instrument. If you already know how a passage should sound before you play it, you have a head start. But you don't need to sing with note names: just la la la or whatever you fancy.

Singing with note names can even be a curse. I know many musicians here in France who lament the fact that, when they see written music, they don't just hear the melody: they hear a load of specific vowel sounds. It's not only annoying, it can hamper them in reading vocal music. The solfège names that automatically come to mind for each note interfere with the syllable that they should be singing.

I can't explain exactly what happens in my mind, but it's clear that, although I'm constantly aware of the tonality and recognise notes, intervals and harmonies instantly, I don't have to consciously give them names as I play or sing. This somehow happens on a different (maybe deeper) level than that of language.

twocats

I'm at the point where I know what the notes are without thinking about it and it's mostly automatic. It's really like fluency of a different language! I don't think about letter names unless I need them to help identify a note that I can't easily read.

Advanced stuff:

If it's a messy chord sometimes I have to break it up to see what's going on. The times I have a lot of trouble is with notes way off the staff on the top and bottom where I have to count to see what the note is. I can recognize the pattern of what an octave looks like or if there's a scale leading up to those notes it's easy to just follow that, but if those very high or very low notes are alone I don't have that visual indicator and have to sit there and count the staves. In that case I usually write down what it is on the score.

I would highly recommend with piano to identify the letter names because they correspond to different physical locations on the keyboard, while with voice you can transpose all you like without effort. Over time you'll automatically recognize the notes and where they are! I think if you sight read while singing letter names slowly, you'll have time to name accidentals and it'll help reinforce to your brain that it's what that marking on the stave means and what physical note on the piano it corresponds to.

twocats

You know what's funny, just the past few hours I started a clawhammer online banjo class after having stepped away from it for several years. I was always hampered by being given tabs (banjo sheet music) and was able to sight-read them well without actually thinking about what I was playing, and I had always wanted to learn how to play by ear since that's a skill I don't have on the piano.

Anyway, I just learned a G major scale while singing the notes aloud and it's so hard! I know someday it'll be second nature but I wanted to share that I can now relate very well to what you're going through 😅

MRC

Ithaca I personally would discourage the habit of always trying to sing the letter or solfege name of a note before one has learned to sing/feel the intervals.

I personally would discourage this habit completely. How do you sight-sing a song if you have to sing the letter names of the notes before you can fit the words to them?

I learnt music as a child in England, and like most other children in England, I didn't learn to sing names of notes. I first learnt to sing tunes with words, then started getting used to how those tunes were notated. I also first learnt the piano by ear, and already had a feeling for the way intervals and harmonies work before I learnt how they were written.

Contrast this with the French system, where kids must first learn solfège before they are allowed to learn an instrument. It's like teaching them to read and write before they have learnt to speak.

It's no secret that English orchestras are much better at sight-reading than French ones. I'm not saying this out of chauvinism: just ask an international conductor who has worked in both countries. The French players need to go through the extra layer of solfège to get to the music.

TC3

During my brief stint as a music major ('89-'90), our sight-singing classes skipped solfege entirely. We would sing numbers of the scale degrees (e.g., in C major, C was 1, F was 4). That made a ton of sense to me at the time, and intersected nicely with theory classes.

twocats

I think singing it with the correct melody develops your sight-singing skills, which are not really required for sight-reading piano! After all, when you play the note it is whatever it is! Sometimes I read through things in my head and it turns out not to be what I thought it sounded like 😆

There's two things you need to be able to do to sight-read piano (eventually this becomes one seamless step):
1) identify the notes on the score
2) know what piano keys those notes correspond to. Sometimes this is recognizing the note and sometimes it's recognizing the interval of a known note in relation to other notes around it.

For studying away from the piano, I personally think that saying the notes aloud can be a good learning device for looking at a note on the score and identifying what it is. I would pair that with visualizing what that note looks like on the piano, or having a keyboard or mockup of one and being able to point to that note so that it can become a fluent translation in your head.

MRC

twocats I think singing it with the correct melody develops your sight-singing skills, which are not really required for sight-reading piano! After all, when you play the note it is whatever it is!

A proficient reader will hear how the music should sound in their head before they play it. This is in fact one of the keys to becoming really good at sight-reading.

When I'm sight-reading, I'm not just making a mechanical connection between the note I see of the page and the corresponding key on the piano. I'm already understanding the music before I play it, melody and harmony. In a way I'm partly playing by ear: I see the music, hear in my head how it should sound, and then reproduce that sound on the piano.

Don't try straightaway to hear a whole piece in your head by reading it: if you've never done this, it will seem impossible. It's something that comes gradually, with years of practice. But do sight-sing melodies and try to hear simple harmonies in your head before you play them. Do join a choir, or sing madrigals, or get out a book of songs and sight-sing through them. The better you get at pre-hearing the music, the better you will get at playing it, on any instrument.

twocats

MRC A proficient reader will hear how the music should sound in their head before they play it. This is in fact one of the keys to becoming really good at sight-reading.

I'm a pretty decent sight reader but I don't do chord analysis or hear it in my head. I think just many years of practice... I have very little ability to play by ear and wish I did though 🙁

keystring

MRC A proficient reader will hear how the music should sound in their head before they play it.

I'm pretty good at reading these days. (The story I told goes back almost 20 years). There is music that has dense chord, is somewhat atonal or just surprising that I cannot hear in advance. But I can play it by relating the note groupings or notes, recognizing chords. Sometimes I may recognize a chord quality, such as a half diminished chord.

I'm curious how many people can always hear what they are about to play for unfamiliar music. Or is this more when playing music that has familiar patterns, which a lot of music does. (?)

Sidokar

Typically you dont use the same way of reading notes for singing and for the piano. Most people who dont have an absolute ear will sight-sing by intervals, thats the easiest way to do it. Without an absolute ear, it is not possible to remember the exact absolute pitch of every note, and to some extent it is not really usefull as the melody is only meaningful with the proper intervals.

On the other hand for the piano, using intervals is of little value. It is necessary to be able to associate each note with a position on the keybaord. In my case I also know what are the notes or chords I am playing and it is anyway also something that is supported by the ear.

keystring

Sidokar On the other hand for the piano, using intervals is of little value. It is necessary to be able to associate each note with a position on the keyboard. In my case I also know what are the notes or chords I am playing and it is anyway also something that is supported by the ear.

A while back, one or two teachers on the other site made a big deal out of "intervallic reading". I didn't learn that method, but can recognize some features. As some examples: You'll recognize a 3rd via notes being on adjacent lines or spaces, which also relates to a "gap between the keys". when you see a C arpeggio, are you mentally regrouping that into a spread out C chord, seeing it as C,E,G,C,E,G etc. - or are you going along the skips and leap of a 4th? A scale is a diagonal line of notes in seconds. I think many of us will recognize an octave by sight.

I agree that we associate notes with a position on the keyboard. This is important and that is the primary thing I learned when relearning to read. But once you have that first note, do you not also use intervals in some fashion going on from there? Like, a number of different things you'd be using? Another element would be predictive patterns. If I see G7, fat white chords, I expect that C is going to come up, in a cadence.

MRC

Sidokar On the other hand for the piano, using intervals is of little value.

I beg to disagree. It's one of the steps towards being able to hear how the music should sound before you play it. If you have no idea of how a phrase ought to sound before you play it, how can you play it convincingly? You may play each of the notes, but in order to give the phrase a good musical shape you need to understand it.

One important way to help develop this understanding is by singing. If you get good at sight-singing, I guarantee that your sight reading on any instrument will improve.

keystring I'm curious how many people can always hear what they are about to play for unfamiliar music. Or is this more when playing music that has familiar patterns, which a lot of music does. (?)

It is indeed about patterns. The more familiar the patterns, the easier it is to hear them in your head before you play them. If I'm reading tonal music in a style familiar to me, I can give a convincing and accurate musical rendering straight away, knowing how a phrase should be shaped, which harmonies need to be emphasised, where the climaxes are, where a second voice needs to be brought out...

If I have to sight-read something complex, atonal, with tricky rhythms, I'll be scanning the music for anything familiar that can help me get a first idea of the way the piece should sound. It won't be perfect, but I will be able to hear the general effect in my head. Some of what I play may be a wild approximation, but it will be enough to give an idea of how the piece goes.

twocats

Ithaca So it seems that when I'm 'reading' a chord quickly, I'm registering the root note + the intervals.

I agree-- you need to identify a note or the root note of the chord, and then intervals are important for completing the chord. They're also useful for consecutive notes as recognizing intervals can be a shortcut to figuring out the next note, especially for things like fast runs.

keystring

@iternabe - My first music language was some hybrid version of solfege that a primary teacher gave us, and I didn't learn notation normally until I was over 50. The teacher pointed to a vertical board and we sang what she pointed to. I was seven. The minor Tonic was La - I think normally these days it's also Do. It is easy for me to "sing your numbers". I was surprised at the b7 b7 part and thereafter because it seems a different version from the song I learned.

When I was given a little organ at age 8, and a little book for adult self-learners, I developed an odd way of reading. I "found Do" (above the last sharp, and the last flat "is Fa"), did end up in the right key (won't explain that one) but mostly kept to music with at the most 2 sharps or flats. I'd "hear" the melody from the page by the way the notes went up and down, and as Solfege. For decades my reading music was hearing it from the page like a singer, and playing what I heard. Later when I got a piano, the only music was a set of sonatinas, which were diatonic so the system still worked. No piano after age 18. It was way, way later that I discovered that I didn't know how to read music in a normal way. I was astonished that people see the notehead on the page, find the corresponding piano key, and then discover what the sound is.

There were a few disadvantages to this, and I retrained into normal piano reading skills over a couple of years (by then in my 60's!). (1) Movable Do is relative pitch. You can be mentally hearing it in F major when it's in Ab major. (2) Music isn't always diatonic. There can also be sudden leaps and such. (3) Chords, unless broken chords or Alberti bass, can't be mentally heard in Solfege at all. (4) The nature of reading piano music, with a relationship between an existing note, and a specific place on the keyboard, is cancelled out.

Sidokar

MRC

I have and I am singing in a chorale and I can sight sing reasonably well. But if singing helps you to hear the melody and for more advanced the harmony also, it does not directly help you to play the piano. On the piano you dont play intervals (sometimes you do) but you mainly press keys associated with a note, therefore what is important is to know the geography of the keyboard and being able to press the right keys according to the notes to be played, that be the notes you read on the score or the notes/harmony you hear/want in your head.

People that are very advanced can directly translate melodies and harmonies into keys to press but that would be a very small fraction of the amateur pianists and it takes years of practice.

MRC

Sidokar People that are very advanced can directly translate melodies and harmonies into keys to press but that would be a very small fraction of the amateur pianists and it takes years of practice.

Maybe not so many years of practice:

Ithaca My children are both able to transpose most songs they play into almost any key. (Even the one who plays poorly and essentially quit a few years ago.) To me this seems like magic, but their teacher said it's a common skill.

If you can transpose, you are directly translating melodies and harmonies into keys to press.

MRC

Here's a sample of what is inflicted on music students in France. You're not meant to play it, or sing it, you speak the names of the notes in the written rhythm.