Bad tone, but can sing in tune? [Sight-singing help]

[brbstudying]

Hi,

Sight-singing is definitely not my strong point. Not a natural singer, which sucks. But I have been practicing and improving in my pitch, but the thing is, my tone remains relatively "flat-sounding", even though I am in pitch. Will I lose marks over this?

[alisoneom]

Hey! I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "flat-sounding" tone - are you talking about your singing voice or vocal quality? If so, there is no need to worry about your tone because HSC sightsinging only marks you on your accuracy of pitch and rhythm. As long as you can sing the right notes with the right rhythm, you will not lose any marks  This is because a vast majority of Music 2 students are not singers - you don't have to be a singer to get good marks in sightsinging! So to answer your question, your vocal quality or tone would not lose you marks.

Also, it's brilliant that you're practicing sightsinging- most people try to avoid it altogether, so the fact that you are practicing it and getting used to it, would give you a huge advantage Hope this helped!

[alisoneom]

Sight-singing is definitely not my strong point. Not a natural singer, which sucks. But I have been practicing and improving in my pitch, but the thing is, my tone remains relatively "flat-sounding", even though I am in pitch. Will I lose marks over this?

also, if you're working on improving pitch, sit with a piano / keyboard and play certain intervals that you find difficult, so that you can get used to what they sound like! Make sure you sing the notes as you play them, and try playing in different notes / keys

One of my friends took 10 minutes every day to sit in front of a piano to play and sing a set interval (she changed them every week - e.g. Week 1: Major 2nd, Week 2: Major 3rd) starting in a number of different notes to get used to it. She said it really helped with her sightsinging AND melodic dictation so I suggest you try it too, if you're working on getting accurate pitch!

[isaacdelatorre]

Hi,

Sight-singing is definitely not my strong point. Not a natural singer, which sucks. But I have been practicing and improving in my pitch, but the thing is, my tone remains relatively "flat-sounding", even though I am in pitch. Will I lose marks over this?

Hi there,

So when I was doing music 2 and music extension; the sight singing part really scared me. Even though I am a singer and voice was my main instrument I have a really bad ear and so Im completely useless at aural/sightsinging (the opposite of you ahah sound not bad but can't sing the right notes/rhythm). So it really does not matter if you "sound bad" when you sing - it is a bit of an issue if you are flat sounding to the extent that it is no longer the note but you're singing a semitone/tone below. If you are in pitch you definitely will not lose marks.

I completley agree with alisoneom - drilling through intervals really helped me. since the whole piece is just a combination of intervals after each other knowing them really well helps you fluently sing, once you know those you can start to incorporate the rhythm as well - but intervals is defniitely the way to go.

The way I did it was to find songs I knew with the interval: E.g. a perfect 5th was twinkle twinkle little star etc. find ones for EVERY INTERVAL even obscure ones like augmented ones. Just in case they throw a curveball weird interval.

Hope this helps