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  Flight Paths

Music Theory 101--Sightsinging

10/8/2012

4 Comments

 
I never had much trouble sightreading piano music.  You read the note, you find it on the piano, and you play it.  I wasn’t perfect by any means—trying to read music and translate that to a mental keyboard in your mind and then have your hands immediately go to the correct place on the real keyboard in just a matter of milliseconds takes a quick mind and perfect eyesight, neither of which I had even then.  But for the most part I was a good music reader and got the job done, even if I did have to slow the tempo down so I could play in the correct rhythm too. 

Then I got to college theory classes and was expected to sightsing!  Now that is a completely different issue.  Looking at a page of notes and singing them seemed like an impossible task to me.  It takes a natural ear.  If you don’t have one, you have to train it.  I had to put mine through boot camp the entire first year of theory classes.  Eventually I learned to do it—I could look at a piece of music and sing the notes, without accompaniment of any kind, not even chords to keep you in the right key.  I wasn’t any more perfect at it than I was at the piano, probably less, but I was musician enough to pass my tests, classes, and juries, and to make two college choruses and a women’s sextet.

Most of the hymns in our books are written in standard major keys, with standard four part harmony.  They are nothing like the music I had to sightsing in college, so I can usually sightsing them without too much trouble.  It’s sort of like being asked to boil an egg when you have been making soufflés for four years--simple.  Most of the congregation, though, do not have the advantage of being trained musicians and they just sing it the way they first heard it, which in many cases was incorrect. That means that very often I stick out like a sore thumb (or a sour note).

I have tried to sing what everyone else is singing just so I won’t, but I have trained myself so diligently that I can’t.  I’m a musician—I see the note, I sing what I see.  We were singing “When We All Get to Heaven,” the other day, and every time (at least three) I sang it right I created a clash that was hard to go unnoticed.  “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” creates at least five such clashes.  With “Amazing Grace” the list is nearly as long as the song itself.

But you know what?  While I don’t want to cause those clashes, my training makes it nearly impossible to sing the songs wrong, and my desire to please God by obeying His commands to sing makes it completely impossible for me to stop singing.

Isn’t that the way life is supposed to be for a Christian?  You really don’t want to clash with your neighbors.  You really want to “live peaceably with all men.”  But you should have trained yourself so well that you find it nearly impossible to sin.  Sticking out like a sore thumb shouldn’t matter to you.  Yes, it may be difficult, but no one ever promised us “easy.”  We are supposed to be different from unbelievers.  We are supposed to “conform to the image of His Son,” not to the world. It should be a habit by now.

Sometimes when I sing things correctly, but differently, I get funny looks.  Once, a song leader even went to the microphone when that section came up on the next verse so he could sing the (wrong) note loud and clear.  I guess he heard my different note on the first verse and it bugged him. 

This coming Sunday morning, if you hear someone sing a different note than you are singing, maybe you should check the notes you are singing.  Then do something much more important.  Use it as a reminder to check your life.  Could anyone tell you apart from your neighbors, or do you blend right in?  Out there in the world, you should be sightsinging a completely different tune.

But the wisdom from above is first pure—then peaceable…James 3:17.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…Rom 12:2.

Dene Ward

4 Comments
Lucas
10/10/2012 01:45:11 pm

You could try not looking at the music and just learning the song aurally.

Reply
Diana Dow link
10/21/2012 01:30:46 pm

We have just recently finished a singing class at our congregation where we sang through the hymnal. We sang all the hymns and attempted to sing them accurately. It was eye-opening to see that we have been singing many of them wrong for years. I also learned that sometimes when I'm having trouble singing a song, it's not because I'm singing it wrong but because someone else is singing it wrong and the notes just don't fit together like they should. While the notes we sing don't have to be perfect to be pleasing to God, the comparison you made of standing out in the crowd instead of conforming to fit in is a good one.

Reply
usic
3/17/2014 10:10:39 am

So, you think god wrote that music and that by not singing it according to the version that you have in front of you then you are displeasing god? That makes no sense. What about other versions or editions of music? What about the people (the majority of your fellow musicians I should point out) who are singing it together and you stand out. Are they displeasing god because they are not singing your version. I know several versions of Amazing Grace, have I displeased god by learning and singing them? What will be my punishment for doing so? Can you please tell me! I have to know.

I dont know where you learned your musicianship but it must have been from the school of assholes and drama queens who demand that all the attention be on them (you honey). I hope I never have to work with you again!

Reply
hmmm
4/7/2014 03:18:26 am

I don't know where to start. Where in this did Mrs. Ward say that the songs themselves were inspired? Where did she state that singing wrong was sinful? The whole point was that, as a trained musician she finds it hard to sing differently than the music printed on the page and that we, as Christians who have trained ourselves and "buffeted [our] bod[ies] daily", should find it equally hard to live differently than God directed through His written word.

As far as different versions of one song, each version would be printed in its hymnal, right? So, as she read that particular hymnal, she'd sing that version correctly, right?

I almost didn't respond, as this is a classic case of trolling, where someone makes ugly comments just to start an internet battle. Finally, I decided to point out the clear fallacies of your attack, in case an innocent read your vitriol and was confused.

Reply



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    Dene Ward has taught the Bible for more than  forty years, spoken at women’s retreats and lectureships, and has written both devotional books and class materials. She lives in Lake Butler, Florida, with her husband Keith.


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