Sight reading can be really handy if you’re in the right situations and can be really fun when you start to get it right. Even in that case, let’s see what it is and whether we should learn it.
Sight singing is a fairly hard thing to master. It requires a lot of practice and a very specific environment within which it can thrive. If you are not surrounded by written music all the time then sight singing is going to be a hard skill to master that you never end up using.
I think it’s my job to tell that I love this skill a lot but I can’t justify putting in the time it requires because I never use it.
It Will Take Time
It will most definitely take you time to understand what sight singing is and not time to understand how difficult it is to pull off.
There needs to be a decent amount of practice that needs to go into this because you’re not only reading notes from the music sheet and trying to sing them but you also need to understand in what rhythm it needs to be played.
Get either one of them wrong and you’ve done a bad job.
So, you can just imagine and maybe you’ve even tried it a few times. Pick up a random piece of sheet music and try to do it if you hadn’t already.
It’s quite tough.
If you’re able to do it quite well then I envy you.
Who Is It For?
I can make the argument that it’s good for everybody in the music industry but then again, I think it would be wrong to say that it’s a necessary skill.
It really isn’t.
Sight singing is a dying art because the need for it is for musicians who are working on specific things. If you find yourself working on multiple pieces and for some reason, you don’t want to practice them ahead of time and feel the need to perform on the spot, sure it’ll come in handy.
But in almost all cases if you attend practice with the band or the choir you probably will end up learning your parts by heart.
I really can’t recommend that you learn this.
Given how long it takes to learn and that you do need the pre-requisite understanding of how music theory and notes are supposed to sound, I think your time will be served somewhere else.
Sight Singing Through College
If you’re planning to attend college and you think that it’ll come in handy and you will be using it every day, maybe so.
But I can tell you this in good faith, it’s been five years, I haven’t used sight singing in a really long time and I don’t see myself using it in the future either.
It won’t help me and practicing ear training and music theory separately has tremendously helped me out as well.
I Wanted to Learn
I really wanted to learn this skill and was making progress through college as well. I decided to drop out but I made a note to myself and thought I’d keep up the sight reading (the same principle just I was playing bass at that time).
The primary reason was simple, I enjoyed being able to read on the spot but something happened.
It never came up.
I started composing and started to do other things and sight reading never came up. Just didn’t. Not once.
Even when I tried to learn a piece from written music, I relied on my reading rather than my sight-reading abilities. I fared just fine, to be honest.
So, makes you wonder, what can it do for you?
Evaluate It For Yourself
I think the biggest reason why I never came across this skill in the last five years is that it requires written music to be present.
Whether you agree with me or not, written music is only ever present in colleges and very much less so outside of them. If you have a DAW and you have an understanding of how music theory and your ear is decent, you will rarely rely on your abilities to make sense of sight reading.
If You’re Going to College
If you’re heading towards college and you’re sure you’re going to stick it out, then wonderful. You should definitely invest in this skill as it will benefit you a lot since you will be surrounded by assignments and different projects all the time.
But if you’re sure you’ll be using it after your college ends, then that’s good. But if the answer is no, then I suggest you don’t put in the effort to learn how to sight read.
If You Plan to Become a Teacher
If you plan to become a teacher, there is no better skill than sight reading and sight singing. Regardless of what your students may bring you, you’ll be able to cope with the differences.
One of the worst skills to have is the one you’re really good at but never get to use it. The hardest part will be getting over something you put in so much time and effort for and never using it.
Spending Time Learning How to Sing
But I honestly think that spending time learning how to sing better is going to prove much better for you in the long run.
If you mostly listen to bands sight reading wouldn’t even be on your radar. But singing will be ever-present and something you will be doing for the rest of your musical journey.
How Can You Learn to Sing?
Online courses to the moon and back again.
Read about it here.
If I could write a book about what people should have at least one of, the top of the list would be an online course for something they wish to learn.
No surprise in knowing that learning to sing is a long task but teachers like Robert Lunte have provided the world with their amazing talent of teaching students how to sing in a digital format.
‘The Four Pillars of Singing’ is something that I would recommend to everyone who is willing to learn how to sing.
If that doesn’t satisfy you then here is the list of all the courses that you can buy.
Regardless of what you may end up doing there is no wrong choice, go with your gut and start to learn to sing.