Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2017

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M.M.

Department

Music Theory

Degree Program

School of Music

Committee Chair

Jemian, Rebecca

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Bolding, Randi

Committee Member

Bolding, Randi

Committee Member

Hogrefe, Eric

Author's Keywords

Sight-singing; music education; music theory

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to highlight effective sight-singing techniques used by successful choral directors in the state of Kentucky. The method used for this study was a non-experimental survey sent to thirty-four high school choral directors. Directors were selected to participate based on distinguished assessment scores received over the last five years (2011-2015). They were asked questions about their techniques, background in education, and placement of sight-singing in the curriculum. With a response rate of 65% the results indicated that the majority of directors had received or earned at least a master’s degree, had taught for at least six or more years, and received most of their sight-singing instruction from their undergraduate degree. The techniques of sight-singing used were movable-do (95.45%) for pitch and count singing (81.82%) for rhythm. Finally, the majority of the directors only spent 5-10 minutes of class time on sight-singing and 90.91% placed sight-singing at the beginning, during, or right after warmups. With these results, a sight-singing method model was created using vocal and choral warmups to assist in a sight-singing example. Suggestions for further research and studies are given.

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