Conclusions
On hypotheses A: Are absolute note names necessary in sight singing, when reading pitch notation on the stave relatively? Mental process: one sees ‘do’ (a name that indicates a function) and thinks ‘F’ (indicating a pitch).
My hypothetical answer was: no, absolute note names are not necessary in sight singing, when reading pitch notation on the stave relatively.
It proved to be quite difficult to test the relative reading of staff notation. It would need more testing with students who actually learned to read staff notation relatively, because most of the students in the tests did not at all see a relative do in the do-clef notation in the first place. Their comments indicated that when they read staff notation with a do-clef, they almost automatically saw pitch note names (as if there was a pitch clef). Using stick notation was a way to approach this question in a different manner.
From the tests using stick notation can be concluded that for most of the students pitch names (letter names or fixed-do names) did not give enough information to sight-sing a written melody. Only students with perfect pitch had no trouble in performing these exercises. Some students without perfect pitch could do it as well, but there were more mistakes, the performance of the melody was less fluent or the intonation was not as good as in singing with relative (function) names. Letter names and fixed-do names were frequently visually imagined as positions (fingerings) on an instrument. Relative solfa syllables were not. Although students sometimes commented that moving their fingers as if playing their instrument gave them confidence about what to sing, this was not audible in the test results.
When the students had to sight-sing from staff notation with a do-clef, many of them used all kinds of strategies to adapt the visual (pitch) information they saw to the new (sound) names they were asked to sing: they were imagining changing the clef or moving the positions of the notes on the staff. This process took too much time for fluent singing and listening was not really involved. Most of the time it sounded as if the listening was ‘blocked’ by the reading and the thinking process. For them the do-clef notation did not seem to redirect the reading process from pitch information to functional understanding or sound information. But even if maybe some of these students did see ‘do’ first and then thought “F”, it can’t be concluded that they needed this.
Some of the singers however said that they could easily accept the relative do-clef notation, without having to translate the relative syllables to pitch names in their mind. Pitch names seemed to provide no extra information; neither were pitch names automatically recalled in the reading process from staff notation.
The only students in the test groups who had learned to use note names both relatively and absolute from an early age where the students from the School voor Jong Talent. They trained using the relative system in singing and the pitch notation when playing their instrument. Before they learned to read and write music notation they followed an aural approach for approximately two years.[1] In the sight singing tests they were able to connect the already existing aural image of the music to what they were reading. It did not seem to take them any ‘translation time’ to sing with relative note names reading from staff notation with a do-clef. But still they sometimes felt that this form of notation was not ‘complete’: notes in certain positions on the stave were imagined with flats or sharps as if there were a treble or bass clef at the beginning of the stave. This indicated that ‘pitch thinking’ was included in the reading process.
On hypotheses B) Are relative note names necessary in sight singing, when reading pitch notation on the stave ‘absolute’? Mental process: one sees ‘F’ (a name that indicates a pitch) and thinks ‘do’ (indicating a function).
My hypothetical answer was: yes, relative note names are necessary in sight singing, when reading pitch notation on the stave absolute.
The test results showed that in many situations singing with relative note names improved the aural understanding of tone relations. This was audible in intonation and fluency of singing, even in the groups where some instrumentalists had perfect pitch. When the exercises were sung with relative solfa syllables there seemed to be more unity in the tones of the melodies. In singing to pitch names the intonation differed more per tone when the students were singing as a group: they often did not agree on the intonation of the pitches to be sung. When students had trouble singing a bigger interval, once they had thought of the relative note name the syllable took them to the right sound. This effect was not audible when singing exercises on pitch names.
The use of functional (relative) note names in stick notation also seemed to give more information on the sound than pitch names (letter names or fixed-do names), but it was sometimes confusing for fixed-do students (without perfect pitch) who had learned pitch names in a more or less exact relation to the sounding pitches on their instrument to sing note names that did not correspond to this pitch memory.
Although it was many times confusing for students who had only learned to read notation with pitch names, the functional understanding, expressed by a relative note name, seemed to connect more to the aural imagination and thus was actually needed to realise a good ‘sound image’ of the written notation.
I had my reservations before I started this research, but I was still surprised by the level that many of our conservatoire students showed in sight singing. Some students had a good aural understanding of pitch notation, but many students had no independent aural image of the music when reading from notation, without playing their instrument. Most of the students were also unaware of how music notation worked – or did not work – for them. This was an even more worrying thing, because most of these students will become teachers later in life. Instrumental teachers often like to use the phrase: ‘Play this melody as if you were singing it’. I am sure now they must mean the breathing and phrasing of a melody. Depending on the results of the test it can’t be about intonation and aural imagination of the tones.
Is it then maybe unrealistic to expect that musicians are able ‘to hear what they see and to see what they hear’?[2] I don’t think so. The low level of aural understanding of pitch in staff notation can’t however be treated with adding more hours of sight singing to the curriculum. It is even questionable if the subject sight singing, as it is practised in many conservatoires and music schools all over the world, does what it claims: developing the aural imagination. The test results showed that many years of practising sight singing, reading from some form of fixed (pitch) notation, did not develop a safe and reliable sound image for most of the conservatoire students. A symbol to sound approach may seem to work for playing some instruments, but many times it is learned as symbol to action. In order to achieve a good aural understanding of pitch notation the process has to be approached from the opposite direction. Aural images that are understood with stable sound-names can be heard and sung from music notation. These are never loose pitches (except for people with perfect pitch), but they are always meaningful relations between two or more tones.
It could be interesting to continue this research on a more individual basis. Test persons should then sing the exercises solo. In this research I did not choose for this option, because it still would have been very difficult to compare the results. The test persons had very different backgrounds in musical education. If the research had to be performed in a more scientific and individual form, the test persons should maybe be selected outside a musical institute and they should be given specific (limited) musical preparation tasks for certain, more limited test exercises. I am still thinking if this ‘laboratory’ approach could be useful and if it would maybe show different results.
So, what’s in a name? Does it make a difference when different types of note names are used? Yes, it does. Teachers should be aware of what is happening in the musical learning process when note names and music notation are involved. It is not the name of a note in relation to it's pitch notation on the staff that should be learned first, but it is the combination of sounds with stable, functional (and thus relative) note names that will eventually make aural understanding of staff notation possible.
My advise after listening to too many students struggling with sight singing would be: don't concentrate on sight singing exercises at first but start singing! Learn to connect the music to relative note names that express the meaning and relation of the sounds. Sing your own melodies and improvise with the sounds that already have meaning and can be understood with relative note names.[3] Tools like hand-signs can be used and notation can be involved after the sounds are understood by the musical mind. The first forms of music notation should closely connect to the aural understanding of the musical relations, and I think that a relative form of pitch notation is necessary in this stage. In fact, I think that in order to be able to aurally understand pitch notation many students in the test groups of this research would need to relearn to read staff notation in this way.
Of course it is also necessary to learn to read pitch notation in the absolute way. Singing names and playing names are different and both have their use in music. They both need to be learned in a sound to symbol approach, preferably from an early age. But at the same time I would say that singing or thinking music with relative solfa syllables, with or without any form of music notation is more than a pedagogical tool in any phase of the musical learning process: the names are the sounds, and in that way they become the most direct form of aural analysis.