Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students by Ethel Home
page 56 of 69 (81%)
page 56 of 69 (81%)
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be teaching by imitation--as we teach a bird to sing a tune--not
teaching by method. Remember that we are not aiming at artistic performance in a sight-singing class, so do not hammer away at a tune until the performance of it has reached your ideal. If you do, your aim is 'performance'--not sight-singing. If a child makes a mistake in dictation, do not tell it what is wrong, unless you are very short of time. Get it to sing the phrase it has written to Sol-fa names--in this way it will find out its own mistake. In writing notes, either on the blackboard or on manuscript paper, it is not necessary to fill up all the space between the lines, as is done in printed music. If children are allowed to do this, they will spend a long time over their exercises. Teach them to turn all tails of notes _up_ which are written on lines or spaces below the third line, and _down_ for those above. The direction of the tails of notes on the third line itself will depend on the context. These directions refer, of course, to the writing of melodies. It is often necessary to remind even grown-up students that accidentals must be placed _before_ the note affected, not after it; also that a dot after a note which is written on a line must come on the space next above, not on the line itself. Children often forget that the leading note in a minor key invariably carries an accidental. We must now say a little on the subject of revision. It is a fault of the young teacher that she often entirely neglects this, with the result that her class can only sing accurately at sight, and do dictation in, the last key learned. During the first few lessons in a new key it is |
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