[Menvi-discuss] Ratio of reading VS listening when learning vocalmusic?

[Kelby Carlson]

Speaking as someone who is also knew to braille music, here are 
my thoughts:

I use recordings exclusively for solo work.  I have perfect 
pitch, so memorizing note values isn't problematic without a 
scorwh.  My coach and I go over any important but ambiguous 
dynamic markings, rhythm patterns or tempi before
I work in a lesson.

For choir, I would recommend trying to find a recording of the 
song if possible (unless it's knew.) Something that has helped 
me--particularly as I am bad at reading braille rhythms--is to 
read along with a recording, gradually taking the recording away 
and using the score as your reference.  It also helps to memorize 
the lyrics first, so that you can concentrate your energy on the 
notes.  If you have a coach and are finding it especially 
difficult, you might ask if you can work on choral music in your 
coaching time.  If not, you might try recording rehearsals.  Or, 
if you want to spend more time, you can devote a lot of time to 
just working out the score manually.  I use a combination of all 
of these methods.
Kelby



 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Brandon Keith Biggs" <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com
To: "This is for discussing music and braille 
literacy"<menvi-discuss at menvi.org
Date sent: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 08:45:23 -0800
Subject: [Menvi-discuss] Ratio of reading VS listening when 
learning vocalmusic?

Hello,
I'm in the quandary of being given about 10 times as much music 
as I can
possibly learn in half the time I have using Braille alone.  I've 
only been
reading Braille music a year and I can't even read my scores as 
fast as my
choir sings them.
I'm wondering with solo rep though, how much reading vs.  
listening do people
do? I used to do exclusively listening to learn music and I never 
really
knew note values or pitches.
I was thinking doing a 60-40 combo, first memorize the song 
through the
recording then learn how to play the melody on the piano then put 
the two
together, but I've not tried it yet.
Other thoughts have been:
Memorize the rhythms and lyrics first with the print, then learn 
pitches
with the recording.
Learn the whole song listening then just learn the rhythm's after 
the song
has been sung along with the recording several times.
Just learn the piano melody well enough to record it, then just 
listen to
that recording and say the lyrics along with that and slowly work 
up to
singing the pitches.
Some how sight read the music and just keep making it through the 
score over
and over till I have it memorized.

I'm sure there are a million ways of learning music, but I would 
love to
hear from other vocalists what they do.
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs


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