Reading music and written text: The process of sight-singing

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the cues and miscues singers produce while reading musical text with written text. Analysis of the miscues focuses on defining the process and strategies singers use as they sight-sing a piece of music never before seen or heard. The research of Kenneth S. Goodman forms the basis for the procedures and methodology used in data collection and data analysis. Sight-singing data collected from eight singers, including all cues, miscues, asides, and specific notes, was transcribed on a musicscript. This data yielded 923 musical text and written text cues and miscues. Analysis provides the data that evolved into the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy, a tool for evaluating the miscues of singers orally reading music. A Musical Miscue Inventory Coding Form also was developed using the categories and sub-categories of the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy. The results of the eight singers' use of cues and miscues of the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy and the Musical Miscue Inventory Coding Form provides evidence for the parallel but distinct nature of sight-singing as two semiotic systems working in conjunction with each other-musical text and written text. The results also provide the means to establish a relationship between the sociopsycholinguistic transactive model of reading and the sociopsychomusical linguistic transactive model of sight singing. The findings of this research show that sight-singers utilize the same holistic process and strategies as readers do. The cueing systems, the cognitive strategies, and the learning cycles are the same.