Zoltan KodalyZoltán Kodály - 333 Reading Exercises | Choral Method for Choir and Voice | Sight Singing and Interval Training for Musicians | BH Kodály Series Vocal Sight Reading Book for Singers and Educators

Half of the exercises in this book are written in solfege symbols, the other half on the staff. This is great for learning to sing by relative pitch. If that is your aim, you should sing the exercises on the staff in solfege--but how? Where is "Do"?This stumped me for days. But I finally cracked the code:These exercises are "keyed" to solfege symbols. The pentatonic scale is: do-re-mi-sol-la (d-r-m-s-l)Each exercise has a group of of these solfege letters next to the exercise number to tell you which notes/octaves you will sing. The way Kodaly writes the key is always from from highest to lowest. The biggest range that is used in the exercises (332) looks like this: r'-d'-l-s-m-r-d-l,-s,Do (d) is the tonic, notes above the tonic are written as r-m-s-l (no added marks). Keep going up, now you get to the next octave d'-r' (note the superscript ' ). Going down from tonic Do you have l,-s, (note the subscript , ). So if you see the mark ' after a letter, that means octave above tonic Do; the mark , after a letter means octave below tonic Do.So if you have a tune that is keyed as "r-d-l,-s," that tells you to use these four notes: Do/tonic, Re second above, La third below, and Sol fourth below the tonic. In contrast, if you have: "l-s-r-d" that tells you that Sol and La are the fifth and sixth above the tonic do.Finding the tonic on staff exercises: Most of the exercises on the staff have either F, G, or D as the tonic Do. But the notation doesn't tell you that, and it is NOT the first note. How to find the tonic: look for which notes on the staff have the same intervals as the notes in the key. Missing notes are helpful. Example: if you have "r-d-s-l" in the key, look for the space or line that never has a note--that will be Ti and the note above is Do. If you have "l-d-r-m" in the key, you will see on the staff three notes in a row, a skip, and one lower note. The note at the bottom of the three notes in a row is your Do. If you have "d-r-m-s" look for the missing note, that is Fa and go down to Do from there.Some staffs have a key signature that looks like key of G (F#). However, these often actually are using note D as the tonic (since there is no 'Ti', which would be the other sharp note in key of D, the notation for D and G keys is the same for the pentatonic scale). Note D may also be the tonic in staffs with no key signature. Examples: D is the tonic in exercise 1 (no key), 48 (F#), 196 (F#). On page 23, F is the tonic in exercise 142 and 144, G is the tonic in 140 and 143.Why it matters: compare exercises 19 and 20. In 19, the key is "r-d" and the notes are D4 and E4. D4 is the tonic Do. In 20, the key is "d-l,-s," and the notes are D4, E4, G4. G4 is the tonic Do. If you tried to sing 20 with D4 as the tonic, you would end up singing "do-re-fa" --and you quickly spiral into crazy-land when you get to the harder ones.To sum up: If you don't start on the right Do, you will be totally out of whack. So take the time to find Do before you start each exercise.

This is a superb sight-sing or sight-reading music book. In addition to the sheer volume of exercises, it starts with easier note progressions and rhythms, and then builds on the complexity of them. I never feel bored with these. There is always a challenge before I’m done.Note that this is not a tutorial; it assumes you already know something about music, or that you have another resource to teach you. That said, if you already understand musical notation, you could probably jump into these and figure it out as you go as long as you’re willing to google a bit on the side.I highly recommend these for anyone learning, improving, or maintaining there ability to sight-read music!

Recommended for any vocal or instrumental student. In fact, when I was taking voice lessons, I used these exercises on my own.The exercises are written on a single line, in solfege notation for some exercises and in conventional notation for others.The exercises are categorized according to tone row. Recorder teachers may be especially interested in pages 1-3 and 8, which, if played in G major, are playable with the fingers of the left hand. However, a teacher following the Choksy sequence would not be able to use any of the exercises in the beginning stages.

This is simply a book with 333 one-liners for sight singing. It's all based on the pentatonic scale, starting with 2 notes and going as high as 7. The pacing is slow enough to be appropriate for absolute beginners. However, it's only a beginning book: you'll need more material if you want to advance to the diatonic and chromatic scales.There's a minimal amount of text or instruction, only a preface by the author. So you will need a teacher to help you through it.It's a great source of exercises for beginners, but don't expect anything more than just the exercises.

Wonderful exercises for learning to sight sing. If you work slowly, methodically from the beginning, you will improve your solfege skills. Take it from me: I'm middle-aged and never had choir until my 20s. I struggled with sight singing for years after that and have just now begun to gain some skill at it. This book is one of the big reasons why. I suggest challenging your brain by doing 2 things at once: sing each melody while patting, clapping, or stomping both the beat and the beat subdivision. This really makes your mind work hard and improves your musicianship tremendously.

I love this book of solfège exercises to work through with music students

The book is in great shape. I use all of the exercises for my music class so the quality of the book was important.

These are great excersizes for learning to sight sing. I ordered it for a homework assignment and it got here very quickly! :) Extremely helpful!