Hello Marcia,

 

It sounds to me like you are talking about absolute pitch, sometimes called perfect pitch.  This generally means looking at the printed note and being able to produce its pitch straight from your own head.  I cannot imagine that any choir would require that of its prospective members.  In fact, I don't regard it as a gift - more like a hinderance, expecially if, for any reason, a piece has to be sung in a higher or lower key than that in which it is written.  That would mean ongoing transposition in your head from note to note.  Quite a chore!

 

Any choir of which I have experience would require that you be able to sing in tune given notes or pitches, as well as some brief phrases designed to test aural capacity.  On top of this, your should be able to sing a short piece of printed music, in a given key.  Usually the tonic chord of that key is sounded on an intrument to help you establish tonality.  Just sing in tune in the given tonality.  Worrying about each note and its absolute pitch is a bit self-defeating.  In fact such a concern must have a bearing on how you actually sing a line.  If you can show that you sing a line in tune, then I would then place an ability to observe tempo and change of tempo, rhythm, a sense of line/phrasing, observing dynamic markings next high up on my list of things desirable in a chorister.  At the same level I would put quality of voice/timbre and a capacity to blend the voice with others.

 

Here again, absolute pitch is not required.  In the event that a choir (heaven forbid!  LOL) should sharpen or flatten, absolute pitch is a curse.  One voice singing true while the rest have risen or dropped is a choirmaster's nightmare.  Far more important for all choirsters is to take a tonality and stay in tune within it., and if the unthinkable happens, that all voices move together up or down in pitch.

 

I hope you find this helpful, and that you have good news about your audition.

Yes it would have been better, since relative pitch matters much more than perfect pitch (which can be a very mixed blessing - my choir was singing the Schnittke Choir Concerto last winter and whenever we went out of pitch in the pretty hard parts the couple of people with perfect pitch in the choir had to stop singing since they weren't able to transpose the difficult music). Sight singing is all about the flow of the music and the rhythms and markings are no less important than the pitch. When testing sight singing I would always give either the starting note or else the key, and then expect to hear the melody. 

 

Yes you definitely made yourself sound less skilled, since you misunderstood what was being tested. Just better luck next time :)

 

 

Best

 

Hildigunnur

Hi, Marcia.  Yes, you may have done.  And I'm certainly not acquainted with the meaning that your former teacher apparently gave you.  But part of the problem may be simple semantics.  "Sight singing" and "sight reading" are generally considered to be interchangeable terms (except for the obvious difference that the latter term applies equally well to instrumentalists!).  And what they both refer to is the ability to read music, at sight (i.e. without any specific preparation or practice on the music), with accuracy to everything that is represented on the page.

 

And when choir directors test for sing singing (or sightreading) they do so to determine how accurately you can read music in rehearsal, and how much drill you will require in order to memorize it in the absence of sightreading skills.  It is a skill that is especially necessary and valued when singers or players are hired for recording sessions, for which rehearsal in advance is often impossible and for which the music must be read accurately and sung accurately the very first time you see it.

 

Now that clearly includes getting the pitches (and intervals) correct, but it goes well beyond that to include everything on the page, and THEN adds in an understanding of the style that's involved and the ability to apply that style to the music!

 

But what you describe sounds MUCH more like a teacher trying to develop perfect pitch (also called absolute pitch) in a student, or it's poor cousin relative pitch, in order to sing the written pitches accurately without reference to a piano.  And while there are some people who believe that can be learned, there are numerous studies that SEEM to suggest that it's an ability you're either born with or you're not.  My wife's junior high school chorus teacher had the students hum an "A" at the beginning of each rehearsal, and at the beginning of the year the pitches were all over the place, but by the end of the year they could do it very accurately, but that was probably through muscle memory rather than any kind of neurological perfect pitch.

 

When I directed a college singers show for Disney, every kid in my cast had passed a "sight singing" test during their audition, but half of them could not read music and one could not sing anything but the melody!!!  So having someone sing a melody is NOT the best test of sightreading ability!  When I ran the vocal auditions the following year I worked out a test that more closely represented what they would have to do in rehearsals, learning a short harmony part, retaining it, and singing it with other voices, and it worked so well I continued to use it for my college ensemble for years afterward!  And I didn't care whether they learned their part by reading, by ear, or by prayer and fasting!!!

All the best,

John