Reddit reviews A New Approach to Sight Singing (Fifth Edition)

I'm guessing since you are learning all this theory and stuff that you want to be a good musician. Any good musician will want to possess the skill of reading music. I know us guitarists generally don't want to read, but it REALLY comes in handy when you want to communicate between other musicians (especially non-guitarists). I recommend this book for reading. Not only does it teach you to read, but it introduces concepts of music theory as you go. I'm currently on Vol. 2 and it's rough, but I can tell you right now that I know SO much more since starting this book than if I hadn't and just kept trying to do things by ear.

As for classes and sequences, it's a lot of theory, ear training, sight-singing, and melodic/harmonic dictations. I know sight-singing seems kind of trivial or even inapplicable, but it is honestly one of, if not the best things to be good at musically. To be able to sight sing well means that you can internalize notes in your head (relatively); i.e. you can hear in your head what's supposed to be playing. For that I would say that this book would be the best, it's the one that I'm using and will continue to use for some time. For theory I would recommend the guitar book (I was never assigned an actual textbook in my theory courses). For ear training I would recommend this site. And the dictations will come once you've gained some mastery in the previous skills.

Sorry for the long post, I kind of got ahead of myself there. But one last thing - if you just keep drilling the theory and reading, even when it gets hard, you'll progress. There were times when I just looked at a piece of music that I had to have down by the following week and thought to myself, "there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to play this." But some determination and time will get you there.

Yeah... I really don't condone self-teaching for many reasons, but obviously you don't want to hear that right now, so this is just a bit of a disclaimer.

Personally, I think if you're going to study on your own, it's really worth it to get a good background in the "bookwork" elements of singing, like vocal anatomy and pedagogy, as well as language work.

On that end, I would recommend books like Doscher's The Functional Unity of the Singing Voice, McKinney's The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults, Miller's The Structure of Singing, and McCoy's Your Voice: An Inside View. These are really not easy reads, per se, but they should give you a really good foundation in understanding what's going on physically, and being aware of potential problems in vocal health and hygiene, which is arguably the biggest reason to study with a teacher. (In other words, a good understanding of the physical vocal structure can help prevent unknowingly contorting it in an unhealthy way).

I would also strongly recommend some study in language, diction, and text. Even for non-classical singers, it's worth it to know about how diction and articulation works. Diction for Singers, A Handbook of Diction for Singers, and International Phonetic Alphabet for Singers would be a good start. (And in general, a working understanding of IPA is crucial).

You can also work on text analysis - I'm not really a poetry/text specialist so I can't recommend any specific books, but I'm sure there are many out there.

Marchesi's Bel Canto: A Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method is another resource to look into, as it contains many exercises designed for technical practice - I liken it to the Hanon exercises commonly found in piano curricula. However, I will definitely warn that these exercises can be easily done incorrectly and can lead to the development of very bad habits, so please proceed with caution and be aware that there are many ways to execute the exercises, some of which are not healthy.

In addition, I would recommend a broad study in music theory, music history, and ear training. [Musictheory.net](http://www.musictheory.net] and Teoria.com are well-respected websites that offer lessons and exercises to learn beginner to intermediate level music theory concepts. Good-ear.com is another website I often recommend that focuses more on ear training. I would also recommend checking out the sidebar and FAQs over at /r/musictheory for more details.

In addition to these websites, some books worth mentioning include Berkowitz's A New Approach to Sight Singing, Music for Analysis, Caplin's Classical Form, Taruskin's Oxford History of Western Music, Grout's A History of Western Music, and Schoenberg's Structural Functions of Harmony. While of course you don't need to have a doctorate in music theory to begin singing, I think it can only be helpful to have a really broad basis of understanding in various parts of music, as they directly affect your ability to read, understand, and interpret music.

Anyway, that should give you a pretty decent start. Please feel free to post if you have any additional questions.

We used this book. We were taught by grad students when I was an undergrad but one of the editors of that book was the professor designing the curriculum. By the end of the fourth semester, even the most awful students were able to sing atonal melodies.