Some remarks about the exercises and demonstrations in these sight-singing pages:
Nearly all the exercises and all demonstration links involve playing a midi file, so you will need:
A sound card in your PC
Loudspeakers connected (and turned up), or headphones plugged into the sound card
Midi-player software, such as Microsoft Windows Media Player
These all come as standard with all modern PCs.
If you don't have this setup, you will not be able to do any of the exercises or hear any of the demonstrations included in these pages, which will make learning very difficult.
The filetype ".mid" needs to be set to play the downloaded midi file in media player or similar. This should be the default on most PCs.
Beware of opening a new window for each call to the media plyer - you could end up with a lot of open windows!
If your are using Microsoft Media Player, on the "View" menu, select "Options", and under the "Player" tab, select "Use the same player for each media file played"
Some general comments about how to do the exercises:
Generally, exercises get more difficult as you progress, so if you find difficulty with one, don't rush on, keep trying.
In exercises where you have to sing a note, you are aiming to make a sound which is as close as possible to the pitch (up or down) of the note you hear. You do not have to imitate the "tone" or "timbre" of the note - the notes produced by the midi files may sound rather "nasal", although the exact tone will depend on your PC sound card. I suggest singing the note to a "Laa" sound, quite loudly, with your mouth open, not closed.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell you whether you are doing these exercises correctly or not! You could try getting someone else to listen and to tell you, but they may not know either! If you believe you are doing them correctly, move on to the next sections, you will find out later whether you are correct.
The only computer-based way of telling is a program called "Sight-singer trainer" which can be downloaded from http://www.vocalist.org.uk/sight_reading.html, but I have not found this to be very satisfactory in recognising the note you sing through a microphone. If you come across a better on-line program, please let me know.
