I am posting this in teachers instead of the voice forum to get as many views as possible. As a few of you will know I am a keen advocate of the ability to sing, and especially at sight whatever instrument you play, as an aural skill rather than vocal quality. And of course for the aural tests you need that ability. I recently got hold of Sing At Sight by William Appleby, and it looks good. I haven't looked at Improve Your Sight Singing, though have seen the piano and woodwind ones from this series and they are good. Does anyone have a preference, or indeed anything else.

Secondly, is it off the wall to ask wind or piano pupils to buy one of these and work through them?

Have you looked at the Sound at Sight singing books? They are produced by Trinity Guildhall and are really very good.

I bought all three (they're not expensive) and was amazed that I can now do this (to a certain extent) - it starts with simple tunes based on just doh,ray & me and works up to Grade 8. It's particularly useful in that I'm doing Trinity singing exams and the keys for each grade progress through the series.

Hi - I'm new to the forum & this is my first post so hope it comes out OK! I was interested in this thread as I've got a new-ish piano student who has just done grade 1 piano this week but is mainly a singer. She is doing a music degree but very worryingly tells me that she does not know how to sight sing! She has a fabulous voice but I cannot believe that she has managed to get through college & half way through university without sight singing?!?! So have advised her to discuss this & also I will have a go at working through these books as part of her piano lesson. So thanks for the hints.

You could also suggest that she looks into doing some Kodály training. This is excellent for developing all-round musicianship skills including, of course, sight-singing!

I too am very bothered by the huge gaps evident in the education of several youngsters I've taught recently clutching their shiny 1st class Honours music degrees...

Thanks for that will give her this information at her lesson next week. Ivories

The good thing about the "Improve Your Sight-Singing" series is that it caters for various methods of approaching sight reading by the teacher (or pupil), referring regularly to notes by all of these:

- Kodaly (i.e. Do, Re, Me)
- Numbers (i.e. Degrees of the major scale)
- Note Names (i.e. getting to read each key well)

Lots of books cover just some methods, but this is useful for all the standard methods and stops you getting into just one musical box if you wish to be aware of them all and find the most helpful one for each pupil at that time.

I have both but use Improve.... with the majority of pupils I work through it and back up with theory and "fun" stuff. I haven't found anything else as good yet...and they love the clapping exercises.