How to use abcSightReading

Two pages do the work. Choral writes exercises in parts. Unison writes one line to sight-sing. Both write a new exercise every time you press Generate.

Choral sight-reading in parts

Pick a voicing: four-part mixed (SATB), three-part treble (SSA), tenor-bass (TTB), or the two-part voicings the lower UIL levels use. Then pick a UIL level, or set the key, meter, rhythms and chords yourself. Each part stays in its own range, the voice leading avoids parallel fifths and octaves, and eight bars come out as a real phrase with a cadence.

Project it, print it, or play it back on piano or choir sound with a count-in and a moving cursor. Show movable-do or fixed-do solfège under each part, or Roman numerals above, on the exercise already on screen.

Sight-singing one line

Choose the scale degrees your singers know (do-re-mi, then up to so, then the whole scale), the rhythms they read, and how far a line may leap. Every exercise is new and starts and ends on do, mi or so. Show movable-do solfège under the notes, and Kodály rhythm syllables: ta and ti-ti, or the words your group already uses.

Unison also writes compound meter: 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8, felt in dotted-quarter beats, two, three or four to a bar. The tempo counts dotted quarters (♩. = 60), the click sounds once a beat, and the count-in counts beats, not eighths. The rhythms change with the meter: three eighths, quarter-eighth, the dotted quarter and dotted half, with rests and sixteenths when you want them. Counting reads 1 la li, Kodály ti ti ti, and your own syllables can have compound words of their own. Choral exercises stay in simple meter for now.

Not sure where to start?

abcStepByStep goes from rhythm alone, through a single line, to two, three and four parts, one new thing at a time. Rhythm-only drills and a count-in make it work for a whole class or a student practicing at home.

Every practice page has a short tour: the ? at the end of its settings, or Take the tour in the menu. The piano page has one too: take the piano tour.

Preparing for contest? See UIL sight-reading practice.