The Relationship Between Sightsinging Accuracy and Error Detection in Junior High Singers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare junior high students' sightsinging accuracy with their ability to perceive errors in recorded examples. Junior high choir students (N − 75) individually taped themselves while sightsinging counterbalanced examples of notation and solfege syllables. Subsequently, an error-detection task was designed based on the most common student errors and using the same examples. Students listened to the sung examples, then looked at the notation and circled any errors. Analyses of correct responses among high-scoring, medium-scoring, and low-scoring sightsingers revealed no significant differences between sightsinging from notation or syllables, although unskilled singers scored higher using syllables. The relationship between sightsinging (performance) and error detection (perception) was different for high- and medium-scoring sightsingers than for low-scoring | sightsingers. For high- and medium-scoring sightsingers, there were no significant differences between sightsinging and error detection, while low-scoring sightsingers were signifi-I canity more accurate on error-detection tasks. An analysis of data across specific intervals I revealed a trend toward more accurate descending patterns.

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