Sing & Learn

Reading Music

Music is written on a five-line staff. Each line and each space stands for a different pitch. A symbol called a clef tells you which pitches you're looking at.

The treble clef

Most singing parts — especially the soprano and alto voices — are written in the treble clef, sometimes called the G-clef because its curl wraps around the line that names the note G.

Note names

There are only seven note names in music: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. After G, you start over again at A — that distance is called an octave. The lines of the treble staff, from bottom to top, are E, G, B, D, F (remember "Every Good Boy Does Fine"). The spaces spell F, A, C, E.

The bass clef

Lower voices — tenor and bass — are written in the bass clef (the F-clef). Its two dots sit on the line that names the note F.

Rhythm: how long each note lasts

Notes are not all the same length. The shape of the note tells you how long to hold it.

Time signatures

The two numbers at the start of a piece are the time signature. The top number tells you how many beats are in each measure; the bottom number tells you what kind of note gets one beat. 4/4 ("common time") is the most familiar — four quarter-note beats per measure. Most psalms in Cantus Christi are in 4/4 or in a flowing 3/4 (waltz) or chant rhythm.

Putting it together

Here is the first phrase of Old Hundredth — the tune of the Doxology. Follow the noteheads up and down with your finger as you listen.

Solfège & the Kodály Method

Long before children can read notes on a staff, they can sing. The Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) believed that every child has a right to a musical education, and he built a method around the oldest singing system in the West: solfège.

Solfège gives every note of the scale a singing syllable: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. The names date back to a medieval monk, Guido of Arezzo (c. 991–1050), who used them to teach his choirboys to sing chant from sight. Kodály added hand signs, borrowed from John Curwen, so the body itself becomes part of learning.

The seven syllables (and the eighth, the high Do)

Click any card to hear and see its hand sign. Then sing it back.

"Movable Do" — the idea that changes everything

Why hand signs matter

Singing is invisible. The hand signs make pitch visible — they let a parent or choirmaster show a child what to sing without writing a note. Low Do is a fist near the waist; high Do reaches up by the eyes. As your hand climbs the air, your voice climbs the scale.

Sight-singing your first phrase

Try singing this short phrase using the syllables. Click each note as you sing.

Scales — The Bones of Music

A scale is a ladder of notes, climbing one step at a time, from a starting pitch to its repetition an octave higher. Almost every melody you have ever sung — every psalm tune, every hymn, every folk song — is built from the notes of a scale.

Why scales matter

The Major Scale — "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do"

The major scale is the most familiar in Western music. It follows a specific pattern of whole steps and half steps:

Do ━ Re ━ Mi ─ Fa ━ Sol ━ La ━ Ti ─ Do
━ = whole step    ─ = half step

The two half steps — between Mi and Fa, and between Ti and Do — are what give the major scale its bright, "homecoming" feeling. When you sing Ti, your ear strains upward toward Do; the half step pulls you home.

The Minor Scale — the contemplative cousin

The minor scale uses the same letters but rearranges the half steps. The natural minor scale runs la, ti, do, re, mi, fa, sol, la. It sounds darker, more searching — the sound of many psalms of lament.

Hearing the difference

Listen to the same starting note in a major and minor key. The third scale degree is the difference: Mi in major, a half-step lower (me) in minor.

Intervals — the steps between notes

An interval is the distance between two notes. Psalm singing uses just a handful of basic intervals over and over.

Vocal Warm-Ups

The voice is a muscle. Like any muscle, it sings better when warmed up first — especially in the morning, when cold air has settled into the throat. The routines below take just a few minutes and prepare your voice for the singing of psalms.

Choose a routine

The breath

Singing is breath given pitch. Before any note, take a low, slow breath that fills the belly first, then the chest. Don't lift your shoulders — that's a shallow breath. A good way to find a true singing breath: lie on your back, place a book on your stomach, and breathe so the book rises. That's the breath you want when you're standing.

Ear Training

Reading music tells your eyes what to do. Ear training tells your ear what to do — and the ear is what guides the voice when no page is in front of you. The exercises below build the two skills every choral singer needs: recognizing intervals, and finding Do (the home tone) by ear.

The Drone — sing against a held tone

One of the oldest singing exercises in the world: hold a single pitch in the air, and sing the scale or a tune over it. Your ear learns the key.

Interval recognition game

Listen to two notes. Pick the interval. The first note is always Do (C). Beginners can stay with the first three intervals; older children and adults can include all six.

"Find Do" — pitch-matching exercise

Press the button to hear a melody fragment. Then sing what you think Do is. Press the reveal button to hear if you found it.

Melody, Harmony & Part Singing

Melody — the song itself

A melody is a single line of pitches and rhythms that the ear can follow. It is what you hum when no one else is around. It is what a child remembers before he remembers the words. Most great hymn tunes have melodies you can sing through in under a minute.

Harmony — what happens when notes are sung together

When two or more notes sound at the same moment, you have harmony. The simplest harmony is a chord — usually three notes from the same scale, stacked together.

The four voice parts

Most chorale settings — including the four-part harmonizations in Cantus Christi and the Genevan Psalter — are written for four voices: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. Each part sings a different note of the chord, and together they sound a complete harmony.

Hearing the parts stack up

Listen to a single chord built one voice at a time, from the bass up.

Practical advice for part singing in the home

A Round — the simplest path into part singing

Before a family is ready for four-part chorale, they can sing a round. A round is a single melody sung by two or more voices entering at staggered times. Tallis Canon, written by Thomas Tallis around 1567, has set the evening hymn "All Praise to Thee, my God, This Night" for centuries.

Press the buttons below to hear the canon at one voice, then two voices entering one phrase apart, then three.

Practice Songs From the Psalter

Below are four cornerstones of Reformed and ecumenical psalmody. These simplified settings are meant for practice — once your family is comfortable with the tune, open your Cantus Christi or other psalter and sing the four-part harmonization from the page.

A reading list

"Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart."
— Ephesians 5:19