I Have To Do What? Sing?

Written by Robert C. Rawlins / republished with permission from Conn-Selmer Keynotes Magazine

Robert C. Rawlins, Ph.D., is chairman of the music department at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J. He is the author of A Simple and Direct Guide to Jazz Improvisation (Hal Leonard, 1995) and Intermediate Serial Duets for Two Flutes (Southern Music, 1990).

Young instrumentalists should learn to sing so they can learn to hear

“You mean I have to sing?” I hear this question time after time when administering placement examinations to freshman music majors. Like most college music programs, ours bases acceptance primarily on the ability to perform on one’s instrument. Focused on this objective, many music majors enter their programs with little or no experience in sight-singing or ear training.

What does singing have to do with playing an instrument? As any trained musician will tell you, it has everything to do with it. Singing is closely linked to hearing, and hearing is the essential skill of musical performance. Instrumentalists learn to sing not to perform vocally, but to learn how to hear without the aid of their instruments.

When taking the first steps toward mastering a musical instrument, a student learns to associate specific notes with specific fingerings. I refer to this as the “typing” stage, since it reminds me of the way we type at a word processor.

We see the letter A, we push the key for A, and that’s what appears on the screen. Similarly, the beginning instrumentalist sees a note of the staff, presses the appropriate keys, blows through the instrument, and the note is produced.

But it must be understood that nothing except notes can ever be produced by this method. No matter how proficient one becomes at pressing the correct keys in response to notes seen on the page, no music will ever result. Music is not a clerical skill, but rather the process of producing sounds in response to what has been heard with the inner ear.

Musicians understand the tremendous importance of being able to hear music independently of any physical sound. The entire creative process in music relies upon this.

A performer conceives of a musical passage, complete with dynamics, articulation, pitch, tone and all relevant musical parameters, and then endeavors to recreate this aural image with the aid of an instrument. Notes on the page merely serve as a rough guide to the general characteristics of the actual music.

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