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Reading music and written text: The process of sight-singing

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the cues and miscues singers produce while reading musical text with written text. Analysis of the miscues focuses on defining the process and strategies singers use as they sight-sing a piece of music never before seen or heard. The research of Kenneth S. Goodman forms the basis for the procedures and methodology used in data collection and data analysis. Sight-singing data collected from eight singers, including all cues, miscues, asides, and specific notes, was transcribed on a musicscript. This data yielded 923 musical text and written text cues and miscues. Analysis provides the data that evolved into the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy, a tool for evaluating the miscues of singers orally reading music. A Musical Miscue Inventory Coding Form also was developed using the categories and sub-categories of the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy. The results of the eight singers' use of cues and miscues of the Sight-Singing Musical Miscue Taxonomy and the Musical Miscue Inventory Coding Form provides evidence for the parallel but distinct nature of sight-singing as two semiotic systems working in conjunction with each other-musical text and written text. The results also provide the means to establish a relationship between the sociopsycholinguistic transactive model of reading and the sociopsychomusical linguistic transactive model of sight singing. The findings of this research show that sight-singers utilize the same holistic process and strategies as readers do. The cueing systems, the cognitive strategies, and the learning cycles are the same.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/289944
Date January 2003
CreatorsKnox, Marjorie
ContributorsGoodman, Yetta M.
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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