Music for Sight Singing

Robert S. Nelson teaches music theory and composition at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston. A composer in residence and music director of the Houston Shakespeare Festival for 17 seasons, he has also received numerous commissions for compositions and arrangements for the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Thomas E. Benjamin recently retired as chair of the Department of Music Theory at the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University. A composer, conductor, performer and music theorist with more than 40 compositions published and recorded, he also holds fellowships and awards from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo and the National Endowment for the Arts. Michael Horvit is Professor Emeritus of Composition and Theory at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. His works range from solo instrumental and vocal pieces to large symphonic and choral compositions and operas, all widely performed in the United States, Europe, Japan and Israel. In addition to CDs with the Albany label, he has published with C.F. Peters, MorningStar, Recital Publications, Shawnee Press, E.C. Schirmer, Southern and Transcontinental. He received the Martha Baird Rockefeller Award as well as honors from the National Endowment for the Arts. Timothy Koozin is professor and division chair of Music Theory at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston. He has published widely in scholarly journals and in collected essays published by Cambridge University Press, Ashgate and Routledge on topics including music and meaning, popular music, film music and music instructional technology. He is former editor of MUSIC THEORY ONLINE, the electronic journal of the Society for Music Theory.

Part I: COMMON PRACTICE TECHNIQUES: DIATONIC.
1. Rhythm: One-and-Two-Pulse Units (Unmetered). Pitch: The Major Scale.
2. Rhythm: Simple Meters. Pitch: Introducing Thirds. Pitch: Introducing Fourths.
3. Pitch: Tonic Triad in the Major Mode. Introducing Fifths, Sixths, and Octaves.
4. Rhythm: 2:1 Subdivisions of the Beat. Pitch: I, V, and V7; Introducing Sevenths.
5. Rhythm: Anacruses (Upbeats) and 4:1 Subdivisions of the Beat. Pitch: I, IV, V, and V7. Pitch: Introducing the Alto Clef.
6. Rhythm: Dots and Ties. Pitch: Minor Mode.
7. Music from the Literature.
8. Rhythm: Compound Meter. Pitch: Supertonic Traid. Pitch: Submediant and Mediant Triads. Pitch: Tenor Clef.
9. Rhythm: Triplets and Duplets.
10. Music from the Literature.
11. Rhythm: Syncopation. Pitch: Other Seventh Chords.
Part II: COMMON PRACTICE TECHNIQUES: CHROMATIC.
12. Pitch: Decorative Chromaticism.
Pitch: Inflected Scale Degrees. Pitch: Scalar Variants in Minor. Pitch: Modal Borrowing.
13. Music from the Literature.
14. Pitch: Secondary Dominants.
15. Pitch: Modulations to Closely Related Keys.
16. Rhythm: Quintuple Meters. Pitch: Chromaticism Implying Altered Chords; Modulation to Distantly Related Keys.
17. Music from the Literature.
Part III: TWENTIETH-CENTURY TECHNIQUES.
18. Rhythm: Irregular Meters. Pitch: Diatonic Modes. Pitch: Changing Clefs. Part Music.
19. Rhythm: Changing Meters.
Pitch: Pandiatonicism.
20. Rhythm: Syncopation Including Irregular and Mixed Meters. Pitch: Extended and Altered Tertian Harmony.
21. Pitch: Exotic Scales.
22. Rhythm: Complex Divisions of the Beat. Pitch: Quartal Harmony.
23. Rhythm: Polyrhythms and Polymeters. Pitch: Polyharmony and Polytonality.
24. Pitch: Interval Music.
25. Serial Music.
26. Music from the Literature.