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		Continuing Sight Singing Lessons Reprinted from January 2006 Issue -by REBECCA PACKARD In the November (‘05) issue of The Entertainer, I described the basics of sight singing. For those who want to learn more, I recommend A New Approach to Sight Singing, fourth edition. This book has a number of exercises that gradually take students from the basics of a scale to more sophisticated melodies, two-voice exercises, and exercises for voice and piano. The exercises also become more challenging by incorporating musical instructions for tempo and dynamics; there are glossaries to terms in the back. There also is a section of Melodies form the Literature which show students how sight-singing can be applied to more than exercises. The book’s introduction gives some good guidelines for approaching the exercises, but it doesn’t mention the hand signs I described in my previous article. Until students become fluent in sight singing, I recommend they continue to use the hand signs that can be found at http://www.iks.hu/literacy.htm. I recommend they use the right hand for these signs and use the left hand to keep the beat by tapping the left leg at twice the speed of the notes in the exercise. For example, if the time signature is four-four tap eighth notes with the left hand while doing hand signals for pitch in the right. This may seem a bit tricky at first, but if your students can pat their heads and rub their tummies at the same time, they should pick this up quickly. Students can practice different elements of the exercises separately. For example, they can practice to establish the rhythm, then add pitch, then phrasing and dynamics. A New Approach to Sight Singing is available for $58.13 through the publisher at www.wwnorton.com. Used copies start at $15.50 on amazon, and I’ve seen copies for as little as $4 on ebay.