Sightsinger Tip–Lines & Spaces

Those pesky intervals keep getting in the way right? Just as soon as I get in a groove of reading the melody ascending or descending through a nice scale pattern, the melody has to jump. And the further it jumps the harder it is to reach it. Then add on top of that jumping down instead of up and it gets even a little harder.

There is a little trick to guessing the intervals quickly. If you notice, when both notes are on either lines or spaces, the interval will be an odd numbered interval like a 3rd, 5th or 7th. If one note is on a line and the other is on a space, then the interval will be even numbered like 2nd, 4th or 6th.  This gives a quick clue and narrows down the options.

For example, you see two notes, one on a line and one on a space, and they are really far apart. Since they are far apart, it’s probably a 7th.

Try browsing through a piece of music and quickly identifying if the intervals you are reading are the same(both on a line or space), or different(one on a line and one on a space.)

Having many tools in your tool box counts towards being one step closer to becoming a faster sight reader.