<p>Hi. Please forgive me if this has been covered and I haven't done enough site searching (lazy). My son is a tenor sax player in 9th grade who loves jazz. He was trying to sing the solo he heard in his head and wanted to play but it was clear that he really couldn't. He had the rhythms but not so much the notes. Might be mostly the non-singing genes he inherited from me. Some conservatories require solfege for entry, right? Is it too late to try to find him lessons in this art, or do I even need to? How many doors might I be closing if I don't pursue training for him in solfege? Thanks for any help.</p>
<p>I auditioned at one conservatory, several ‘conservatories-within-colleges’, and also a few general colleges with decent music programs. I was never asked anything about solfege. Yes, you have to sight-sing (not even in solfege, you can usually just sing ‘la’). However, your score on the sight-singing is usually used in order to place you in theory/eartraining classes if you get accepted. It is not usually used to determine whether you are accepted or not.</p>
<p>If your son has a good ear, I think he’ll be okay. It would be a bonus to have prior experience in sight-singing, and maybe at some very very competitive schools they could use it as a weed-out factor (I wouldn’t know.)</p>
<p>I can tell you from experience though that I am TERRIBLE beyond belief at sight-singing and I still ended up getting into some decent schools. haha.
I suppose if you were a singer, it would be a different story. ;)</p>
<p>He can certainly learn these aural skills. And they will help him in the long run. My son is an instrumentalist who also sang in a children’s choir until he was 14. I have to say, he learned a ton about solfege in the choir. Some colleges have sight singing as part of your audition and some do not. It depends on the school. But to my knowledge, all schools require sight singing course work at some point. DS took this as an undergrad and just finished a term as a grad. He says it’s one of the most important course he has taken outside of his instrument related classes. He sings everything first. I’m not sure this is what most kids do, but it’s what my kids (DD does the same thing) do when they get a new piece to play on their instruments…they sing it first.</p>
<p>Interestingly, DD is at Rice and all of the music students, voice and intrument, take the same theory and aural skills classes. She is way behind on theory but up there on aural skills. They help each other and learn together. Fortunately neither was required as part of the auditon. For both, it helps during freshman year if you had some before, but not critical in many places.</p>
<p>The ability to sight sing is often as important as the ablity to sight read for an instrumentalist. They are seperate, yet integrally related. Aural skills can be taught, and would be beneficial (though not critical) before entering as an undergrad.</p>
<p>The more skills he knows and acquire now, the easier it is through the audition process. It should make him a better candidate (provided that it does not detract from practice time in building skills and repetoire).</p>
<p>Like theory, aural audition tests are normally for first course level placement, not an admissioms factor.</p>