Re: Ear Training and Sight Singing

DGoree wrote:

> [EMAIL PROTECTED]  (Liz D) wrote,
> 
> <<I have 3 songs which I find useful for recognising intervals:
> London's Burning
> - is a 4th (between the "London's" and the "Burning")
> Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
> - is a 5th (between the "Twinkles" - same as the open strings on a
> violin
> My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean
> - is a 6th (between the "My" and the "Bonny")>>
> 
> A minor third is the easiest; it is the first interval in "nah nah nah
> nah naah
> naah."    ;-)

And indeed the Kodaly method starts eartraining and singing with that 
very interval (SOL-MI), precisely because kiddies in just about every 
culture around the world seem to know some version of that chant!  (For 
reinforcing the identity of the interval, a version that goes naah-naah 
twice at the beginning is handy:  sol-mi sol-mi sol-sol-mi-la sol-mi.) 

Myself -- you will think me a total dweeb for this, I'm sure, and 
perhaps not be far wrong if you do -- I learned the minor third from a 
Wohlfahrt 1st-position etude: the one that starts something like (in 
16th notes in 6/8 time, starting on the A string): d b d b d b  c e c e 
c e | d b d b c e  d b d (sul E:) g (eighth note:) b 

(Hope I've got that right; since I started directly on viola I actually 
studied it a fifth lower at age 9 or so).

Some of those Wohlfahrt studies are REALLY pretty tunes, despite the 
constraint of having the same rhythm in nearly every bar!  What a fine 
creative mind Franz Wohlfahrt must have had --  does anyone know 
whether he did any "serious" (i.e. non-pedagogical) composing?

-- 
Roland Hutchinson              Will play viola da gamba for food.

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