Brooklyn College 9/50

Sight Singing 101

I came late for that class an awful lot, plus I often cut it. The 'teacher' had a Russian accent and was fond of making a steady stream of sarcastic (or sardonic) remarks. He was cool, aloof, and indifferent. His impersonal demeanor I now recognize as typical of about 10% of the Brooklyn College faculty whose great goal in life was to flunk as many students as possible. He was only one of several Ivan the Terribles I have had to deal with in my long life

He continuously played softly on the piano in a cute sort of way, favoring the key of D minor and stuffed with octaves sounding out the Slavic melodies used in our over sized red sight singing book.

There were about 10 people in the class. The most striking looking one was a very tall, heavy set, good looking young man with blond hair named Prokofiev who always wore a fresh business suit and tie. There was always so much conversation between the Russian teacher and Prokofiev that I do not remember him singing anything.

There was also a skinny, nondescript, casually dressed jazz clarinetist who sang the exercises so quickly the teacher would ask him to repeat it over and over again. Ivan would then sit silently cogitating over the skinny clarinetist's performance:

"You are singing all the notes in perfect pitch and time but you are nowhere near the song itself," he would declare.

That statement would lead to much controversy between the students and teacher that lead nowhere.

There was a girl and a guy sweating it out along with me and another petite pretty girl who incessantly played the arpeggios from the Bach violin Chaconne flawlessly on the piano between breaks.

The guy who was sweating it out told me he enjoyed the orchestra and when he found out that I had been accepted for it, he insisted I should come to rehearsals where, unlike this class, I would have a lot of fun.

When Ivan the Terrible, the introductory sight singing teacher contrived to read over everyone's performance at the end of the term to give them their grade, the class fought for me to get a B, but Ivan with lots of weltschmerz in his voice complained that I was absent and late too much, so he was giving me a C.

There were about three other classes at Brooklyn College that lived up to and even exceeded the standards of Ivan the Terrible. Only once was I able to beat the Ivan's to the punch.

I was, along with the rest of a newly formed class, waiting for the arrival of the unknown German teacher. When he tardily arrived about 15 of us rushed for the doors and got our drop slips. When I gave him mine to sign he stared at me quizzically and looked then hurt that I wanted out from his chamber of horrors.

My friend, the pianist Monty Eisman, also was taking a sight singing class from another teacher said he was doing well with the do, re, mi, fa, method that teacher used. Ivan used the interval system.


Which system do you use?