Part 4: Karaoke Solfege at Music Institutions

Contents

• Part 1: Karaoke Solfege-Style Introduction

• Part 2: Learning with Precision vs. Stylistic Improvisation

• Part 3: Musical Alphabet vs. Instrument Lessons

• Part 4: Karaoke Solfege at Music Institutions (this post)

Imagine a karaoke set up in a lounge where students (and eventually the general public) can sing “do re mi” while conducting time, either sight singing sheet music or improvising secondary voices on top of popular music.

Those closer to the improvising end of the spectrum could take requests for a song and a number of parameters, for example, at least one:

• quodlibet of a well-known nursery rhyme

• arpeggiated pattern

• syncopated pattern

• key change

• transposition

• example of bitonality

• compound interval

• example of a polyrhythm, all before the song is over.

Students could set up a growing deck of flash cards with parameters to randomly choose.

This could become a tool in the audition process so music schools can accurately gauge what students do and do not know (I hear those collective groans). This would be useful in the composing track of the education system.