sight singing is EASY!!!! I worked soooo hard practicing my performance pieces and putting heaps of time and effort into it, and did no sight singing practice, but in my trials i played well but got shitty performance marks but got 5/5 for sight singing! Argh its so annoying.
O well here are some tips from me the sight singing genius :
-look at time signature
-look at tempo
-dont worry about pitch at first - try to clap the rhythm, cos often there are unexpected syncopated bits!!
-look at key signature (figure out its tonality - many people fall in the trap of thinking somethings in G major if theres only 1 sharp, but infact its in E minor!!)
-dont bother singing out the words its a waste of energy
-look out for any large leaps or odd intervals - identify the interval and try to sing it over to become familiar with it
-when they give you the tonic chord, you should sing the tonic note, and sing the arpegios of the primary chords I, IV and V(7th). Have the harmony in your head while singing the arpegios and also look out for those notes on the music you might be able to hear the chord progression in your head maybe
-try to sing loud and confidently - you are more likely to be in tune if you sing loud and proud- if you sing softly, they might not be able to hear you and they might not be able to tell if you sang correctly or not!!
-perhaps pretend to play your instrument while singing this might help - i always move my fingers as if im pressing down the valves on my trumpet when i sing
-Grab any old music from anywhere and practice sight singing at least once everyday - its so easy to get full marks for sight singing
i wish my whole hsc music marks were based on my sight singing cos i suck at everything else !!!