How to pronounce accidental letter notes when sight reading?

Question

When reading sheet music and playing a stringed instrument, I find it helpful to softly sing the names of the notes.

"A", "B", "C", etc. are easy, they are all once syllable.

But accidentals take two syllables to pronounce, which throws off my rhythm and is just not feasible when playing quickly.

For sharps, it's OK to to add "sh" or "eesh" at the end, so "C#" is "ceesh" and "F#" is "Fish". But I can't figure out anything for flats that works for both vowels and consonants and doesn't sound too similar to other things.

Is there a standard way of doing this sort of thing?

There's a similar question for solfege but I don't want to use solfege, it gets confusing for different scales.

Answer 1

Not a convention- see Andy Bonner answer- but how about “t” after A and E or “at” after the other letters.

Ate Bat Cat Dat Eet Fat Gat

Or of you like the note letter name, just add “t”

Ate Beet Ceet (seat) Deet Eet Feet Geet (hard g)

Risk of this is that if you talk like me your T could sound like D and Ceet gets confused with Cee-Dee but if it’s in your head you should be able to enunciate the hard t. (At least I do more than when I talk.)

Answer 2

The short answer is "No," there isn't a standard way to refer notes with accidentals, using letter names, and taking up only one syllable—in English. The Germans, though, are all over it, adding "es" the letter for flats and "is" for sharps. Of course, it works best when you actually pronounce the letters themselves as they're pronounced in German; if your A is a Fonzie-like "Ayyy," it's harder to distinguish "Ais" from "As" than if it's an A as in "father."

But if you're inventing a convention for your own personal habit, you can pretty much do whatever works for you. Surely you can blurt out "geesharp" or "beeflat" on all but the shortest notes. Or for that matter, I would be inclined to leave the sharps and flats unspoken and simply sing "E" for E flat, for instance, and just understand that it's flat. Especially when they're part of the key signature; if I'm singing in a key with lots of sharps and flats, it seems unnecessary to be constantly saying them. I take a similar approach myself with chord qualities: If I'm thinking through a chord progression, I'm likely to sing to myself "C, F, D, G." The D chord is minor, but I don't bother saying "D minor"; of course the ii chord is a minor triad. On the other hand, if it is in fact major (as the V of V), I'm likely to mumble "C, F, D major, G."

(Meanwhile, I do encourage you to explore the benefits of moveable-do sight-singing, which is less about absolute pitch designation and more about tonal function. Although perhaps "confusing," it serves a totally different purpose, and a useful one. If you're learning "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," then "G A G E C A G" tells you something about the physicality of the absolute pitches in your range, but "sol la sol mi do la sol" tells you about the melody, no matter what key it's in.)

Answer 3

Stick with your 'sh' for sharp, and use 'f' for flat. Thus 'Beef', Eef, Aieef, etc.

The other way would be to call the notes the number they are in the scale. Thus in key B♭, B♭ is 1, C is 2, D is 3, E♭ is 4, and so on. You'll still have to find an alternative for the five accidentals, then, though.

Answer 4

My first instinct when reading the question, given the shape of the flat sign, was to add a "b" sound, and (for no consciously-determinable reason other than it sounded right) making it "ub" where necessary. This would give "ab", "bub", "cub", "dub", "eb", "fub" and "gub".

Answer 5

I'm imagining your sight reading scenario is one with relatively long note values and slow to moderate tempo. Otherwise, if you have fast tempo sixteenth notes, how could you say the letter even without sharps/flats?

If that is the case, long values and slower tempi, it seems to me a line like...

...could be handled like this...

If the line was more florid, some thing similar like...

...could work, but maybe unvoiced so pitches don't become a mess.

When I play piano and want to speak the notes for various reasons, I do it like this.