FNJ-
Of course memorization is another musical skill. But it is not a substitute for other skills (like literacy), let alone superior to them. And yes, I know you aren't quite saying that. But it comes off a bit like the "differently abled" activists talking about the superior hearing, memory etc. that blind people develop to compensate for lack of sight. All true, all good, God bless the blind, but if it's so wonderful, why don't they "be all you can be" and POKE THEIR EYES OUT? Why can't we develop memory, learn our psalm tones, AND be able to read as well as the average C of E layclerk?

Two historically related quotes:

Don Cherry (famous jazz trumpet player) "If you don't read every day, you don't read."

Johannes Brahms (when asked if he would like to attend a production of Figaro) "No thank you, I can hear a better performance by sitting with score."

Sorry that I was not clear. The art of reading music is the brain memorizing groups of symbols that we call music and text. It is possible for some to memorize and perform music without music. Many, if not most, do not achieve that, but in reality, they are still memorizing as they sing music, otherwise they/we would always stumble over the same places and never get better.

The notes on the page, once you know them, become a way of triggering the brain to remember what to do and when to do it.

That's why some people can shrink down music into pocket scores and play from notes they really cannot see...

Sightreading is learning to recognize quickly the symbols on the page and comparing them to what we have already learned, memorized, while playing or singing.

"Modus Novus" by Lars Edlund is an excellent resource for atonal sight singing."

Doug, I knew there was something "one step beyond" that we shared in common.
When I went through the freshman gauntlet of skills assessment, the applied trombone/jazz lab band prof. had the tortuous duty of auditioning all frosh sight singing abiities. Freaking MODUS NOVUS was the crucible. I really can't explain it, but I nailed each successively more difficult example one after another. I didn't have, nor still don't have, authentic perfect pitch, but at the end of the audition he asked me if I did! I wasn't a pianist, I was a bassist who read both clefs and knew interval relationships somehow innately. But the prof's asking me was a psychological badge I'll never forget. Fortunately, the school of music at this particular site of the CSU system used the "atonal" Modus Novus instead of the standard and progressively tonal etude texts. I've sworn of its value to countless of my students ever since. I know that if a student is motivated to internalize all intervals ascending and descending from pitch to pitch, rather than by some mnemonic associative method, or by some sequential drilling of scale versus skip interval method, ala Vaccai, then that student will be a sight reading fool.

Richard, I have no animus toward disability advocates. I don't like the way some of them sugar-coat disability so far as to hold it up as a positive good (e.g., the lesbian students at Gallaudet who wanted a baby and were looking for a deaf sperm donor.). Likewise, I suspect that people who minimize the importance of reading have a vested emotional interest in that, because they can't do it so well themselves. Of course, that cuts both ways; my obsession with reading is in part because it's something I do well. And there are people who do much better in an oral music culture than I do. But Western music culture (which is by and large the Church's music culture) is a written tradition, which implies that mastery of the tradition includes mastery of the means of transmission.

However, we've lost many of the improvisatory practices in church music (fauxburdon etc.). Students never learn how to improvise counterpoint a la the 2nd part of Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction. That's certainly a part of "being all you can be". It's also not really part of the topic of this thread.