Solfege
 |
Solfege table in an Irish classroom |
In
music and
sight singing solfege or
solmization is a way of assigning syllables to
degrees or
steps of the
diatonic scale. In order, they are: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So(l), La, Ti (or Si), and Do (for the
octave). In India, the origin of solmization was to be found in
Vedic texts like the
Upanishads, which discuss a musical system of seven notes, realized ultimately in what is known as
sargam. Much later in the West it was a pedagogical technique created by (or at least generally ascribed to)
Guido of Arezzo; these names are still used for the notes in Latin countries while in Germanic countries the names of
letters of the
alphabet are used.
"Solfege" came from
French solfège in the
1910s.(In French,
solfège refers to musical technical skills as a whole: sight reading, writing the score of the music one hears, singing in tune, etc.)The French word in turn came from the
Italian solfeggio, which is a combination of
sol and
fa. Its equivalent since
Early Modern English is sol-fa.
The syllable names come from a formerly well-known medieval
hymn, entitled
Ut queant laxis, in which each successive musical phrase, corresponding to a half line of the first verse, starts on the next higher
scale degree in the
major scale. The first syllable in each half line corresponds to the solfege syllable, with the exception of the first, "Ut," which was changed to the more singable "Do." The original hymn did not start a phrase upon the seventh
scale degree. To fill in this gap, at a later time the Ti (or sometimes Si) was added to the repertoire.
In colloquial language, singers sometimes incorrectly use "solfege" and "sight reading" as synonyms;
sight reading means reading the piece without benefit of previous study, or
numerical sight-singing, where the solfege syllables are replaced by the numbers one through seven.
In English speaking countries, solfege is most commonly used with singers. In countries where the
fixed Do system is used (see below), solfege is commonly taught to all musicians.
There are two main types of solfege:
moveable Do, in which each syllable corresponds with a scale degree, and
fixed Do, in which the syllables correspond to fixed pitches. The advantage of moveable Do is that Do always corresponds to the
tonic; the disadvantage is that the singer must do a harmonic analysis of the piece in order to sing the correct syllables. The shaped note system removes this disadvantage. In fixed Do, the pitches are set: the tonic, Do, is C, Re is D, and so on; Fa is easy to remember, since it is F.
There are also other syllables corresponding to notes outside of the major scale. All the solfege syllables are listed in the table below; the syllables in the major scale are shown in
bold.
Some variations of the syllables are (e.g. the major scale):
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Si, Do, and
Fa, Sol, La, Fa, Sol, La, Mi, Fa. The first variation was common in English-speaking countries until
John Curwen changed
Si to
Ti so each syllable would start with a different letter. The second variation uses four syllables and repeats three of them. This system always has a half step before the syllable "fa". It was once common in England, and, via England, in early America. It has survived in American shape note books such as the
Sacred Harp and
Southern Harmony. The article
Shape note discusses assigning shaped noteheads to correspond with the solfege symbols.
John Curwen developed the English
Tonic Sol-fa system (see below), in which visual aids such as shape notes removed the difficulty of singing the correct syllables in a
moveable Do system.
Tonic Sol-fa is a system of musical notation based on relationships between tones in a key. The usual staff notation is replaced with solmization syllables (e.g.
do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do) or their abbreviations (
d,r,m,f,s,l,t,d).
"Do" is chosen to be the tonic of whatever key is being used (thus the terminology
moveable Do). This is the name of one of the most popular among letter systems which was developed by
John Curwen of
England.
Some of the roots of
tonic sol-fa may be found in items such as
* the use of syllables in the 11th century by the monk
Guido de Arezzo* the cipher notation proposed by
Jean Jacques Rousseau in
France in
1746,
* its further development by
Pierre Galin and popularization by
Aimé Paris and
Emile Chevé, and
* the
Norwich sol-fa of
Sarah Ann Glover of England. Reverend John Curwen (1816-1880) was instrumental in the development of tonic sol-fa in England, and was chiefly responsible for its popularity.
When John Windet printed the
1594 edition of the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter, he added the initials of the six syllables of Guido (
U, R, M, F, S, L) underneath the note. Windet explained, "...I have caused a new print of note to be made with letter to be joined to every note: whereby thou mayest know how to call every note by his right name, so that with a very little diligence thou mayest more easilie by the viewing of these letters, come to the knowledge of perfect solfeying..." Rousseau, Curwen and others would have been aware of this popular psalter.
B. C. Unseld and
Theodore F. Seward, with Biglow and Main publishers, imported Curwen's
tonic sol-fa to the
United States, though the method was never widely received. Prior to this, the 9th edition of the
Bay Psalm Book (Boston, USA) had appeared with the initials of four-note syllables (
fa, sol, la, me) underneath the staff. Reverend
John Tufts, in his
An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes in a Plaine & Easy Method, moved the initials of the four-note syllables onto the staff in place of "regular notes", and indicated rhythm by punctuation marks to the right of the letters. These may be considered American forerunners of Curwen's system, though he may not have been aware of them. Tufts'
Introduction was popular, going through several editions. Nevertheless, his work probably did more to pave the way for
shape notes. When Unseld and Steward introduced tonic sol-fa in the late
1800s, it was considered "something new".
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) of
Hungary championed the system in more modern times, building on Curwen's work. He introduced a set of hand signals which correspond to each solfege syllable.
Dr. Edwin E. Gordon, a noted American music educator, in his Jump Right In method and other writings has advanced the solfeggio to perfection. In his method he employs a DO-based major, and a LA-based minor system, therefore eliminating the confusion between major and minor tonalities.
Some common scales are given below in solfeggio for reference.
In
atonal music,
integer notation is often sung rather than solfege.
Do-Re-Mi is a song featured in the musical
The Sound of Music. Within the story, it is used by Maria to teach the notes of the major musical scale to the Von Trapp children. The song is notable in that each syllable of the musical solfege system appears in its lyrics, sung on the pitch it names.
*
Musical note*
Sargam*
GNU Solfege*
Solresol, a
constructed language that had the solfege notes as syllables and could be sung or played as well as spoken.
*
The Nairobi Trio, a comedy skit, to the tune "Solfeggio" (written by
Robert Maxwell and sung by the
Ray Charles Singers)
*The
Kokiri, a fictional elf-like race from the
Legend of Zelda game series who are largely named after blends of Solfege tones.
*
Iroha, an ancient poem sometimes used a solfege in
Japan.
*
Canntaireachd, a means of communicating
bagpipe music vocally.
*
The song "Do-Re-Mi" from
The Sound of Music*
Do Re Mi Web Module*
History of Notation by Neil V. Hawes
*
John Curwen & the tonic sol-fa method*
Tonic Sol-fa by Neil V. Hawes
Tonic Sol-fa examples
*
Professor Warren Steel's web siteThe Teacher's Manual of the Tonic Sol-fa Method: Dealing with the Art of Teaching and the Teaching of Music, by John Curwen ISBN 0863141188
