Solfège chart: do re mi, hand signs and note names

Overview

In music, solfège or solfeggio, also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a mnemonic used in teaching aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western European music. Solfège is a form of solmization, although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

Syllables are assigned to the notes of the scale and assist the musician in audiating, or mentally hearing, the pitches of a piece of music, often for the purpose of singing them aloud. Throughout the Renaissance (and much later in some shapenote publications), various interlocking four-, five- and six-note systems were employed to cover the octave. The tonic sol-fa method popularised the seven syllables commonly used in English-speaking countries: do (spelt doh in tonic sol-fa), re, mi, fa, so(l), la, and ti (or si).

There are two current ways of applying solfège: 1) fixed do, where the syllables are always tied to specific pitches (e.g., "do" is always "C-natural") and 2) movable do, where the syllables are assigned to scale degrees, with "do" always the first degree of the major scale.

Etymology

The words solfège and solfeggio both derive from the names of two of the syllables used: sol and fa.

The generic term "solmization", referring to any system of denoting pitches of a musical scale by syllables, including those used in India and Japan as well as solfège, comes from French solmisation, from the Latin solfège syllables sol and mi.

The verb "to sol-fa" means to sing the solfège syllables of a passage (as opposed to singing the lyrics, humming, etc).

Origin

In eleventh-century Italy, the music theorist Guido of Arezzo invented a notational system that named the six notes of the hexachord after the first syllable of each line of the Latin hymn "Ut queant laxis", the "Hymn to St. John the Baptist", resulting in ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. Each successive line of this hymn begins on the next scale degree, so each note's name was the syllable sung at that pitch in this hymn.

"Ut" was changed in the 1600s in Italy to the open syllable "Do". Guido's system had only six notes, but "si" was added later as the seventh note of the diatonic scale. In Anglophone countries, "si" was changed to "ti" by Sarah Glover in the nineteenth century so that every syllable might begin with a different letter. "Ti" is used in tonic sol-fa (and in the famous song from the film 'Sound of Music' "Do-Re-Mi").

Some authors speculate that the solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) might have been influenced by the syllables of the Arabic solmisation system called درر مفصّلات Durar Mufaṣṣalāt ("Detailed Pearls") (dāl, rā', mīm, fā', ṣād, lām, tā). This mixed-origin theory was proposed by scholars as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the works of Francisci a Mesgnien Meninski and Jean-Benjamin de La Borde. Modern scholars are mostly skeptical, however.

Modern use

Solfège is still used for sight reading training. There are two main types: Movable do and Fixed do.

Movable do solfège

In Movable do or tonic sol-fa, each syllable corresponds to a scale degree; for example, if the music changes into a higher key, each syllable moves to a correspondingly higher note. This is analogous to the Guidonian practice of giving each degree of the hexachord a solfège name, and is mostly used in Germanic countries, Commonwealth countries, and the United States.

One particularly important variant of movable do, but differing in some respects from the system described below, was invented in the nineteenth century by Sarah Ann Glover, and is known as tonic sol-fa.

In Italy, in 1972, Roberto Goitre wrote the famous method "Cantar leggendo" (singing by reading), which has come to be used for choruses and for music for young children.

The pedagogical advantage of the movable-Do system is its ability to assist in the theoretical understanding of music; because a tonic is established and then sung in comparison to, students infer melodic and chordal implications through their singing.

Major

Movable do is frequently employed in Australia, China, Japan (with 5th being so, and 7th being si), Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, and English-speaking Canada. The movable do system is a fundamental element of the Kodály method used primarily in Hungary, but with a dedicated following worldwide. In the movable do system, each solfège syllable corresponds not to a pitch, but to a scale degree: The first degree of a major scale is always sung as "do", the second as "re", etc. (For minor keys, see below.) In movable do, a given tune is therefore always sol-faed on the same syllables, no matter what key it is in.

The solfège syllables used for movable do differ slightly from those used for fixed do, because the English variant of the basic syllables ("ti" instead of "si") is usually used, and chromatically altered syllables are usually included as well.

If a piece modulates, then it becomes necessary to change the solfège syllables. For example, if a piece begins in C major, then C is initially sung on "do", D on "re", etc. If, however, the piece then modulates to F major, then F is sung on "do", G on "re", etc, and C is then sung on "sol".

Minor

Passages in a minor key may be sol-faed in one of two ways in movable do: either starting on do (using "me", "le", and "te" for the lowered third, sixth, and seventh degrees, respectively, and "la" and "ti" for the raised sixth and seventh degrees), which is referred to as "do-based minor", or starting on la (using "fi" and "si" for the raised sixth and seventh degrees). The latter (referred to as "la-based minor") is sometimes preferred in choral singing, especially with children.

The choice of which system is used for minor makes a difference as to how you handle modulations. In the first case ("do-based minor"), when the key moves for example from C major to C minor the syllable do keeps pointing to the same note, namely C, (there is no "mutation" of do's note), but when the key shifts from C major to A minor (or A major), the scale is transposed from do = C to do = A. In the second case ("la-based minor"), when the key moves from C major to A minor the syllable do continues to point to the same note, again C, but when the key moves from C major to C minor the scale is transposed from do = C to do = E-flat.

Fixed do solfège

In Fixed do, each syllable always corresponds to the same pitch; when the music changes keys, each syllable continues to refer to the same pitch as it did before. This is analogous to the Romance-language system naming pitches after the solfège syllables, and is used in Romance and Slavic countries, among others, including Spanish-speaking countries.

In the major Romance and Slavic languages, the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si are the ordinary names of the notes, in the same way that the letters C, D, E, F, G, A, and B are used to name notes in English. For native speakers of these languages, solfège is simply singing the names of the notes, omitting any modifiers such as "sharp" or "flat" to preserve the rhythm. This system is called fixed do and is used in Belgium, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Romania, Latin American countries and in French-speaking Canada as well as countries such as Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Israel where non-Romance languages are spoken. In the United States, the fixed-do system is taught at many conservatories and schools of music, including The Juilliard School in New York City, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music of Music in San Francisco, California, and the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio.

In the fixed do system, shown above, accidentals do not affect the syllables used. For example, C, C♯, and C♭ (as well as C𝄪 and C𝄫, not shown above) are all sung with the syllable "do".

Chromatic variants

Several chromatic fixed-do systems have also been devised to account for chromatic notes, and even for double-sharp and double-flat variants. The Yehnian system, being the first 24-EDO (i.e, quarter tone) solfège system, proposed even quartertonal syllables. While having no exceptions to its rules, it supports both si and ti users.

Note names

In the countries with fixed-do, these seven syllables (with "si" rather than "ti") – and not the letters C, D, E, F, G, A, and B – are used to name the notes of the C-Major scale. Here it would be said, for example, that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (in D minor) is in "Re minor", and that its third movement (in B-flat major) is in "Si-bemol major".

In Germanic countries, on the other hand, the notes have letter names that are mainly the same as those used in English (so that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is said to be in "d-Moll"), and solfège syllables are encountered only in sight-singing and ear training.

Overview

"Ut queant laxis" or "Hymnus in Ioannem" (English: "So that they may, with loosened [voices]" or "Hymn to John") is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist, written in Horatian Sapphics with text traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in particular solmization. The hymn belongs to the tradition of Gregorian chant.

It is not known who wrote the melody. Guido of Arezzo possibly composed it, but he more likely used an existing melody. A variant of the melody appears in an eleventh-century musical setting of Horace's poem Ode to Phyllis (4.11) recorded in a manuscript in France.

Structure

The hymn uses classical metres: the Sapphic stanza consisting of three Sapphic hendecasyllables followed by an adonius (a type of dimeter).

Liturgical use

In the Roman Rite, the hymn is sung in the Divine Office on June 24, the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. The full hymn is divided into three parts, with "Ut queant laxis" sung at Vespers, "Antra deserti" sung at Matins, "O nimis felix" sung at Lauds, and doxologies added after the first two parts.

Movable-do solfège

The Kodály method uses a system of movable-do solfège syllables for sight-singing: scale degrees are sung using corresponding syllable names (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti). The syllables represent scale degree function within the key and the relationships between pitches, not absolute pitch. Kodály was first exposed to this technique while visiting England, where a movable-do system created by Sarah Glover and augmented by John Curwen was being used nationwide as a part of choral training. Kodály found movable-do solfège to be helpful in developing a sense of tonal function, thus improving students’ sight-singing abilities. Kodály felt that movable-do solfège should precede acquaintance with the staff, and developed a type of shorthand using solfège initials with simplified rhythmic notation.

Hand signs

Hand signs, also borrowed from the teachings of Curwen, are performed during singing exercises to provide a visual aid. This technique assigns to each scale degree a hand sign that shows its particular tonal function. For example, do, mi, and so are stable in appearance, whereas fa and ti point in the direction of mi and do, respectively. Likewise, the hand sign for re suggests motion to do, and that of la to so. Kodály added to Curwen’s hand signs upward/downward movement, allowing children to actually see the height or depth of the pitch. The signs are made in front of the body, with do falling about at waist level and la at eye level. Their distance in space corresponds with the size of the interval they represent. In 2016, computer scientists at Northwestern University invented an instrument which is controlled by the hand signs, facilitating their learning.

Overview

Tonic sol-fa (or tonic sol-fah) is a pedagogical technique for teaching sight-singing, invented by Sarah Anna Glover (1786–1867) of Norwich, England and popularised by John Curwen, who adapted it from a number of earlier musical systems. It uses a system of musical notation based on movable do solfège, whereby every note is given a name according to its relationship with other notes in the key: the usual staff notation is replaced with anglicized solfège syllables (e.g. the syllable la for the submediant) or their abbreviations (l for la). "Do" is chosen to be the tonic of whatever key is being used (thus the terminology moveable Do in contrast to the fixed Do system used by John Pyke Hullah). The original solfège sequence started with "Ut", the first syllable of the hymn Ut queant laxis, which later became "Do".

History

Glover developed her method in Norwich from 1812, resulting in the "Norwich Sol-fa Ladder" which she used to teach children to sing. She published her work in the Manual of the Norwich Sol-fa System (1845) and Tetrachordal System (1850).

Curwen was commissioned by a conference of Sunday school teachers in 1841 to find and promote a way of teaching music for Sunday school singing. He took elements of the Norwich Sol-fa and other techniques later adding hand signals. It was intended that his method could teach singing initially from the Sol-fa and then a transition to staff notation.

Curwen brought out his Grammar of Vocal Music in 1843, and in 1853 started the Tonic Sol-Fa Association. The Standard Course of Lessons on the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing was published in 1858.

In 1872, Curwen changed his former course of using the Sol-fa system as an aid to sight reading, when that edition of his Standard Course of Lessons excluded the staff and relied solely on Tonic Sol-fa.

In 1879 the Tonic Sol-Fa College was opened. Curwen also began publishing, and brought out a periodical called the Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and Magazine of Vocal Music for the People, and in his later life was occupied in directing the spreading organisation of his system. The Sol-fa system was widely adopted for use in education, as an easily teachable method in the reading of music at sight, but its more ambitious aims for providing a superior method of musical notation have not been generally adopted.

By the end of the nineteenth century, this notation was very widespread in Britain, and it became standard practice to sell sheet music (for popular songs) with the tonic sol-fa notation included.

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. William Gray McNaught (1849-1918) helped build its popularity in schools.

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. Before 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".

In 1972 Roberto Goitre printed one of the most important modern versions of the method in Cantar Leggendo with the moveable Do.

Solmization that represents the functions of pitches (such as tonic sol-fa) is called "functional" solmization. All musicians that use functional solmization use "do" to represent the tonic (also known as the "keynote") in the major mode. However, approaches to the minor mode fall into two camps. Some musicians use "do" to represent the tonic in minor (a parallel approach), whereas others prefer to label the tonic in minor as "la" (a relative approach) Both systems have their advantages: The former system more directly represents the scale-degree functions of the pitches in a key; the latter more directly represents the intervals between pitches in any given key signature.

Overview

Guido of Arezzo (Guido d'Arezzo; c. 991–992 – after 1033) was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A monk from the Order of Saint Benedict, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had a massive influence on the development of Western musical notation and practice. Perhaps the most significant European writer on music between Boethius and Johannes Tinctoris, after the former's De institutione musica, Guido's Micrologus was the most widely distributed medieval treatise on music.

Biographical information on Guido is only available from two contemporary documents; though they give limited background, a basic understanding of his life can be unravelled. By around 1013 he began teaching at Pomposa Abbey, but his antiphonary Prologus in antiphonarium and novel teaching methods based on staff notation brought considerable resentment from his colleagues. He thus moved to Arezzo in 1025 and under the patronage of Bishop Tedald of Arezzo he taught singers at the Arezzo Cathedral. Using staff notation, he was able to teach large amounts of music quickly, and he wrote the multifaceted Micrologus, attracting attention from around Italy. Interested in his innovations, Pope John XIX called him to Rome. After arriving and beginning to explain his methods to the clergy, sickness sent him away in the summer. The rest of his life is largely unknown, but he settled in a monastery near Arezzo, probably one of the Avellana of the Camaldolese order.

The Guidonian hand

Guido is somewhat erroneously credited with the invention of the Guidonian hand, a widely used mnemonic system where note names are mapped to parts of the human hand. Only a rudimentary form of the Guidonian hand is actually described by Guido, and the fully elaborated system of natural, hard, and soft hexachords cannot be securely attributed to him.

In the 12th century, a development in teaching and learning music in a more efficient manner arose. Guido of Arezzo's alleged development of the Guidonian hand, more than a hundred years after his death, allowed musicians to label a specific joint or fingertip with the gamut (also referred to as the hexachord in the modern era). Using specific joints of the hand and fingertips transformed the way one would learn and memorize solmization syllables. Not only did the Guidonian hand become a standard use in preparing music in the 12th century, but its popularity also grew more widespread well into the 17th and 18th centuries. The knowledge and use of the Guidonian hand would allow a musician to simply transpose, identify intervals, and aid in the use of notation and the creation of new music. Musicians were able to sing and memorize longer sections of music and counterpoint during performances and the amount of time spent diminished dramatically.