Do-Re-Mi or C D E for my kids ?

[Jazz+]

I did solfeg in music college for sight-singing classes and that was it. I don't ever use it now. I use the letter names and number systems as taught in all my other classes and seems to be used by every professional musician I have ever met.

 

So what do you say to those parents from Europe who want their kids living in America to learn beginning piano with the notes named only in the "fixed do" solfeg system?

 

Some European parents have told me naming notes by letter names when learning piano is done only in America. Of course letter names are used in England and Japan too.

 

So how do young pianists that learn notes only as "Do, Re, Mi, etc" learn to deal with chords and music theory?

[Jazz+]

Also, there is a difference in the do, re, mi system as used in United States and some European countries (like France). In U S. we use a moveable do. In France do is fixed, it is always C. Our do changes to be the first tone of the particular scale. So using do, re, mi does not mean the same to everyone.

 

Japan and England use A, B, C...

France, Germany, Italy and Isreal use do, re, mi (I think fixed)

[cnegrad]

Berklee taught me solfeggio classes. There are two versions; one with "Fixed Do" and one with "Movable Do". Berklee taught "Movable Do". They are extremely useful for ear training purposes. But they did not use "Do Re Me" for any other purpose. For everything else, they reverted to "A, B, C...."

 

Try entering "Solfeggio Classes" into Google and see what you find.

[Jazz+]

I don't see much advantage using do, re, mi syllables instead of numbers (1, 2, 3...) because of the added convienience of not having to mentally translate to still another system when speaking of "a fifth interval" or "a minor seventh", for example, or when speaking of chord theory where chords in a key are given Roman numerals (I, ii, iii...). The numbers, however, are not as singable when practicing sight-reading and I suppose this is why the syllables are used.

[Jazz+]

I never learned music with Do Re Mi at all.

I learned them with note-letters, A, B, C.

 

When you learn them with Do Re Mi, how in the world do you know what key you are in, or which chord of the key?

 

Re major?

 

I hear the notes, and can usually pretty acurately transcribe them. I don't have perfect pitch by any means, though. Just a good ear and years of music.

 

I can't even imagine having to hear a note, 'translate' it into Do Re Mi, then 'translate' it again to put it on a staff.

 

C,D,C...yes, do, re, mi....but also sol, la, si if you're in F Major and using the movable do. The movable do works for me and I don't think I want to learn about do being stuck at C, probably because I don't have perfect pitch.

[Jazz+]

I guess I realize that do re mi, etc. is valuable for sightsinging. You can learn the same intervals wherever do is. For chromatics, use DO dee RE ree MI FA fee SO si LA li TI DO and descending DO TI tey LA lay SO say FA MI may DO but I can never remember the hand signals for chromatics. I've never used that system with instrumental music. It sounds confusing.

[cnegrad]

Ok, here's the deal:

 

Berklee used Solfeggio exclusively for one Ear Training purpose; to learn Sight Singing. They would put a melody in front of you and you would have to conduct with your hand (nothing fancy--just a 4/4 or 3/4 pattern) and you would have to simultaneously sing the melody that you were reading OUT LOUD, using "Do Re Me" syllables. Over time, the pieces that we had to sight sing became more difficult, and required serious practice. But it was definitely worth it.It was a great way to train the ear to hear intervalic relationships.

 

The beauty of "Movable Do" was that it made transposition very easy.

[DafDuc]

Shape note singing, a largely American tradition, uses a variation on solfege, IIUC...

[Jazz+]

So what do you say to those parents from Europe who want their kids living in America to learn beginning piano with the notes named only in the "fixed do" solfeg system? Is it a practical method?

[cnegrad]

Try to find a teacher raised in Europe, I guess. Other than that I have no idea.

[Finale]

I don't see any problem with either method (letters or note names) because at some point anyway you usually have to learn and know both.

 

I learned with the do-ré-mi then had absolutely no problem to live with C-D-E. Simply a matter of describing the notes. The chords and all the rest of music theory can and will be easily understood in either system.

[David Loving]

I thought solfeg was just a singing device to identify intervals; at least that's the way it was presented to me in beginning harmony. Sounds like a problem client you'd never be able to please.

[Jazz+]

Music theory by solfeg? Is it done that way in France? How do they notate or analyze a C7 #9 b13 chord with solfeg?

With solfeg how do they express a | I VI7 | ii7 V7 b9 | progression? Would Bach use solfeg instead of the Roman numerals when teaching theory?

[Dave Horne]

I was exposed to both systems of solfege (in the US) though we favored the movable system. I suppose the fixed system would work better if you were sight singing serial (atonal) music. When I hear a melody on the radio and I try to figure it out in my head, I think 'tonally' and use a movable do even though I have no idea what key I'm in. Make sense?

[Jessica T]

Since I started singing in high school before I began playing, I learned Solfeg as a means of defining the scale and its intervals, and after a while, it became sort of natural and automatic. My voice teacher discribed relative minor as just a major starting on La and that made a lot more sence than a lot of ways I've heard it put. So when I started studying more music theory as it relates to instrumentalists, I sort of acquired this association between the numerals and the solfeg. Now when I practice my diatonic scales on the keys, I "see' the numers and sing the solfeg along with it. I could see however where someone who's starting out on an instrument would have a lot of trouble understanding solfeg and making that association. Bottom line: whatever works for you.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Jazz+:

I did solfeg in music college for sight-singing classes and that was it. I don't ever use it now. I use the letter names and number systems as taught in all my other classes and seems to be used by every professional musician I have ever met.

 

So what do you say to those parents from Europe who want their kids living in America to learn beginning piano with the notes named only in the "fixed do" solfeg system?

 

Some European parents have told me naming notes by letter names when learning piano is done only in America. Of course letter names are used in England and Japan too.

 

So how do young pianists that learn notes only as "Do, Re, Mi, etc" learn to deal with chords and music theory?

I agree with you, J+, I see no advantage to using solfege over numbers. It's an unnecessary added layer of complexity. If you want to learn intervals, learn intervals: fourth, fifth, sixth, flat sixth, etc. Numbers make way more sense for expressing intervals. Or learn them by actual note intervals: e.g., A to E, C to G#, and be able to sing them and express them in numbers (fifth, augmented fifth). I don't see any added value in learning yet another method for expressing them. The only value would be the ability to communicate with someone else that uses that system. If that's important to you, then learn it. But I think it should not be the first way you learn to express intervals.

 

Tell these people you don't teach that method, explain why you don't teach it, and if they don't like it, tell them to go to another teacher.

[iLaw]

Come on folks, it's not very hard to get used to (I learned movable do). Once you're confortable with it (takes a day of two) solfeg is a huge convenience when singing a tonal melody to someone and conveying the scale degrees at the same time.

 

For example, it's quite easy to sing "do . ti . tay tay tay tay la" to someone in a sixteenth notes rhythm, and they can then easily and immediately sing it and/or play it back (and remember it ... and transpose it to any other key). Try the same thing singing "C . B . Bb Bb Bb Bb A" Bad enough as a tongue twister, and does not as immediately convey the scale degree information.

 

Larry.

[Dave Horne]

I also tend to think ultimately in numbers, but if you're singing (whether out loud or in your head), solfege allows you to label every tone using only one syllable - all 12 tones, both directions are accommodated.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Does anyone use the solfege system for anything other than an exercise? I.e., do singers ever get a chart put in front of them, I mean a real chart for a gig, written in solfege? I would think that they would get a chart written in normal staff notation?

 

iLaw, and Dave, I see your point - I can see it being useful for that exercise. If that's true, then, is solfege only useful as a singing exercise, or is it useful for something else as well?

 

I'm just asking here - maybe there's something about solfege that I'm missing....

[Dave Horne]

Floyd, it's just an extra tool.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Floyd, it's just an extra tool.

Yes, I can see that. I'm just wondering what job that tool is used for.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

oops

[Dave Horne]

Originally posted by Floyd Tatum:

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

Floyd, it's just an extra tool.

Yes, I can see that. I'm just wondering what job that tool is used for.

I'll give an example. I was in a German shopping mall waiting for my wife. I was listening to the music in the background trying to figure it out.

 

I could make an error by assigning a specific pitch (in my mind) to the melody, but if I also assigned solfege to the melody I would have more information and possibly less chance of making an error.

 

With a movable do, you can be in any key (in your mind) and still figure out the melody. If you think in specific pitches, you have to convert to numbers or transpose to transfer that information to another key. Sometimes solfege just seems to work out to be the best choice at the moment. The real advantage is there is only one syllable per note. Thinking flat 3 or flat 6 when trying to figure out a melody in your head might slow you down if things are going fast.

 

I'm not a strong supporter of solfege per se, I just use it as an extra tool to double check what I think is going on like when I was in that shopping mall. Normally I'm sitting at a keyboard letting my fingers and my ears do the work when figuring something out.)

 

It's just an extra discipline to double check what you think something might be. I learned it in high school and still use it. I'm sure many folks have no need for it and the advantage of knowing it wouldn't add much at all. It's just something extra to have in your toolbox.

 

We could really lengthen this thread by associating solfege with literacy .... just kidding.

[Finale]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

It's just something extra to have in your toolbox.

Like... Being able to read keyboard tabs.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Dave Horne:

I'll give an example. I was in a German shopping mall waiting for my wife. I was listening to the music in the background trying to figure it out.

 

I could make an error by assigning a specific pitch (in my mind) to the melody, but if I also assigned solfege to the melody I would have more information and possibly less chance of making an error.

Dave, I think I can partially understand now the value of 'movable do' solfege - it has one syllable per note, so it has value for singers in certain situations (i.e. if the piece in question is very simple and diatonic). I think a 'fixed do' solfege (do = C) has a certain attraction, but would be brutal for working in keys other than C.

 

I don't think either method 'movable do', or 'fixed do' works well for pieces that modulate to different keys (for example, a song that starts in the key of F, and has a bridge that modulates to the temporary key of A, then to the temporary key of C, then goes back to F again for the last A section. Trying to think in the key of A using solfege from the key of F (i.e., where do = F) sounds like mental torture to me. Another example: Girl From Ipanema - using solfege from the key of F (i.e., where do = F), the bridge would get pretty difficult (keys of Gb, then A, then Bb, then back to F). You could always use 'movable do', and move 'do' to the key of the moment each time there's a new temporary key, but I think that would tend to make the mental process even more complicated - you'd have no reference point to the original key if you did that.

 

In your above example, trying to 'mentally transcribe' a melody you're listening to, away from the piano, it seems to me that one could just as easily assign a wrong pitch using solfege or not using it - you either hear the intervals or you don't. Personally, I think it's better to hear the melody, the bass note, and the chord of the moment all at once. When I'm 'mentally transcribing away from the piano', I usually pick some starting key (C is usually easiest), and mentally work in that key, moving to other temporary keys as necessary.

 

Over to you.

[Dave Horne]

Trying to think in the key of A using solfege from the key of F sounds like mental torture to me.

It is. I don't do it. When I use solfege I only use the movable flavor. A key change brings a new 'I' and a new do for me.

 

Like I said, it's just something extra for me to use when I not at the keyboard. I like to figure things out in my head and a shopping mall is the best place, the music is usually so bad and relatively simple, it helps me to keep busy.

[David R]

I think in pitch. I've got very good relative pitch (close to perfect pitch but it fails me sometimes), so solfege has always been a useless redundancy for me.

 

David

[Jazz+]

"Any system you use on a consistent daily basis is going to achieve results. Here are some thoughts on the pros and cons:

 

: 1. The vowels of solfege syllables are more conducive to teaching good choral tone than numbers. 1 (closed n) and the two-syllable 7 (also with a closed n) are particularly difficult for beginners to sing and keep a good, open sound.

 

: 2. The solfege syllables can be altered (do, di, re, ri, etc.) to accomodate chromaticism easily while still maintaining those open vowels on a single syllable. 4-sharp is much more difficult to sing. Ignoring the accidental and still calling it 4 to avoid the two-syllable problem defeats the purpose.

 

: 3. Some students may confuse a pitch system with numbers of rhythmic counting. The same note may be on beat 3 but with pitch level 5. Solfege makes that distinction clearer.

 

: 4. In terms of immediate accessibility, scale numbers are easier as you pointed out because students already know how to count forward and backward.

 

: 5. Numbers are also easier for music theory and labelling intervals but singers who are comfortable with solfege can learn to transfer that to numeric intervals also.

 

http://www.menc.org/networks/chorus/openforum/messages/741.html

[iLaw]

Wow, we've really hijacked this thread. Jazz+, are you getting any help here?

 

My head works like DH's above. As the music modulates, so does my "I"/"do." This is unconscious; my solfeg ear gives up on the old key and modulates to the new one at the same point that my theory head would. I pretty much never consciously ask myself "is that 'sol mi do' in the old key or 'do la fa' in the new one?" Such a thought would come up no more often than the thought as to whether the music had modulated or simply adopted a new temporary tonal center (I'm thinking mostly of secondary dominants here, which in my head never move the "do").

 

I'm obviously a "movable do" person, and the only advantage that I can see to "fixed do" is that every note has a unique one-syllable name, which I guess could facilitate discussion. What would be lost, however, is the much more valuable (in my mind) "where the pitch functions in the key" music theory aspect that comes naturally from thinking in a "movable do" perspective.

 

By the way, in my experience trained choral music groups routinely think and talk solfeg. But no one ever writes it down (Just think, that would be Vocal Tab!), and it's always used solely to talk about phrase-length snippets. Solfegging an entire piece would be strictly a training/learning/punishment exercise.

 

Larry.

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by iLaw:

By the way, in my experience trained choral music groups routinely think and talk solfeg. But no one ever writes it down (Just think, that would be Vocal Tab!), and it's always used solely to talk about phrase-length snippets. Solfegging an entire piece would be strictly a training/learning/punishment exercise.

 

Larry.

In that context, it makes a certain amount of sense