In music, solfège (, also US: , French: [sÉ"l.fÉ›Ê']) or solfeggio (, Italian: [solˈfeddÊ'o]), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach pitch and sight singing of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, and though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, the systems used in other music cultures such as swara, durar mufaṣṣalÄt and Jianpu are discussed in their respective articles.
Syllables are assigned to the notes of the scale and enable the musician to audiate, or mentally hear, the pitches of a piece of music which he or she is seeing for the first time and then to sing them aloud. Through the Renaissance (and much later in some shapenote publications) various interlocking 4, 5 and 6-note systems were employed to cover the octave. The tonic sol-fa method popularized the seven syllables commonly used in English-speaking countries: do (or doh in tonic sol-fa), re, mi, fa, so(l), la, and ti (or si, see below).
There are two current schools 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 ("do" is always the first degree of the major scale).
Etymology
Italian "solfeggio" and English/French "solfège" ultimately derive from the names of two of the syllables used: sol and fa. An alternative theory on the origins of solfège proposes that it may have also had Arabic musical origins. It has been argued that the solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti) may have been derived from the syllables of the Arabic solmization system درر Ù…ÙصÙ'لات Durar MufaṣṣalÄt ("Separated Pearls") (dÄl, rÄ', mÄ«m, fÄ', á¹£Äd, lÄm, tÄ') during the Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe. This origin theory was first proposed by Francisci a Mesgnien Meninski in 1680, and then by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde in 1780. Guillaume Villoteau (Description historique, technique et litteraire des instruments de musique des orientaux in the Description de l'Égypte, Paris 1809) appears to endorse this view. However, there is no documentary evidence for this theory.
The English equivalent of this expression, "sol-fa", is sometimes used, especially as a verb (to "sol-fa" a passage is to sing it in solfège).
The word "solmization" derives from the Medieval Latin "solmisatio", ultimately from the names of the syllables sol and mi. "Solmization" is often used synonymously with "solfège", but is technically a more generic term, taking in alternative series of syllables used in other cultures such as India and Japan.
Origin
The use of a seven-note diatonic musical scale is ancient, though originally it was played in descending order.
In eleventh century Italy, the music theorist Guido of Arezzo developed a six-note ascending scale that went as follows: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and named these Aretinian syllables after himself. A seventh note, "si" was added shortly after. The names were taken from the first verse of the Latin hymn Ut queant laxis, where the syllables fall on their corresponding scale degree.
The words of the hymn (The Hymn of St. John) were written by Paulus Diaconus in the 8th century. It translates as:
So that these your servants can, with all their voice, sing your wonderful feats, clean the blemish of our spotted lips, O Saint John!
"Ut" was changed in the 1600s in Italy to the open syllable Do, at the suggestion of the musicologue Giovanni Battista Doni, and Si (from the initials for "Sancte Iohannes") was added to complete 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 famed American show tune "Do-Re-Mi").
In Elizabethan England
In the Elizabethan era, England and its related territories used only four of the syllables: mi, fa, sol, and la. "Mi" stood for modern si, "fa" for modern do or ut, "sol" for modern re, and "la" for modern mi. Then, fa, sol and la would be repeated to also stand for their modern counterparts, resulting in the scale being "fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa". The use of "fa", "sol" and "la" for two positions in the scale is a leftover from the Guidonian system of so-called "mutations" (i.e. changes of hexachord on a note, see Guidonian hand). This system was eventually eliminated by the 19th century, but it was (and usually still is) used in some shape note systems, which gives each of the four syllables "fa", "sol", "la", and "mi" a different shape.
An example of the use of this type of solmization occurs in Shakespeare's, "King Lear", I, 2 (see below Literature).
Modern use
There are two main types of solfège Movable do and Fixed Do.
Movable do solfège
In Movable do, or tonic sol-fa, each syllable corresponds to a scale degree. 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", 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, the student infers melodic and chordal implications through his or her singing. Thus, while fixed-do is more applicable to instrumentalists, movable-do is more applicable to theorists and, arguably, composers.
Major
Movable do is frequently employed in Australia, China, Japan (with 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, at a certain point, the key of a piece modulates, then it is necessary to change the solfège syllables at that point. 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 G major, then G is sung on "do", A on "re", etc., and C is then sung on "fa".
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, 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's 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 keeps 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 corresponds to the name of a note. This is analogous to the Romance 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 used to name notes 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" in order to preserve the rhythm. This system is called fixed do and is used in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Latin American countries and in French-speaking Canada as well as countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Iran, Taiwan, Middle east, Turkey, and Israel where non-Romance languages are spoken. In the United States of America, the fixed-do system is principally taught at The Juilliard School in New York City and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
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 that have also been devised to account for chromatic notes (and even for double-sharp and double-flat variants) are as follows:
Comparison of the two systems
Movable Do corresponds to our psychological experience of normal tunes. If the song is sung a tone higher it is still perceived to be the same song, and the notes have the same relationship to each other, but in a fixed Do all the note names would be different. A movable Do emphasizes the musicality of the tune as the psychological perception of the notes is always relative to a key for the vast majority of people that do not have absolute pitch.
Sotorrio argues that fixed-do is preferable for serious musicians, as music involving complex modulations and vague tonality is often too ambiguous with regard to key for any movable system. That is, without a prior analysis of the music, any movable-do system would inevitably need to be used like a fixed-do system anyway, thus causing confusion. With fixed-do, the musician learns to regard any syllable as the tonic, which does not force them to make an analysis as to which note is the tonic when ambiguity occurs. Instead, with fixed-do the musician will already be practiced in thinking in multiple/undetermined tonalities using the corresponding syllables.
In comparison to the movable do system, which draws on short-term relative pitch skills involving comparison to a pitch identified as the tonic of the particular piece being performed, fixed do develops long-term relative pitch skills involving comparison to a pitch defined independently of its role in the piece, a practice closer to the definition of each note in absolute terms as found in absolute pitch. The question of which system to use is a controversial subject among music educators in schools in the United States. While movable do is easier to teach and learn, some feel that fixed do leads to stronger sight-reading and better ear training because students learn the relationships between specific pitches as defined independently, rather than only the function of intervals within melodic lines, chords, and chord progressions. Of course, this argument is only valid if the fixed do is used with chromatic solfège syllables.
If a performer has been trained using fixed do, particularly in those rare cases in which the performer has absolute pitch or well-developed long-term relative pitch, the performer may have difficulty playing music scored for transposing instruments: Because the "concert pitch" note to be performed differs from the note written in the sheet music, the performer may experience cognitive dissonance when having to read one note and play another. Especially in the early stages of learning a piece, when the performer has yet to gain familiarity with the melodic line of the piece as expressed in relative terms, he or she may have to mentally re-transpose the sheet music in order to restore the notes to concert pitch.
Those trained in fixed-do will argue that their act is the analogue of reading aloud in a language. Just as one reads this very sentence without parsing it grammatically, so too fixed-do is the direct sounding of the music. Where the movable-do system requires constant real-time analysis of the tonality and modulations in the score, in fixed-do the musician uses knowledge of the changing tonality to understand for example that the pitch class c-natural is the supertonic in B-Flat major or minor, and the dominant when the music modulates to F-major, but the c-note remains the same pitch.
Instrumentalists who begin sight-singing for the first time in college as music majors find movable do to be the system more consistent with the way they learned to read music.
For choirs, sight-singing fixed do using chromatic movable do syllables (see below) is more suitable than sight-singing movable do for reading atonal music, polytonal music, pandiatonic music, music that modulates or changes key often, or music in which the composer simply did not bother to write a key signature. It is not uncommon for this to be the case in modern or contemporary choral works.
Note names
In the countries with fixed-do, these seven syllables (with Si instead of Ti) are used to name the notes of the C-Major scale, instead of the letters C, D, E, F, G, A and B. (For example, they would say, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is in Re minor, but its third movement is in Si-bemol major.") In Germanic countries, the letters are used for this purpose, and the solfège syllables are encountered only for their use in sight-singing and ear training. (They would say, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is in "d-Moll" (D minor).)
Other possibilities to denote Solfège
Rainbow Colours assigned by Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton had associated the seven solfège syllables with the seven colours of the rainbow and surmised that each colour vibrated accordingly (a concept possibly related to the modern view of chromesthesia). Thus, red has the least amount of vibration while violet vibrates the most.
Cultural references
Language Solresol
The various possibilities to distinguish the notes acoustically, optically and by ways of speech and signs made the 'Solfège a possible syllabary for an International Auxiliary Language (IAL/LAI). This was, in the latter half of the 19th century, realised in the musical language Solresol.
Steven Spielberg used Solresol as the contact language with the extraterrestrials in Close Encounters.
Literature
In King Lear (Act 1, Scene 2) Edmund exclaims to himself right after Edgar's entrance so that Edgar can hear him: "O, these eclipses do portend these divisions". Then in the 1623 First Folio (but not in the 1608 Quarto) he adds "Fa, so, la, mi". This Edmund probably sang (see Elizabethan solmisation) to the tune of Fa, So, La, Ti (e.g. F, G, A, B in C major), i.e. an ascending sequence of three whole tones with an ominous feel to it: see tritone (historical uses).
See also
- Key signature names and translations
- Numbered musical notation
- Ear training
- Hexachord
- Kodály Method
- Solmisation, describing similar systems in other cultures
- Solresol, a constructed language that had the solfège notes as syllables and could be sung or played as well as spoken.
- Shape note
- Vocable
References
External links
- History of Notation by Neil V. Hawes
- Various scales with their solfège names and associated hand signs
- A search engine for melodies that uses solfège
- An online music notation editor for Sargam (the Indian Solfège), ABC, and numbered notation, the Indian solfège
- Music theory online: key signatures and accidentals
- Music theory online : staffs, clefs & pitch notation
- GNU Solfège, a free software program to study solfeggio
- Eyes and Ears, an anthology of melodies for practicing sight-singing, available under a Creative Commons license
- The advantages of movable do over fixed do
- theSightReadingProject: an interactive database of sight-reading materials (utilizes movable do, la minor)
- Origin of Do Re Mi singing system 900 AD
- "Colours are sounds: How to See the Music", Creativelab. The method for transformation of music into an image.
- What Is Solfège Singing?