Solfege

This blog will be an excellent tool for Learning Solfege for Beginners.

There are 7 notes in any music. Each genre of music uses a different medium to convey these seven notes.  For learners learning to sing, it can be very difficult to sing a musical scale in tune, because the voice has no physical keys we can push to produce the notes in tune.

Do re mi fa” is an easily recognisable thing and this comes in handy in these situations.

It will give you all the details and info about the benefits of learning solfege, sight singing exercises and a few solfege exercises to help you understand the concept better.

What is Solfege?

Solfege is a system that enables musicians to quickly learn pitch.

Solfege is a music education approach that teaches auditory skills, pitch, and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a kind of solmization (a system of associating each note of a scale with a particular syllable solely for the purpose of teaching).

 In simpler words, Solfege is like a sight singing technique that helps musicians, including singers and instrumentalists to understand pitches.

Music education teaches, Sense of Pitching and sight-singing concepts using the concept of solfege for beginners. Solfege helps learners and singers to properly sing harmonies, melodies, and intervals without having to rely on note names. These are some of the benefits of learning Solfege.

Solfege syllables: DO RE MI FA SOL LA TI DO
                            DO TI LA SOL FA MI RE DO

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Solfege’s Historical Background

An Italian Theorist called Guido D’Arezzo of the 11th century came up with the idea of the solfege system as a method of teaching basic melodies to singers rather quickly. The six pitches Guido established helped most of the singers in those days who were clueless about notation or how to read or write music(Sight-Singing Techniques) Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La Si.

Guido created a universal system by giving names to these 6 pitches. The idea of six pitches hit him from the tuning of a 6-stringed lyre. Guido used the intervals- tone-tone-semitone-tone-tone.

An old Gregorian chant to St. John the Baptist gave him the idea of naming these pitches with these syllables. He used these syllables to represent the symmetrical design of the hexachord.

His choice of syllables is a mnemonic for a specific chant, a hymn to St. John the Baptist called Ut queant laxis. Each corresponds to the opening sound that sets off the several musical sections in the first verse.

The Solfege: Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do!

This resulted in the development of the solfege hand sign system and syllables, as well as widespread use of solfege in music instruction. It allows musicians who do not play keyed instruments to appropriately depict major and minor scales by employing hand signals

 This led them to  coordinate a physical and mental link, as well as solfege practice and singing to better understand the relationship between the notes. So, solfege for beginners begins knowing the two types that are in practice today.

Types of Solfege

There are essentially two types of solfège in music.

1. Fixed Do– syllables represent fixed Do 
2. Moveable Do – syllables signify degrees of the scale beginning with the tonic note.

Fixed Do

Basically think of the how the piano can only play the note C, which we call the note C. exactly like that Do” refers solely to the absolute pitch, C

In the Fixed Do system of solfege note names, people will always refer to C as Do.

This lets you know that you need to change the syllables and hand signals to indicate flats or sharps, if you’re going to sing or refer to a different musical scale using Fixed Do.

I find this rather interesting!

How did the 6 pitches in  solfege become 7?

In time, music became more interesting with chromatic notes and harmony also came into the light. Now musicians realized that they would have to assign syllables to particular notes rather than depending on the half-step from “mi-fa” for identification. 

Therefore, they created “Fixed Do”, replacing Ut with Do and inserting Ti as the seventh syllable.

So let me show you an example of a c major diatonic scale without a fixed Do.

Find that notes C D E F G A B C replaces Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do.

Now, let me show you  an example of the C Major Diatonic scale with Fixed Do.

 If we were to write a G major scale or any other scale that isn’t C major, we must change the syllables. Here’s a G major scale with fixed Do. Notice how the syllables begin and end with a G, which is Sol, and how Fa, which symbolizes F, must now be interpreted as “Fi” or F#. 

Movable Do

Most Pieces of Music requires frequent key changes and that is where ‘Movable do’ comes into play. Do is always the First Degree of the scale regardless of the key.

The remaining syllables are then adjusted to meet the measure of the scale we are in. This utilizes solfege minor scale techniques to play the all the minor scales, major scales, or pentatonic scales. 

What is movable Do?

We base the pitches of solfaggio syllables in movable do type on the key that we use. This would imply that do corresponds to the first degree of the major or3ollllll-lq minor scale in that key.

 The remaining syllables, re mi FA sil la TI, denote the various scale degrees. 

“Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do” in movable do pitch notation system represents the pitches of a diatonic scale .

The Movable Do system lets you play in any key and this makes it easier using the concept of relative pitches.

Here is an example of C major and G major. Although the notes of the sheet music change, the solfege syllables remain the same.

Notice that the same C major scale written in fixed do had its “Do” fixed on C. Here the not C is the absolute pitch. But the C major scale written in Movable do system the syllable does denote the tonic current key. The rest of the syllables are used to represent the other 6 pitches of a diatonic scale.

Solfege Hand Signs

The solfege hand signals were created by John Curwen. 

The solfege hand signals are based on a basic concept. It is a hand form that the singer can make with his or her hand and use it to represent each tone in the seven note solfege system. Solfege exercises are usually practiced with hand signs. Hand signs also makes it easier to learn solfege for beginners

All of the hand signals can be performed with one hand and is very useful for singers who are new to the solfege technique.

Solfege for Beginners

Play along on a virtual keyboard or piano. Sing Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do and play the major scale in the key of C. Sing ranges from high to low. Try going around the scale step-by-step after you can sing the scale in tune on your own (without the piano’s assistance). 

Here are some Solfege Exercises to get familiar with solfaggio syllabus and to help learn solfege for beginners.

Ear training with Solfege

I would usually use the solfege to teach aural skills. Ear training with solfege is not very challenging. Solfege is used to identify music intervals, recognise pitches and even practice melodies. We know that solfege is a great tool to enhance sight singing techniques. It is also an easy tool to practice ear training.

Music tutors consider Ear Training with solfege to be a vital component of music education. This comes very handy for singers. It improves a musician’s ear for and comprehension of musical subtlety, which eventually results in increased skill and expressiveness.

Benefits of Learning Solfege!

• Solfège is an important approach for musicians. It helps them to comprehend music theory better and has helped in singing and songwriting. Solfege for beginners is an absolutely necessary lesson.

• Solfege will teach you to detect the intervals in songs. This will you help you to understand and find the intervals in any melody. There are tons of solfege exercises online for free.

• Solfege is also a very useful means to learn sight singing techniques. It can be used for strengthening your sight-reading abilities because solfa definitely enhances your relative pitch.  You can hear the music on the page in our brains before we start sight-reading; if you know how the music flows, sight-reading gets simpler.

• Ear Training with Solfege helps you improve Aural skills.

• Solfege is excellent for transcribing music (writing down what you hear), whether it’s your favourite song or the music playing in your thoughts.

Final Points

Solfege serves as a tool that makes learning easy for beginners. I always recommend beginners to take professional help to get your basics right. Get in touch with us MusicMaster to learn more about solfege and other interesting concepts.