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so basically fixed do is ok but movable isnt? but when i teach my students theory from trinity-guildhall they show movable :S

That's one opinion. I like moveable do, dislike fixed do because I've seen what confusion it causes.

Hem... sorry mate but *I think* I know both systems. I studied music until I was 24-25 in Greece, where the notes are named as Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Si (ti)... And then I moved to the UK where they used letters... C-D-E-F-G-A-B...

Both represent notes and pitches. The 'middle A' is the 'Middle La' and in most cases A4 (in MIDI) and 440 Hz in most cases...

So I don't see what the confusion is, unless I'm unaware of something.

EDIT: Ok, there MUST be some confusion here. What is 'a moveable do'? Is it some kind of Kodaly system? Cause otherwise I was raised to know that there is 1 middle Do (middle C) and what it sounds like (incidently the Pathetique is in Do minor)...

I'm obviously missing something here...

Liezl, is the parent asking you to give solfège lessons ? As you have written it it appears that the parent is asking that you to give piano lessons using Do-ré-mi nomenclature but that he is not asking you to do solfège.

If you teach movable Do, that would be an additional good reason for you not to accept the parents' request for you to teach fixed Do syllables. In movable Do, "So" means the dominant note of any key. So in G major, D would be called So. In A major, E is called So. But for the child who learned fixed Do, the syllable So represents one definite piano key: the one you call G. You end up having the same set of names representing two different things.

If the ABC system is used in your country and this student will be studying in that country, then it would be handier for this student to learn to use those names. After all, when you move to a new country you have to learn a new language and that is thousands of new names for things, instead of only seven.

The "weakness" somebody mentioned about movable Do is simply that it represents one kind of music. There is music that is based on different kinds of scales such as blues scales, or uses whole tone and octatonic scales when it is atonal which are outside of the Do Re Mi kind of scale system. If you teach music that doesn't fit major and minor scales, that's the weakness. People are divided about this.

Ok, I will repeat my post. I've NEVER EVER heard of the movable "So" (or "Do"). I now understand what you people mean but I've never ever encountered it here in Greece (or Italy in fact as far as I know).

For me Do is C... And there is a Do# as there is a C#...

Yes, the Kodaly system of instruction used in Hungary and elsewhere is based on a movable do, that is, the syllables refer not to the names of notes but to the names of scale degrees.

Nikolas, when I grew up we weren't taught anything so I had to learn note names when close to fifty. But some primary teacher had a vertical wooden chart with the eight syllables written on it and she drilled us with a pointer: this was movable Do. It was not Kodaly, the way I've read about it. Not the hand signals and the rest. After all, Kodaly picked it up from England so it existed before him but he enhanced it.

What I got out of it was a strong sense in my ear of the major and natural minor scale. Any music I heard just fit into that ladder. There was also a sense of function. We sang "Ti" (= leading note) closer than a semitone to the tonic. I only learned decades later that I had a sense of I, IV, V through the names "Do, Fa, So" and the various patterns that we sang. It allowed me to play anything in any key using this ear. It also meant that I was not aware of what key I was playing in. It made it very easy to sing modulated music because I would automatically rename the new tonic "Do" and then I was good to go. As soon as I heard the shift, it would rename itself.

I recently read that somebody had written that m.d. makes learning faster initially but creates problems when you advance. I think that's true. What happens with atonal music, or where the key is continually shifting? What if there is a Blues scale or other exotic scale. The whole thing depends on function and the degrees of the major scale. If you can't find your place on that ladder, then you are lost. Or if the music is ambiguous.

My education started in the early 1960's. I think that's around the time that Kodaly started but I don't think what we had came from his system.

use abc system

Hi Liezl,

In Estonia (eastern part EU) where I live, both ways are taught. I prefer ABC system because, in some way it is easier and it seems that the global movement is mostly going into this direction. I am also mostly using and teaching ABC.

I try to explain why to use ABC and so on. But if someone especially wants Do-Re-Mi I do not refuse.

GL
Jaak

It is interesting to learn about the differing approaches to music study. Growing up, our public schools were teaching moveable Do. The first encounter I had with fixed Do was in college. But privately, both my piano and violin teacher were using A-B-C; my violin teacher was an immigrant from Riga, Latvia.

I am curious, in what way is it easier ?

If you were to take one person's opinion (mine) as the absolute truth, then yes. But why would you take only my opinion?
Listen to everybody, consider, and then make up your own mind based on both what you need to do and on what you've heard.

Fixed-do makes my head cramp. If you're raised with it, I imagine it's fine.

A student should be taught the system that is the most common in the circles they are most likely to move it.

There's nothing in it to cramp anybody's head; it's just other names for ABC. Between fixed-do and ABC, absolutely nothing changes about the way you think - you just have to talk funny.
It's only the difference between fixed systems and movable systems that can cause problems, if a person is going to have problems at all.

Switching from ABC to fixed-do is like learning to count to ten in two different languages - the meaning doesn't change, only the sounds. With movable systems, the meaning does change.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. If you teach a student the best note-naming system but none of the people around him are going to be using it, what's the point?

The same confusion all over again....

sorry, mate, but at least you've learned something.

I found solfege really helpful for understanding the blues scales (which in my mind go: do ma fa fi so ta do - but to each their own). With music that shifts tonality quickly (e.g. jazz) it does get limiting. For some music moveable solfa just isn't going to work. Just like no one counting system will work for all rhythms.

The solfege that I learned in the early 1960's is the one that predates Kodaly's adaptation. I can see (hear) that what you wrote would work, because I can instantly feel the tonic, the subdominant and the dominant in those syllables.

In the solfege that I learned, you become aware primarily to intervals which also give you a feeling of the degree place within the scale and also functional role. For example, the dominant note So has that steady secondary resting place feeling which also wants to fall to Do. Fa and Mi are closer than a semitone with Fa wanting to slip to Mi as it does when a Dom7 resolves. It's the same thing that we learn in voice leading for four part harmony. It is more than just intervals or even degree names in how it was used originally.

I see the modern system as a kind of hybrid. Modern musicians are used to pitch names and intervals without thinking of voice leading (fa to mi) and functionality. I can see how this would work for a scale type like the blues. The syllables no longer carry the nature of that particular scale except perhaps in Do and Sol (does it work for Fa?). But it does tell us where we are in space tonically. The blues scale is already a compromise, come to think of it, because instruments like the piano cannot do bent pitches, and our notation system has no room for them.

Thank you for that angle in regards to the blues scale.

Hi Keystring, You've got deeper into this than I ever did. I just looked up wikipedia on solfege and found I could use the syllables to help me internalise some scales that were new to me (pentatonic, blues). I found it incredibly helpful, perhaps because numbers feel impersonal to me and I confuse them easily.

Returning to the original question, I have found moveable solfege very helpful, and for this reason (if there was a choice) I would prefer to call the absolute pitches A, B, C, etc, and leave do re me for relative pitch. But that is just one opinion. As has already been stated, it is probably more important to follow local conventions, whatever they are.