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I am awestruck that using the first syllable of each line of a hymn tune to John the Baptist could be imbued with such lofty attributes as solfege seems to have. Amazing! Guido was some genius.

Me too!
I like the absolute pitches ABC and the move-able-do for relative pitch. I do not really understand the educational need of fix-do system.

It's just an issue of naming the notes. You call it A, I call it La... Big deal...

Well, of course Guido didn't do it alone. The system that he built on had been developing for some 600 years or more and had some of its roots in Ancient Greece. It continued developing after him. It's kind of cool how politics plays into everything. If they had not been trying to unify Europe into the newly created Holy Roman Empire and searching for a way to freeze music on paper so everyone would be chanting the same thing, his invention might have been ignored. As usual it was the right thing at the right time noticed by the right powerful people.

Yes, Guido was a genius. What he did was not the ruse of a choirmaster just trying to get his monks to sing in tune. Just have a look at the words: REsonare, SOLve ... we're not talking O bla di, O bla dah ! These syllables were undoubtedly embued with profound meaning in the middle ages. No accident that Sol, coming from the idea of resolution, of cleansing, or purifying, and itself meaning the sun, is the dominant. The creation of this nomenclature is associated with a theorhetical mastery of scales, of modulations, of a relationship between major and minor, and the development of notation.

The "big deal" is that when I use La it means the 6th degree of the scale, NOT A. (unless I'm in C major)
In an ideal world we would have one system of naming notes, with singable syllables. We would have another system of naming scale degrees, also with singable syllables (different ones!). Those, like landorrano, who can't see the point in singing generalised scale degrees in another context, in addition to absolute pitch, could ignore them. And we wouldn't be having these circular discussions.
Well, you have to admit it was a good idea. As to the "lofty attributes" of solfege or solfa, fixed or movable - well, it all depends what you do with it, doesn't it.

No, they were not, and Guido did not do this alone. The fact that "sol" means sun in some language is a coincidence. There were additional meanings, but this was not one. In the preceding time there was a belief in the sacredness of three-ness, there were beliefs in pure harmonies which is why fifths (including parallel fifths) were used, etc. Guido also did not have a choice for the wording of his chants. Liturgy was set in stone. In fact, the chants were set in stone - able to be embellished but not altered.

None (or very little) of that existed when the system was invented. There was no major, no minor, scales as we know them did not exist, modulation certainly did not exist since harmony itself (in the sense we use the word) hardly even existed. The fact that a set of syllables has turned out to be convenient for those uses is pure luck. (And there's nothing wrong with that.)

I can't agree, it isn't in just any old language that "sol" means sun, it is latin.

But it didn't simply "turn out" that way, it seems that Guido himself did important work on these questions.

Present !

I'd like to say though, in my defense, that I have never said anything of the sort. I have never expressed the idea that moveable-do solfège is useless. But I insist that fixed-do solfège does indeed treat the problem of scale degrees.



SO you'd like a musical esperanto, would you!

Seriously, I admit that I don't consider it ideal, having a unique system for the entire world. I don't see any problem with there being different systems used in different countries. It is a cultural wealth, not a handicap. But I am sure that you agree.

To get back to Liezl's quandary. It appears to me that this child's parents are asking her to teach piano using the do-ré-mi names for notes. I gather that they are not asking her to give them a solfège class, so the question of which solfège is moot.

So should Liezl give these European parents what they want ? My view is: yes or no or maybe. If she "speaks do-ré-mi" fluently enough, she might. If she isn't fluent in do-ré-mi, she might anyway, in the spirit of adventure, and she might end up becoming fond of this language even if it rests for her a second language.

Or she can say no and assure the parents that which is indeed true, that the kids will have no problem picking up do-ré-mi the day that the family moves back to Do-ré-mi-land.

Will teaching these kids in do-ré-mi in a country where A-B-C is used provoke a problem for the kids ? I hardly think so. Any problems that surface later on will be due to the quality of the work done by the teacher on one hand and by the students on the other, not because of the terminology.

She also mentoned a concern about method books. There is a the Fritz Emonts series called, I think, the European Method, which has all of the text in German, English and French on every page. "My First year of Piano", "My Second Year of Piano" and so on is a French series that I believe is also published in English (as well as Spanish, Italian, Japanese). These method books are written in such a way as to permit their use in both do-ré-mi and A-B-C.

I find it useful to have a system for absolute pitch, and another system for relative pitch. It's very useful to think in terms of "do" being simply the tonic for any given key.

Again, if you are raised with another way of doing it, that's just how you do it. And as long as you "speak the same language" as most of the people you are likely to interact with, then no prob. If your interaction circles widen, then it's in your best interest to learn both systems.

ETA: However, learning both systems becomes more complex, and liable to cause brain cramposity, if the same words mean two different things. It's not like learning a language where the word for "Friday" is "Gwener." It's more like learning a language where the word for "Friday" is "Wednesday."

Liezl, you might want to know that those members who are piano teachers identify themselves as such on the bottom of their post. I am not a piano teacher but I am a former teacher who has taught publicly and privately. I have not experienced the ins and outs of teaching piano.

What work, precisely, did he do?

Keystring, I don't want to go on about this, at least not in this thread.

This is veering slightly off topic but I thought I should mention it. One of the harmony theory books (Sarnecki) recommended for the Canadian RCM has recently been revised. Added to Roman Numerals for analysis, they have added figured bass *and* the movable do solfege symbols. There is a very specific role, and it is the one that I learned as a child - voice leading.

What I am curious about since Canada is bilingual is whether there is a French version of Sarnecki, and what they do? Because in French Canada the solfege names (fixed) are used. Our pieces are named both as "Re majeur" and "D major". Theory exams are bilingual. So have they implemented this as well? And do they find a problem with this "Friday is Wednesday" phenomenon?

What are the explanations you would use?

What are the explanations you would use?





No they aren't asking for solfege but they want do re mi.. apparently one of their son is taking guitar and will train for ABRSM. His mom says that the institute he will train in claims that ABRSM does do-re-mi but i clearly remember putting in one of my student in ABRSM with an ABC foundation :S
Must be the institute teacher...

I don't mind teaching do-re-mi or abc. i'm fine with both,, but to be honest i'm used to fixed do rather than moveable do.. I do understand it but i will have to work more on that

Leizl, I'll repeat myself. If someone says something like "ABRSM will use do re me" it's important to pin them down and find out if they mean fixed doreme or moveable doreme. The difficulty is they will probably not understand your question. But you are going to have to pin them down and find out exactly what they mean.

For what it's worth, I don't remember any solfa from my ABRSM (UK) experience.