I hope you're kidding. Singing note by note, out of context, seems about the worst approach to sightsinging imaginable.

Yes, they do. ALL of them. And the human voice. There are ALWAYS beats when two pitches are not just...

It is VIBRATO that OBSCURES beats.

Well, no.

There are some bowed string instruments known to not produce beats useful for tuning, because the bowing action is so asymmetrical. I'll try to find a reference.

The voice is pretty wide around a central frequency - it is that problem that obscures beats, not the vibrato. Er, not just the vibrato.

(the vibrato is why I'm not an opera fan. just too much)

Ah, just... nevermind.

Please do find the reference. I am seriously interested.

I did NOT say useful for tuning. That's another matter entirely. For beat-tuning you need at least two pitches that are very consistent.

Intervals work unless the music is totally atonal, and even there they work for melodies. My point has only been that even when singing a chromatic scale, or a whole tone scale, or an octatonic scale, solfege is either not very useful or stops working.

But the need to sing these more complex patterns in tune does not lessen. And my point remains that IF you get good enough to hear complex patterns, accurately, anything that you can use solfege for becomes so elementary, you don't NEED it to find, sing or hear pitches.

Well, that's the problem. These singers know only solfege and no letter names. They also know nothing about theory. It's a joke to keep using movable do when the music's demands far exceed the scope of movable do.

That is exactly the point I have tried to make, unsuccessfully.

I think maybe one bottom line is to have more than one way to "hear" music, because it has more than one aspect. In its time, m.d. solfege was very useful in getting a feel for degrees in the "common" types of scales and keys, and similar. Chords have another role. Pure intervals another, and pitch names (notes) still another. When we are involved in music, we are drawing on more than one at once, and it keeps shifting. They also interrelate: chords have something to do with melodies, and melodies have something to do with chords. Music is movement, and these things help us predict that movement. Too broad and philosophical?

Can your students sight sing a piece in C# major as fluently as they can sing a piece in C major using fixed DO?

Unless they have perfect pitch, I highly doubt this would be the case.

Movable DO (major) and movable LA (minor) is far more useful for regular folk, it instills a solid sense of relative pitch and creates an ear-keyboard link much better than fixed DO can.

In my opinions, Moveable DO is more useful than Fixed Do and Fixed Do is just a way to name the keys and it could be done in ABC with a better result.....

What do you mean by fixed do? We have already established that other countries use syllables instead of numbers, and these countries have names for all standard accidentals.

Or do you mean fixed do with ONLY: do re mi fa sol la ti do?

Fixed do is fixed do. There should be no ambiguity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge#Fixed_do_solf.C3.A8ge

i.e. C=do, C#=di, D=re, D#=ri, E=mi, F=fa, F#=fi, G=so, G#=si, A=la, A#=li, B=ti.

You have it backwards.

I prefer high 7ths and 3rds, melodically, but those who argue for low 3rds and 7ths are on totally solid ground when there is no modulation.

A V chord in C major, DGB, needs a LOW 7th to get a just 3rd (GB). And in mean-tone temperaments, the E is low, to form a just 3rd with C.

B has to form a pure 5th to be beatless. Which is why the 3rd and 7th are both low to eliminate beats.

You didn't read your own source, and you have not read all of this thread. Solfege - Wiki

Your syllabes for sharps are chromatic variants...

1) 'In the fixed do system, shown above, accidentals do not affect the syllables used. For example, C, C#, and Cb (as well as Cx and Cbb, not shown above) are all sung with the syllable "do".'

2) '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:'

And in addition, I already linked to an explanation of how notes are named in various European countries, all using do re me fa sol la si do BUT with their own names for sharp, flat, double sharp, double flat.

Also, using Wikipedia for proof that anything is correct is often highly unreliable.

Yes. I always say beats are good, you're getting close.

TimR, I was hoping to hear about the "asymmetrical bowing" idea. I can't make head or tails of it, and no other strings player I talked to knew what this was about either. In fact, what is "symmetrical bowing"? Do you mean speed, angle to the string, angle of the hair? All of these are in constant variation by any musician. The bow sets the string into vibration, but tuning by beats has to do with listening to two different pitches. That has nothing to do with what the bow is doing. It involves playing two strings at the same time.

I really do not understand your objection. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but it does not seem to apply to the musical world I live in. Maybe you could explain it further.

I understand that solfege of any kind is not particularly useful for sightreading on keyboards. The instrument gives you the pitch.

In the vocal world, and the brass world (trombone is my primary instrument) having the pitch in your brain is essential to producing the right note.

Vocally I see a progression of methods to sing a part. (I like singing SATB in small groups) I'm an engineer, so this understanding may be wrong or incomplete, but this is how I see it.

The first is just rote learning. I would guess 90% of singers have no access to any other method, and it doesn't prevent them from doing outstanding musical performances. Times have changed, and apparently reading music is no longer emphasized.

The second is singing intervals. I'm on a Bb, the next note is an Eb, I've memorized how far a fourth is by doing it 10,000 times, I sing the next note. There are usually some few in a choir who can do this and lead the rest.

The next is what I call movable do solfege, though I may be misusing the term. I'm on a Bb, the next note is an F, I'm about to sing from the root of a Bb major chord to the fifth, which is also moving from the 1st degree of the scale to the fifth. Do Sol. This method of retrieval is faster and more precise than singing the interval of a fifth, so to me it is a progression of method. It is impossible for me not to be unaware that I've also sung a Bb and an F, but as far as I know that contributed little to my finding the F. As I've transitioned my own sightreading away from simple intervals into more contextual reading I've improved. This method is very reliable in major keys with predictable harmony. As we move away from that it breaks down and I fall back on recognizing intervals. In church music it is rare to get too far away.

The next step is to retrieve a prememorized pattern. We can all sing O When the Saints in any key, it's a prememorized fragment. If we recognize that fragment in the alto or tenor line, it pops out without mental processing overhead. This is the fastest and most precise, and is not limited by key, etc., but is dependent on a large repertoire of memorized fragments.

As I don't have perfect pitch, these are all the methods I currently own.

But obviously I'm missing something; I'm still at the joke stage of movable do and don't know what the next stage is for the complex music. Tell me what it is, and I'll start working on it. In the choir I sing with most, I'm one of two people with reading skills, and I'll do anything I can to improve.

Hope this wasn't too long. Feel free to point me at a resource if there's something out there.

I looked for Benade this morning but I've misshelved him.

When a string is bowed, friction exerts a force on the string perpendicular to the string, and determined by the "force normal" (vertical to the string) and the coefficient of friction.

The string resists with the components of string tension in the opposite direction to the frictional force. Trigonometry. As the string is pulled, this force increases.

When the string is pulled far enough, tension exceeds friction and the string slips back. Now friction exceeds tension and the string moves again. This cycle repeats at the frequency of the note.

However, the cycle is NOT sinusoidal. It looks more like a sawtooth wave if you graph it. This is because (I think) static friction and slipping friction obey different equations. It slides back much faster than it is pulled forward, unlike a pendulum, etc. I've seen it called asymmetrical and that's why I used the word, but that might not be one that string players use.

In my brain the jerky pattern of slip-slide is linked to the beat problem, and is very unlike the smoother process by which lip reeds or actual reeds works. But until I can find my reference I can't be sure I'm remembering properly.

I don't own a violin or viola. Can you hear beats, if you have one handy?

I think I understand what you are saying. For sound to be produced something has to vibrate. For wind instruments and voice it is the friction of air that causes a vibration. The pitch is caused by a combination of the speed of the vibrating object, such as a reed, and the shape and size of the cavity through which the resulting vibrating air moves. In the case of a bowed string instrument, it is the friction of the rosined ribbon of horse hair pulling and releasing the string which causes the string to vibrate. Horse hair in particular because its texture is a bit like Velcro. This doesn't happen machine-like, though. The musician controls the amount of pressure, speed, tilt of ribbon to yield more or less surface and other factors.

I don't know whether the type of altered vibrations you are talking about have anything to do with beat. I understand beat to refer to what happens when two pitches interact with each other, rather than what happens in the sounding of a single pitch. That's beyond my knowledge.

If you look at a textbook on acoustics, beats will always be illustrated by pictures of sine waves. (SOrry - a Wikipedia article came to hand first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics))

Beats are easier to see on a waveform (and easier to hear) the closer that wave is to a simple sine wave. The sustained tone of a piano isn't THAT far from one. The sound of a bowed instrument is WAY more complex.

Real-life instruments don't have nice tidy symmetrical waveforms either. In fact, the piano's waveform isn't always THAT symmetrical!
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/asymmetry/asym.html

I'm now interested, and am looking for better sources than Wikipedia! But I don't suppose it's COMPLETELY making it all up :-)

Though beats jump out at you more from simple waveforms, don't assume bowed instruments, can't produce them. Further down the same Wikipedia article we learn of composers who have exploited beats in works for solo violin, among other instruments.

In the brass world, for top players, it is necessary to develop some kind of reference pitch that is at least very VERY close to what it should be. If you begin on a pitch, no reference, and you mis-hear it, it causes a "clam". If you attempt to sing a low Bb, you may get much closer to it than you think. Most likely you always do some kind of warm-up that involves playing the harmonic series in first position.

The majority of singers have always been very weak in sight-reading. This is nothing new. The exceptions have almost always been the ones who also play an instrument well. Two excellent examples: Harry Connick Jr., Nat King Cole--both pianists. And add Placido Domingo to that list.

There are singers who don't read at all who have "weak ears", and so they have frequent pitch problems. But there are also singers who don't read music at all but who do have very good pitch.

The obvious snag is the ability to recognize a 4th in notation. In other words, even if you know what a 4th sounds like, you have to know you are looking at a 4th, in music.

I don't see why it is faster and more precise.

Why do you not link the sound of this 5th to the first two pitches you play on trombone in 1st position, Bb and F? (I'm not counting the pedal tone.) Why not link the 5th to the same thing with all your positions, 1-7, which gives you 7 out of the possible 10 5ths? Once you have the sound of a 5th in your head, why do you need some other link to re-remember it? Are you slow in recognizing 5ths when you read?

You need another musician for this, but if you have a keyboard around, start with a very comfortable note. It could be the low Bb you know on trombone. Always using that Bb, have someone play intervals from that note to any other note, but keep it in the range of an octave at first. See if you can identify all intervals from unison to octave. If you do very well at this, have someone move those intervals around, more or less at random.

If you have no one to help you, you can still play the bottom note and try to sing the upper note, see how accurate you are. If movable do works for you for this, great. The links you use don't matter so long as they work. But when intervals are outside the context of tonality, you may find that you start to hear "distance". For instance, I perceive a major 7th as a very dissonant sound that is as close as possible to an octave but just below it in our musical system (12 tones per octave). I don't need to put it into any kind of context. And so on...

Also, you may be very surprised to find out that you eventually instantly identify very dissonant intervals the fastest, not counting octaves. For my students m2, tritone and M7 are the ones they get fastest, followed by M2 and m7.

It's a difference way of processing sound and makes the intervals independent of songs. But you can also hear solid intervals, then sing them in either direction, up or down, if that step helps you. Melodic intervals are more likely to throw you back into a solfege world if that is strong for you.

IF you can train yourself to hear intervals out of context, singing something as challenging as a tone row should eventually become rather easy.

There is also this:

http://perfectpitchtest.com/

This is NOT really a test for perfect pitch. If you get the first tone right, the rest is relative. All intervals. So the relative pitch test is the same, but there you always get a C to click on, in case you get lost. You can click on middle C each time, then judge the pitch from that.

I THINK it will throw you totally out of solfege and into the world of intervals. If you consistently get 12 out of 12, you are hearing intervals much better than most people, and the test is REALLY quick and short, so lots of repetitions are possible.

In my mind, what solfege gives is a sense of degrees and function in certain common types of music. It gives some relationship between harmony and melody from the melody side, and when trying to get at things like "tendency tones". I don't think that it is a means for getting at intervals, but we can sort of accidentally slip into using it. The thing that comes closer to doing what solfege does might actually be chord progressions.

I am trying to strengthen my sense of intervals. When I first learned of interval names I did relate them to "so do" or "do fa" simply in the sense of recognizing them. But if in singing I see Bb F in the context of F major, then for So Do I am in degrees, not in intervals. The problem with thinking of Bb F "solfegically" is that it is that you could also be in the key of Bb and hearing 1 4 and not 5 1. That is why, personally, I don't want to use solfege for intervals.

There are different tools for relating to music: chords, intervals, solfege, Roman numerals, letter names, and whatnot. Rather than "replacing" one with the other, it makes sense to me to use all of them, and try to stay with whatever works best. (and discard what doesn't work as well)

I agree, but I don't even think we can consciously control all these factors. I can't. I just subconsciously "grab" whatever works. I only think about it when I mess something up.

It is easier for me to sing a fifth in context than in isolation.

Take a random and therefore unknown pitch and sing a fifth up.

Not superhard.

But sing Bb to F in the key of Bb. It's still a fifth but I have far more information making it more secure. I know it's the 1st to 5th degree of the scale, I know where it is in the chord. (and yes, I've played it on trombone ten thousand times, and that pitch memory does assist. To some extent I can think trombone and pick a pitch out of the air. Doug Yeo, principal bass trombonist with Boston Symphony, said with the horn in his hand he could sightsing perfectly.) Doesn't work as well in key of B, I just don't do it as much.

I will admit a tritone throws me every time.

I would like it to be known that intervals are in fact a part of the teaching of solfège in Europe. A solfège exam typically includes a dictation of intervals with no tonal reference.

That is not what I was talking about.

I think Keystring was talking about movable do. Tell me how they teach people to sing tone rows that way. I'd love to be enlightened.

If I hear Bb-F, in isolation, my mind will automatically orient myself somehow, then if another 5th appears, I will either link it to the first or my mind is reoriented if there is no connection. A single note following an interval will often snap me into a key.

If, for instance, an Eb follows the Bb-F, my mind will snap into Eb or Eb minor. If the next pitch is G, I am in Eb. If Gb, then I am in Eb minor. If the Bb-F is folled by A-F, then I snap to F. In the world of movable do, what follows an interval that is strong will define the previous interval, if there is an obvious tonal context. Bb F Eb probably works as it does for people who use movable do, but if I try to figure out syllables or number, I actually get lost. If I think V to I, in Eb, I'm there. Bb-F to A-F is IV I, in F for me.

What if you think of it as the interval that is bigger than a 4th and smaller than a 5th? What if you simply think "half octave difference"? Some of my youngest students identify tritones more easily than almost any other intervals, and I think it is because the tritone is "unflippable". 4ths and 5ths, on the other hand, can easily be confused because they are the same thing, flipped.

Have you ever tried to hear intervals as distance only? This is working so well for some of my young students that they are nailing intervals without knowing what they are called. For instance, if I stick to middle C and hit any interval above it, up to an octave, some of them find them all, simply by how big or small they sound. Maybe for a brass player this is crazy. I don't know. But pianists have a freaky ability to just "reach for keys". When that is linked, later, with the names and logic behind everything it can be very powerful.
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