More About Solfa
What
is “Solfa”?
Tonic
solfa is a method of learning and reading music which began around 990 A.D. in
Italy. It was later refined and
developed in England, and by Zoltan Kodaly, a Hungarian composer who was asked
to develop a music curriculum for Hungarian schools.
It uses the seven note names of a scale (do, re, mi, fa, so, la ti), with
a hand sign for each pitch. This
means that singers do not need to be able to read (either words or music) to be
able to learn songs in solfa. In French, solfa is solfege, and in
Italian, solfeggio.
Why
Learn Solfa?
Solfa
is a simple way for singers to learn pitch relationships, or the spaces between
the notes of a scale. No matter
what the key of a song, its intervals or pitch relationships will remain
constant relative to the starting note of the scale.
By learning solfa, and practising “drills” or patterns, singers will
easily sing “in tune”. For
younger students there is no need to be able to read to learn new songs quickly.
Solfa
also helps students whose preferred learning methods are not only auditory or
visual.
The kinesthetic aspect of hand signing while singing helps students
to physically understand the aspect of high and low pitch, and to relate certain
intervals with their corresponding hand signs.
The Fixed Do and Movable Do Argument
In Europe, the 'do' of a scale is always the first note of the scale. For instance, in the key of G major, the note G will be 'do', A will be be 're', B will be 'mi', and so on. This is termed Movable Do. However, some musicians, and many colleges and universities in the States, always use the note C as 'do', which is Fixed Do.
Being
trained in Hungary, I use the movable 'do' system in my classes. I feel it
is more sensible to always call the first note of the scale 'do', the second
're', etc, rather than have to be able to adapt the solfa scale every time we
sing in a new key. (In our example of G major, the first note of the scale would
be called 'so', the second 'la', etc.) After less than two years of
learning music in class using solfa, we no longer need to use solfa as a
framework to learn new music, as the intervals and pitch relationships are so
well established.
Have a question? anikodebreceny@comcast.net