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Probably old ground here [in terms of this forum], but does anyone in the English speaking world use FIXED DO??????

Well I started to this year as an experiment. Didn't know it was uncommon and wanted a way to sing written notes easily for a very young student. Unfortunately I didn't practise enough so it never became 2nd nature.

I was turned off movable do for a couple of reasons. Firstly the majority of my beg. music is modal or has black and blue notes. I don't use a lot of beginner pieces of the simple C major type (like in Piano Adventures) mainly because too much of this sort of music makes me And I didn't know how to handle lots of non-scale notes with movable Doh (didn't research further).

But there was a 2nd reason. I remember in aural class at 'music institution' when we got to the point of sight singing atonal music there were a couple of students making desperate hand gestures, looking stressed and suddenly losing their ability to sight sing. I remember the teacher saying "well, it doesn't work with atonal music does it, eh?" and seeming pleased about something. I think people can be very loyal to their method (this thread shows that!).

I might be an english speaking Fixed Do person, but perhaps I should confirm in a year. And likely if I'm doing it then everyone else is doing the oppposite since if my teaching has a "flavour" it is The Opposite

Canonie, I expect then that you feel unhappy with calling a C a C, then? Is that right? You're singing Do-Re-Mi when the notes are C D E, but singing So-La-Ti when the notes are G A B?

When I first started piano lessons, I learned fixed do and letter names simultaneously. Since I have perfect pitch, I've attached each name in solfege with a particular pitch. I didn't encounter movable do until college musicianship class. To this day, if I'm forced to use movable do, I have to think about it. Fixed do comes to me much more naturally.

AZNpiano, why did they teach you two naming systems simultaneously, do you know, or maybe you can speculate? :-)

Why?? No idea. I guess that's how things work in that part of Asia. We also had music class in public schools (with textbooks!!!).

I've also seen the 1-2-3-4 system (movable do). Works great for simple, non-modulating tunes with simple rhythm. Many singers told me it's their "cheap and dirty" way to notate music without using the western notation system. Of course, when they start to sing more complex music, things fall apart.

I too am an english speaking fixed-do person.

Fixed-do, that is to say I use exclusively the do-ré-mi nomeclature, and I have become strongly favorable to the practise of solfège.

I love it, have never looked back. The do-ré-mi nomenclature, with all of its implications, is a liberation.

I hope that you will continue along this path, until you are at home in this lovely musical language.

I would hope, Canonie, that you use the name "si" and not "ti".

"Ti", I believe, exists only as a syllable of moveable-do solfège. "Ti" is not the name of the note.

I agree that fixed-do solfège is about reading. ( When you say fixed-do, I understand you to mean solfège. )

However, you have to take the word "reading" in the broadest musical sense. Reading means looking at a score and understanding it musically.

Thus, in fact what you say about moveable do ...



... is equally true of fixed-do solfège.

Oh I'm happy to Call a C a C, it's ease of singing that's the problem. But yes to your examples. And sorry land'o, I chose Ti not Si oops. I can't remember if I came across the Si as well, but I like singing the letter T better. So anyone else? is Ti unheard of as a note name (fixed Do) in any country. Opposite as usual...

AZN thank you so much for confirming my ideas regarding movable Do and more complex music - very helpful.

And thank you landorrano for encouragemnt to pursue these names. If I just practised i tiny bit instead of for 2 mins just b4 I see this student, and with my eyes glued to the chart I made. Sometimes i feel too old for a new language! Did you learn this as a child land'o?

Still, I took to rhythm solfege like a woman to chocolate, feels v natural. But i think it is easier.

I have a question. When singing in fixed do solfege, how do you pronounce sharps and flats? For instance, when singing in the key of fa, your si would be out of scale. So is there a name for Bb?

Of course with movable do you would encounter the same problem with accidentals.

I don't know your age, but I'd bet that I had a few more rings in my trunk than you do now.

As for Ti or Si. I think that it is a mistake to use Ti, if you use the do-ré-mi nomenclature and if you wish to understand the possibilities that it represents.

The syllables have a sense to them, they have an ancient meaning that has marked all musical development, in the way that the greek letters that are at the origen of our alphabet have a sense that still animates our thought.

There is more to these names than their consonance.

You have to distinguish the do-ré-mi nomenclature from solfège exercises.

The name of the note Bb is si-bémol.

However, in a solfège exercise, the scale of si-bémol is si-do-ré-mi-fa-sol-la. The scale of mi-bémol, Eb, is mi-fa-sol-la-si-do-ré-mi.

If you encounter si-bémol as an accidental in a solfège exercise you would pronounce "si" in the correct tone.

Thanks Lando. So the do-re-mi names are not fixed pitches, but fixed places on the staff, and the key signature determines their exact pitch?

Thank you for this and your next post. Re Trunk rings - we'll never know but it's still harder to learn new language than when I was a kid or a teen. It gets harder.

I definitely have a different system/ list of syllables. It probably doesn't have the subtlety and richness of yours. It's just a list of syllables to replace all letter names (although each 'black note' has 2 names; one for flat and one for sharp)

I should probably not use it in teaching until more research and use. I did explain clearly and honestly that it was an experiment with that student - parents said yes and she loves piano so "No dramas" as we say in Australia (nasally if possible).

The syllables do not have an ancient meaning. In fact, the system itself is not ancient. It was invented a few hundred years ago as part of the history of the development of Western music itself. Nor were the notes thought of as they are today.

The syllables come from a chant that begins Ut queant laxis. Ut was hard to pronounce so it became Do as in Dominus. At that time there was a fixed set of chants that choirboys had to memorize by rote and it took years to learn phrase by phrase, by imitation. With the coming of Charlemagne and efforts to unify the Christian empire there was an effort to standardize the liturgy. A few monks here and there were already trying to solve the problem of teaching a few hundred chants by rote. Guido d'Arezzi came up with solmization.

The key is that there were already chants with fixed Latin words that were considered sacred and could not be changed. One of those chants was used, and the first syllable that happened to occur on whatever word as the music ascended was used. There is nothing magical or special about the syllables themselves.

What is special about the syllables is that they also represent functional harmony and are more than just degree names or quick ways to recognize the common intervals. That is truly special.

* Greek letters are at the origin of the Cyrillic alphabet. Ours (English, French, Spanish etc.) are originated by the Latin alphabet.

well that does sound pretty special.

That's funny, I'd forgotten about the origins of Ut Re Mi. Some how my brain so easiy reverts to believing that it was invented by Julie Andrews. That hymn I remember only goes up to La. ... Just checked my text and my Grout and Palisca says that these 6 syllables "are still employed in teaching, except that we say do for ut and ti above la." Ut is a good scrabble word

Also in other fun trivia, I remember learning that "the whole gamut" meaning "everything", comes from the whole gamma to ut = from the lowest to highest note on grand staff (or could be other way round). someone can correct me. Ut is such a nice word (but heck to sing).

I use 'fixed do' with my students and prefer it to letter names, particularly for younger children.

Programs such as Harmony Road and Yamaha, which are taught in a few hundred locations in the US, use 'fixed do' exclusively for the first 3-4 years; they then add letter names.

dumdiddle, why do you prefer to use Do to C?

Ok, ancient is not the proper term, still we're talking about 1000 years.

I do think that there is something magical about the syllables themselves. I don't mean to say that I believe in their mystical power. But I do believe they were invested with a sense that has, consciously or unconsciously, marked musical developments.

I cannot prove this of course. But it is difficult to conceive that it would be otherwise during the middle ages.

Gui d'Arezzo was not just a mild-mannered choirmaster, trying to get his lads to sing right. He was an important figure, having written numerous treatises, and apparently is widely cited in music treatises as an authority, after Pythagorus and Boetius.

Just to waste a little time at the computer, before the World Cup final, here's an extract from one theory that I have come across:

Imagine a cross, with the vertical branch, descending, as ré sol ut io, resolution.

The horizontal branch, left to right, is al (la in reverse) sol fa.

The sol, the sun, thus finds itself at at the center of the cross, and O as the center if the center, O or omega. The dispostion of la and fa give alfa or alpha. "It is a devine devise according to the Apocolypse of Saint John which cites 3 times, 'I am the alpha and the omega'. Alpha in centrifuge can above all symbolize the dissolution of elements, the first phase of the resolution ".

...... Ré
....Al sol Fa
.......ut
.......io

(The dots are there to align the vertical branch of the cross)

Not that any of that has direct importance, or is even particularly interesting. It's just for old times' sake, Keystring. You may remember that our first encounter was around this same question. If that isn't love, what is?