Klarinet Archive - Posting 000836.txt from 1998/05

From: Lee Hickling <hickling@-----.Net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Orchestras which sing
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 20:46:45 -0400

Mark Charette said
>There is a part of music education that is lacking in some schools:
>solfeggio. I had to learn basic solfeggio when I was in an a cappela
>choir back in the late 60s/early 70s, and it's help my playing ever
>since. For me not so much pitch as hearing intervals. .........
>(It) gets the sounds into your aural memory by using more than
>one channel of learning (see, pronounce, hear).

Solfeggio is also a great way to get into playing by ear, and then into
improvisation.

I was astonished when I discovered that very few of my private students
had ever heard of the syllable names for the scale. My piano teaching
style is heavy on harmony instruction, so I make the kids learn
do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do, early on. (They balk when I try to get them to
sing, even when the studio door is closed.)

I thought everybody learned to sing the scale in elementary school. Man,
was I ever out of date. But time was when there had to be a piano in every
K-6 classroom, at least in New York State, and teachers had to learn to
play it to get certified.

Of course, that was during the late Bronze Age.

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