Klarinet Archive - Posting 001012.txt from 1998/05

From: Shouryu Nohe <jnohe@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Solfege - 12 tone and what not.
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 00:35:32 -0400

I'm sure this probably has been posted, since I have about three days of
messages to go through, but I'll do it anyway. Most likely it has been
posted by Dr. Borchert, who runs the Sight Singing/Ear Training classes
here.

Ascending:
do di re ri mi fa fi sol si la li ti do

Descending:
do ti te la le sol se fa mi me re ra do

Easy to remember, since up is always an -i syllable, and down is always a
-e syllable, with the exception of ra, as it's natural is already an -e
syllable. In the case of twelve tone music, since there is (usually) no
key signature, C is automatically designated do. All sharps are sung as
syllables of the ascending chrom scale, and flats of the descending.

The principle behind solfege is that of aural interval association.
Hearing the notes on the instrument doesn't work for everyone - I don't
do fingerings or anything at all like that in my head, and I've tried.
Just doesn't happen. (Although, I was a vocalist before anything else,
that might be why, in my case) Looking at an F# to a C in the key of G
can be misleading to people like me - we see a fifth. What kind of
fifth? But since I've established F# as Ti and C as Fa, and by knowing
that Ti-Fa is a tritone, I'll sing it correctly, even though I'm seeing
a fifth (at first glance, which is what sight singing is).

Modulation is accomplished just as it should be - at the point of the key
change, do is reassigned to the new tonic.

The syllables remain the same in modal music as well.

Personally, I like solfege, hellspawn that it is. The only time it's
actually unusable, as far as I can tell, is when double accidentals come
into play. But the system has less flaws than other different things we
use in music...the Eastman system is a generally accepted counting system
(my preference), even though not everyone uses it. Yet it will break down
far easier than the movable do solfege system if you toss something funny
at it.

Shouryu Nohe
Professor of SCSM102, New Mexico State Univ.
http://web.nmsu.edu/~jnohe; ICQ 6771552
Coffee Drinker, Musician, Otaku, Jesus Freak, Admirer of Women
(Not necessarily in that order)
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