 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2013-05-21 18:35
I may be moving to a job where I will be commuting an hour each way every day and instead of staring out the window I have been thinking of musical things to do to fill up the time. Some people have made some excellent suggestions on the BBoards, including learning solfege and singing through pieces
I don't know much about solfege but have come across 2 types: fixed and movable
I'd really appreciate if anyone can enlighten me and suggest which one a clarinettist should use, if there is any real difference, and the benefits of learning it
Many thanks
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The older I get, the better I was
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-05-21 19:32
Staunch traditionalists will remain fixed (well of course, this way a note will ALWAYS have its own name). Since you are doing this for general musical benefit, and not to be aligned with others in a particular study regimen, I feel fixed pitch should be vastly superior.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: EBC
Date: 2013-05-21 19:33
For fixed-do solfege, you sing the notes as written on the page. For movable-do solfege, you sing the notes as related to their position in a key, so do is always the tonic, re the supertonic, mi the mediant, etc., regardless of the "real" notes they represent.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems:
With movable-do, you reinforce note "functions" and will probably begin to recognize tonal patterns more quickly. On the other hand, the system is completely useless for music without a tonal center.
With fixed-do, you reinforce note-reading at (perhaps) the expense of pattern-recognition. However, the system is useful for atonal music.
In Québec, where I live and study, fixed-do is the standard. It's also what I'd recommend.
Eric
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Author: Maruja
Date: 2013-05-22 19:00
You need to check out Kodaly for moveable do and for help with sight singing...
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Author: kdk
Date: 2013-05-22 19:32
My experience with "fixed" do is that the syllables are essentially note names, much like the alphabet names most of us use to identify pitches. Do=C (Ut in France), and the rest follow up the scale, just like the song in The Sound of Music.
I'm not sure how they're applied in modern usage. The musicians I hear using them today are mostly Curtis graduates (I'm in the Philadelphia area), and they simply use the same basic syllable for the natural and any chromatic version of the same note - Db, D and D# seem to be all "re" when actually singing (there are Italian words used for flat and sharp but they're multi-syllabic and don't fit when you're actually singing note by note). You rely on your ear to supply the right pitch when you sing the note in a music context. After a lot of practice with it, musicians can hear the intervals involved in their mind's ear.
"Moveable" do has been used by some educators to develop a sense of tonal relationships in tonal or multi-tonal or poly-tonal music. It's very much like reading music written with a moveable C clef - Do is placed on the tonic note (even if the tonic changes frequently). As I was taught to use moveable do, the chromatics have their own names (do-di-re-ri-mi-fa-fi-sol, si, la, li, ti, do and another set for flats in a descending chromatic scale).
I've honestly never felt much use for either (which will probably raise some hackles among proponents for both). I find I can sing correct pitches far more quickly using the same neutral syllable for everything (la-la-la or lu-lu-lu or just hum) and that for me using either system involves a process of translation that just slows me down.
Are you commuting driving your own car or by some kind of public transit. Solfege, even for people who find it useful, is mainly a tool for reading music accurately. If you're driving, you can't be reading music in any case.
Karl
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2013-05-23 10:41
Thanks for the advice
I will be commuting by train so will be able to read music without causing any accidents!
Would I be the right track if I said that movable solfege is useful to jazz musicians and fixed do to singers?
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The older I get, the better I was
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2013-05-23 12:25
I don't know a lot of jazz musicians who bother with solfege. In music school, most jazz musicians easily managed it, but sight singing Strauss melodies is a very different discipline than transcribing Bechet. Solfege is a system developed for European music, specficially. It wouldn't work for Indian music, which has a greater subdivision of pitches. Likewise, it's not particularly useful for jazz, which uses pitches outside of the European 12 note system.
At least that's my take. I've known jazz players who couldn't solfege their way out of a paper bag, but who could play anything they heard on their horn. Both constitute ear training, but very different disciplines.
Eric
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The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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