What should "Si"-flat be called?
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    If the notes are to be called:

    Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Ut

    What is the syllable that should be used when singing the solfege for "Si"-flat?

    Se?
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    Yes, Se.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,499
    What do you call a sharp sol in this case? Si as well?
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    The Ut, Re, ..., Si, Ut nomenclature wasn't rigged to handle accidentals, except for Si-flat (Se). Instead, when one uses Do, Re, Me, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do, one can put in the sharps and flats readily.

    Flats: Re-flat is Ra, Mi-flat is Me, Sol-flat is Se, La-flat is Le, Ti-flat is Te.

    Sharps: Do-sharp is Di, Re-sharp is Ri, Fa-sharp if Fi, Sol-sharp is Si, La-sharp is Li.

    Note Do-flat, Fa-flat, Mi-sharp, and Ti-sharp are not permissible.
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  • JesJes
    Posts: 576
    Depends where ya from.
    Dor Doh Di, Ror Re Ri, Mor Mi (then just substitute #mi with Fa), For Fa Fi, Sor Sa Si, Lor La Li, Tor Ta Ti, (Doh just to not finish on ti and leave my brain in terrible shape)
    That's taught in Aus Melbourne but not in every place so you might come across that.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    The college I attended abandoned those terms and used numbers, instead. Consequently, I am more comfortable with numbers. For accidentals we used, for example, 3-flat.
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  • JesJes
    Posts: 576
    @CharlesW that's fascinating! Thanks.

    Yeah we did a little bit of scale degrees and when I teach scales to kids at school they learn the scale degrees, the letter, the solfege and the sound production of that note as well as directional reading because I place floorcards for them to jump on and indicate the note they want sounded when completing aural tasks.

    I personally found solfege hard to learn when I got to uni because I had already just learned the names of the notes and always associated the pitch that went with the letter name but I have since found solfege to be useful in moveable doh situations despite my fixed position using letter names.

    Scale degrees would work for moveable doh people I think, certainly I write out the scale degrees when doing written transposition tasks.

    Interestingly I use solfege most when I read chant.
    Scale degrees when I discuss harmony and temperament.
    and letter names when I am discussing a single line in modern notation.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    For accidentals we used, for example, 3-flat.


    I know everyone just prefers whatever they learned, and all systems are equally good, and all that other stuff. But this strikes me as stupid.

    Or, do the proponents of this system never use it at-tempo in a quick piece with a seven-flat in an eighth note run?
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  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Or, do the proponents of this system never use it at-tempo in a quick piece with a seven-flat in an eighth note run?


    What if it's 3-flat RECTO TONO?
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  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,499
    I first learned using a movable "do" for major scales and then beginning on movable "do" for the minor scales. I later worked with a Kodaly teacher who insisted that minor begin on "la". Suddenly it all made much more sense. This has also worked teaching scales on violin to my children. How does one sing using numbers?
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    What if it's 3-flat RECTO TONO?


    No se!
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    It could be 3-sharp. Sometimes I use sharp-5 in hymn harmonies when I improvise a bit. It could also be Recto Tono, but that gets into copyright issues. ;-)

    I haven't had any problems using syllables or numbers. Both work.
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  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Here's what Giambattista Mancini (the celebrated 18th century castrato) has to say on it in his singing manual "The Art of Singing:"

    He gives a diagram on p. 73 (the treatise can be found on IMSLP for free, which is where I got my copy) of a single octave from C to C on the keyboard. I will attempt to indicate here:

    ___PA__BO_________TU_____DE___NO
    UT___RE___MI___FA____SOL___LA____SI____UT

    So, according to Mancini, the syllable for Si(b) would be NO.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    So, according to Mancini, the syllable for Si(b) would be...


    image
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    Here is a standard reference PDF on Solfege Syllables which accords with the description I gave above. It also treats both moveable and fixed Do systems, as well as Major and Minor modes (both the La Ti Do and Do Re Me systems for Minor mode scales).

    Edit: The excellent Wikipedia article on Solfège is also quite exhaustive.
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  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    I'm most familiar with the solfege that Chuck Giffen mentioned. It's very easy to sing the accidentals, without extra thought.
    I was taught to start minor keys on "la," as it makes the most sense, harmonically.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Yes, I had a professor that suggested the following: moveable DO with a LA based minor. I teach fixed DO, as that is what the old masters taught, and also because moveable DO is a little beyond what my elementary students can understand: it's easier to tell them that C is DO, instead of "C is DO...right now, but it could be F or G or whatever other note depending on how many sharps or flats you have in the key signature. And don't get me started on key changes!" I haven't taught them the chromatic syllables given by Mancini yet.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    I teach fixed DO, as that is what the old masters taught


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  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Maybe I'm being captain obvious here, but when we add a flat to a note, it becomes Fa, often only momentarily. This is why we call inflected notes "musica ficta," i.e. feigned or imagined notes (e.g. a half step appearing where there isn't a real or "recta" half step in the gamut).

    The flat sign is derived from a stylized "round" letter b to indicate that it is to be sung a half step above the note below, as distinct from the "square" b which is sung as a whole step above the note below. So the round b came to stand for Fa (it was even written Ut Re Mi b Sol La), and the square b for Mi. The square b, of course, became our modern natural and (if you invert it on itself again) sharp symbols.

    Being able to sing the b as either round (flat) or hard (natural) allows us to traverse an octave or more by navigating through the three interlocking hexachords (six note scales) beginning on C, G, and (with the round b), F. The "seventh" scale degree or ti (si) wasn't invented until the modern period, and even in the Baroque music treatises still referred to the earlier system. Having this 7th scale degree is useful for us today, since we are in the only time period in history in which we have needed a unified theory of music that could cover 1000 years of music. It's a convenient shortcut, but anachronistic when referring to music pre-1600 (and even a good deal of it after).

    This is also, by the way, why in key signatures the last flat in the signature tells you where to find Fa, not as some of us were taught that the second to last flat tells you where to find Do.

    As for singing numbers instead of solfege, I would like to remind you that Do was only the 1st note of the scale for a brief period from about 1600–1900, and even then only about 2/3 of the time (the rest were minor). So if you use that system, be prepared to sing a lot of pieces where the first note of the scale is 2,3,4,5 (pre-1600), or 6 (post-1600). That seems unnecessarily confusing to me, when the solfege system will cover all music that is diatonic or mostly diatonic. For highly chromatic or atonal music, you're probably better off thinking about intervals than scale degrees in a 12 note scale, but I can see how fixed Do could be useful for developing a sense of absolute pitch in an equally tempered scale.
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  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I teach fixed DO, as that is what the old masters taught


    Oh dear, if we are now referring to Hindemith and Nadia Boulanger as the "old masters," that makes me feel ancient. But Guido, Zarlino, and even Fux certainly did not teach fixed Do. In some languages, pitches were named Ut Re Mi instead of C D E, but not scale degrees. If you wanted to refer to the first note of a D major scale, for example, you would have to say Re-Ut, i.e. the Ut (Do) that is found on Re (D). I don't know of a source that presents fixed Do as we now know it before the 20th century (although I imagine there could be some from the 19th).

    Edit: After reading the above cited treatise by Mancini, I am now aware of a source (thank you!) from as far back as the 18th century that presents a system of naming the notes according to an absolute pitch (that of the cembalo). However, this is a singing method and not a theoretical treatise, which Mancini himself is quick to point out. (It's unfortunate that a printing error on p. 81 obscures the point the author is trying to make about the facility of his system). Unlike the 20th century idea of fixed-Do commonly taught in conservatories today, Mancini has a different name for each of the 12 chromatic tones so that F-double-sharp would be sung as sol (whereas in modern fixed-Do it is often sung as Fa). Mancini's systems makes more sense to me, and it does work if one is only singing music of his time. However, it remains that chant and polyphony from before 1600 (which is the foundational repertoire of sacred Catholic music), does not lend itself to this "modern" (i.e. 18th century) system imho.
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  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Fixed Do is stupid. Music is about relationships between notes, not discrete notes with fixed pitches and identities. You shouldn't need a whole new set of solfege syllables when you transpose a melody.
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  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    Edit: The excellent Wikipedia article on Solfège is also quite exhaustive.


    If by "exhaustive" you mean exhausting, I agree. I gave up trying to edit things that were absolutely untrue, since there would always be 10 times as many second year music students who would revise anything I wrote to match their limited understanding of music theory.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Let's have the fixed DO vs. moveable DO argument some other time, shall we?
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  • JesJes
    Posts: 576
    G'day,

    Ah this takes me back. I don't really have a pozzy on this but...

    Things I discovered at uni:
    I like both, find both useful for different things.
    Fixed can help give you pitch memory.
    Moveable can give you relative pitch.
    Moveable works best for different pitch systems especially werkmeister II.
    Fixed works really well for tuning pianos.

    Weird other ways of obtaining aural skills:
    As someone who underwent some training as an organ tuner/builder I can say I even had to sing using frequency names for a little while just so I could memorise the difference and pick the temperament of the organ. If you do that course you'll never need to use solfege again for aural training, though reading might be another story.
    I have pitch memory but I also am able to ignore it for the purpose of varying the temperament of instruments.
    I do recommend learning the frequency of common starting notes, using motet first notes as an example. How many tenors sing the first note of Sicut cervus without really thinking about it? Or think about the start of lion king, nobody knows the words (well most don't) but how many can sing the first note?
    Sometimes rather than singing scale degrees you can sing the position in the chord such as fifth, sus4-res3, this is great for thinking about the notes vertically and helps create ripper reading skills for keyboardists trying out figured bass.

    Education:
    Orff school is fixed (and based on letter names not solfege syllables.
    Kodaly I believe is moveable? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
    French conservatoire only like fixed. (I do wonder if they hand out pieces in C# major in their auditions)
    Dalcroze, no idea but they definitely use hand signs and ladders so I'm guessing moveable.
    Hand of guido is probably the best place to start if you want to use it the way it was originally intended which I believe would have been moveable UT. This is also one you can take on public transport without people looking at you like you're off your tree.

    Importance:
    People are all different and will respond to different stimuli, so learn and teach it all and too right you'll work out their strengths. Deadset, people can learn using any or all of these methods but when it comes to singing fast I fail to believe that any of these really work, after that it all becomes muscle memory of the ENT.
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