"I can sing a chant in a variety of pitches and pick out a tune"

It is not just picking out the tune, but singing the pitches giving them their names as you sing them.
F'rinstance:
"Mi mi fa me re sol sol ti do do"

Come to the Chant Intensive, sit next to me and you'll feel highly skilled (I STINK at solfege,) or sit next to someone good and your skills will improve.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Why bother with all these syllables for chant if you're a red-blooded American and Latin is more than enough trouble? (Europeans use these as note names.) My personal take is that singing with the syllables eventually creates an association in the brain between the syllables and related intervals. E.g., I will always sing a major third for doh-mi or fa-la.

That's my justification for tormenting myself.

Isn't it actually UT re mi fa SOL la si (or ti) UT?

They still use "Ut" in France. And that makes sense -- after all, it's UT queant laxis, not "DO" queant laxis.

And in Germany, they don't really use the solfege syllables unless they're doing solfege; it's the French and Italians who refer to the notes by the solfege names. In Germany they use all the normal letters A through G, plus H -- B Natural. This is done because (it is thought) the natural sign looks kind of like a little "h," and you more often see B flat than B, at least if it's a major key. So in Germany, B = B flat and H = B natural.

Corrected, thanks.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solfege

Charles,

I've always wondered, when using the numbers, is there a way to denote accidentals outside of the basic scale?

Do Sol, Sol La Sol Fa Mi... Do! I remember that song, Yurodivi!

How about this impossible melody!

Mi Sol.... Fa Mi Sol Fa Mi Sol....
Sol La... Sol Fa La Sol Fa La....
La Ti... Mi Fa Sol La Mi Do Fa...
Sol La... Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti...!

Maybe I'm still affected by the First of April, but it just struck me that Solfege could be the name of a prescription medication. "Do jangling notes leave you feeling flat? Solfege may be able to help. Ask your MD if Solfege might be right for you."

:-)

Ok, Yurodivi. I'll see your "Born Free" (...as free as the wind blows...), and up you with the ascending fourth: "A white sport coat,..."

Cool! well, sharp cool.

Friends,

HERE is the absolute best way to learn Solfège.

Thanks Jeffrey for the interval modules. I know a couple of website for music theory, but didn't find much solfege training. Does anyone know a solfege training website that you can recommand, especially one that has solfeges based on modes?

That would be wonderful. Looking forward to it. Thanks

However, singing numbers does not improve the vocal tone that the open vowels of Solfeggio can.

Dittos to Doug. +1

I prefer numbers to solfege for the following reasons:

1) Numbers are part of a student's vocabulary at ANY POINT prior to studying music. Solfege requires taking precious learning time to teach new material. This time can be better used to teach other musical concepts.

2) Numbers are part of familiar culture. Solfege was adapted from the Gregorian hymn, "Ut Queant Laxis" by Guido d' Arezzo. Guido's idea was great for his era; however, "Ut Queant Laxis" is no longer part of most anyone's culture at this point in history.

3) Numbers INSTANTLY indicate "high" and "low" pitches. Solfege only does this after the system is learned.

4) Numbers are used in identifying intervals (major third, perfect fifth, et, al.), and roman numeral chord symbols (I, IV, vi, et. al.) so they can be integrated with a study of music theory. Solfege does not lend itself to integration with any other musical learning.

1) Solfège syllables don't require taking precious learning time to teach new material. It was invented for the sole purpose of teaching singers their notes. All singers who read music should use solfège. I'm sure everyone and their mother has heard "Do-Re-Mi" from the musical, The Sound of Music.
2) Modern musical notation was also taken from Guido's chant notation, just like how solfège was. If reading modern musical notation is part of your culture, then it would make logical sense to know solfège, too.
3) Solfège syllables indicate precise scale degrees - numbers don't. That's a lot more helpful than just knowing "high or low" and well worth taking the time to learn.
4) Solfège syllables identify intervals in more detail than numbers since you have to alter the syllables when a scale degree is altered. Numbers can't do this. Relating solfège syllables to chord symbols is just as easy as knowing which scale degrees are in the chords.

+1 (I love Liam's system of commentary)

Integers are of their nature an ordered series; words used to denote degrees are only so by convention. Integers are not only useful for expressing degrees, but the intevals which are an inherent property of the series.

This is getting a little theoretical here...has anyone used both systems? Which worked better?
I find that I'm using several strategies at once while sight-singing: knowing where I am in the scale (which is more like numbers than syllables, but doesn't get experienced as either), singing intervals, tonic memory, vocal feel. I don't do well when transposing unless I actually transpose mentally (and oddly, chant notation doesn't do that to me...I don't experience the note on the C-clef line as any kind of C). So I'm not at all sure where I would start a pedagogy.

But one thing hasn't been mentioned about numbers: mathematically, the distance between each integer is the same. It is rational to expect the distance between 2 and 3 to be the same as that between 3 and 4, and of course it isn't so musically. Exactly because the syllables are arbitrary, there is no such expectation. Staff notation presents the same problem, which is why it's so necessary to associate it with the piano keyboard, so students can see there's no black key there.

Well, integers (better term, thanks Ian) ruled in the Calif. State and University system back in the 70's through 80's, as I recall. However, once you take a few courses in Kodaly, solfeggio isn't a stretch except for accidentals with me personally.
But, I've benefited the most in terms of learning the many aspects of intervallic relationships due to that wonderful Scandinavian method of Modus Novus, which simply and systematically trained the ear and voice to hear the interval between any two notes and reproduce it correctly, no matter how it was notated.

solfege is for singing... and it is a prayer besides

solfege--a system for singing invented by Guido d'Arezzo in the 11th Century. To teach singers pitches in the modes, he taught them a hymn in honor of John the Baptist, sung in Latin, of course:

UT queant laxis
REsonare fibris
MIra gestorum
FAmuli tu orum
SOLve polluti
LAbii reatum
Sancte Johannes

The capital letters in this prayer became the basis for the syllables of the solfege system of "do, re, mi, etc." Of course, we now say "do" for "ut" and use "ti" instead of "si."

The hymn translates to "That thy servants may freely proclaim the wonders of thy deeds, absolve the sins of their unclean lips, o Holy John."

This system of associating a pitch with a syllable has resulted in a method for sight signing still used today.

Actually, I learned integers as a young student of piano, not singing - the musicianship syllabus of the ABRSM (a UK instrumental exam body) included identifying and singing intervals by number. This was reinforced by music 'O' and 'A' levels (more academically-oriented exams for 16 and 18 year-olds), which demanded more of the same, including chromatically altered intervals. By then I was singing in choirs, and so learned to sight-sing on that basis. I can't say for sure it would have been different if I'd been taught Solfege and am sure the key thing is practice, whatever system is used, but the inherently ordered numbering system combined with a practical knowledge of how it maps onto what I hear seems to me a solution whose structure looks more like that of the problem, which is usually to be desired (but perhaps that's the programmer in me speaking).

In this respect it's interesting that Solfege is derived, as others have pointed out, from an aid to singing chant. Chant intervals are usually step-wise, and when they're not they tend to simple intervals of 3, 4 or 5. Perhaps use of Solfege for other melodic patterns tests the boundaries of its usefulness. Then again, chant is monophonic, so it's not surprising that Solfege tends to be abandoned once discussion extends to harmony and counterpoint.

Using the integers doesn't help with vowel formation, but why should it? Distinct vowel-based exercises can address that need more efficiently.

Jeffrey "This is getting a little theoretical here...has anyone used both systems? Which worked better?" Well at Sacred Heart Dr. Prowse uses numbers but I teach the men do-re-mi. No great battles are fought over our differences in this regard, he smiles indulgently and go I my merry solfeggio way. However, last year I set in on one of his schola rehearsals. He was sight singing a chant and lo and behold when he got stumped he switched to solfeggio! Ah...vindication.

In high school our choir director had us sing a little solfege exercise every day (choir rehearsal 5 days a week for 2 hours) I still use it to this day 40 years later. In college, Loyola U. in New Orleans we were taught numbers but when they finally got me to my sight singing barrier (appropriate name) they let me use solfeggio.

What I have found with the seminarians who have the most problems keeping or even matching pitch is how beneficial solfege syllables can be. It gives them "training wheels" so to speak and many of them find that they can actually learn how to sing.

JQ-
Awesome response! LOL.

I'm a moveable do guy myself. I don't see any gain in quasi-perfect-pitch retention in fixed do, and it strips away any reference to scale structure.

Right!

Movable do = tonal music

Fixed do = atonal music = useless for anything tonal

99.9% of the music we sing is more tonal than not. Yes, even contemporary music. So why work with a system that shines only in atonal music? Even there, one sings more by interval than by an artificially-imposed pitch center on C.