Solfege is the process of assigning syllables to musical notes so that you aren't singing a melody without words as 1-4-5-3-6-3-5-1 or something like that. The system is pretty well known due to that song from the sound of music, but most people don't know how to do half steps with it. Nor are they necessarily competent at actually singing in the appropriate tones. There are two systems which assign solfege syllables, called the movable do system and the fixed do system (do is pronounced the same as dough). The fixed do system is primarily (to my understanding) used in Europe, and since Europe is full of communists and terrorists, we will not be using it.
The movable do system is a pretty easy concept, it simply means that the syllable do, attributed to the tonic in the established key, is dynamic. If you are in the key of E, the E is do. Key of F, F is do and so on. The fixed do system has each note on the keyboard assigned to the same syllable every time. I think do is always C, but I'm not sure because I'M A RED BLOODED AMERICAN ALL I EAT IS STEAK. I prefer the movable do system on principal just because it is much more clearly demonstrable to the relationships between the various notes than the fixed do system is. Let us remember our chromatic scale now!
Let us now assume for the sake of argument that we're in the key of C Major, I see no key signature so its a pretty safe assumption. C is therefore Do. Moving along, we continue up the C Major scale first with the basic syllables. C = Do, D = Re, E = Mi, F = Fa, G = Sol, A = La, B = Ti. These are pronounced Dough, Ray, Me, Fah, Soul, Lah, Tee. Now we shall look at the chromatic syllables. Like the melodic minor scale, this differs depending on whether you are ascending or descending. Notice a theme? I'm going to include pronunciations in parentheses next to the syllables.
Ascending: Do, Di(dee), Re, Ri(ree), Mi, Fa, Fi(fee), Sol, Si(see), La, Li(lee), Ti, Do!
Descending: Do, Ti, Te(tay), La, Le(lay), Sol, Se(say), Fa, Mi, Me(may), Re, Ra(Rah), Do.
Please notice that the flat 2 when descending is Ra, the glorious god of the sun! I'm sure you were on pins and needles waiting for him to show up since he stood you up at the bar last week. To get these really cemented in your head I seriously recommend singing a few chromatic scales with the syllables until you get it so you embed the ratios in your brain.
So lets do some listening here to analyze what we're doing. To start, we will use Mary Had a Little Lamb, which is a little ditty that most people are taught when they initially learn how to play the piano.
I chose this selection because it was somehow less annoying than the other example I found. I'm still not quite sure how this works. Listening to our melody, which is sung by a totally kawaii girl ^_^, we can analyze as being 3-2-1-2-3-3-3, 2-2-2, 3-5-5 etc. Or: Mi re do re mi mi mi, re re re, mi sol sol, mi re do re mi mi mi mi re re mi re do.
Ok! That was easy, so lets get a bit more complicated. Here is a series of scores by Robert Schumann (you may need to click a link to get them to let you open the page), and here are the associated works so that you can listen along. Let us examine Melodie first.
First off, notice C in place of the time signature. That indicates Common Time, or 4/4. Secondly, notice that the bottom staff on our grand staff is also in the trebel clef. Finally, those 2 dots in the 4th measure indicate that you are to repeat those 4 measures one time before moving on. Our melody, which is always the topmost note in this case (but that is not always true), starts off with mi re do ti la do ti re do sol. It then continues with sol fa mi do ti la sol. About the only other thing of note with this work is the use of the natural sign in the 8th bar, to cancel out the sharp C in the bass line.
Soldatenmarsch just below it is also a good example to look at, and will help us examine the movable do system a bit. The melody is on top as per usual. We have a couple clef changes in the bass too, but we don't really care about that so much. Starting on B, we go mi fa sol la sol fa mi re do, mi fa sol la sol do ti la sol, then that line repeats. Skipping down to the next set of lines, right after our repeat sign that's facing to the right (meaning when you are directed to repeat a passage, you go back to that sign and begin there), sol la ti la sol la sol fa mi, now this gets interesting. Our melody is briefly transferred to the bass note, as we have a nice little chord here, then back to the top notes. Notice how, when we go up an octave, the syllable does not change. This is a limitation of the system.
For my last example, we're going to get considerably more elaborate. I've had a hell of a time finding decent examples that have sheet music too, such that you can follow along. But I found something that's more complicated than what we've done, and is a song everyone should know because it is awesome.
And the transcribed solo is here. We're going to be looking at Miles Davis' solo for this song, which starts at about 2:13 or so. Take a couple listens to it so that you're familiar with what he plays. Notice our key is Bflat, so we'll use that as our do. Also please notice that the eighth notes are not played in a strictly even fashion, this is a stylistic choice present in jazz known as swung eighth notes. More on that later.
Easy enough, we start out with do do do. A couple rests, then la do la li re. La do me fa me la. Do te te re la sol. Ti la ti la sol la ti do sol la li fa. Le do mi sol sol te la la fa.
And so on. Feel free to poke through the rest of it. Please notice that context is important for the syllables. In general when a passage is ascending you use the ascending ones, and vice versa. In the case of the me in the 3rd group, it functions as a flat 3 in that passage due to the tones surrounding it, this will make more sense in subsequent lessons. The te at the very end is approached through an ascent, but is then used as part of a descending phrase, and is thus more applicable to the 7th than a raised 6th. Fudging it is ok though, no one is going to yell at you for using the wrong syllable.
I feel like this lesson is somewhat lackluster, but it should give some general grounding about how to interact with intervals. Thanks as always.
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