Solfege - What's the Point?

[Ten Four One]

Well, at a pretty fundamental level that's what tonal solfege does - teach the relationships of all notes to "do", which is the exactly same thing as saying "learning how each of the 12 pitches relate to a key". No difference there.

That's not quite right. What he's saying is that when you learn intervals, you learn intervals. You're not really learning them in relation to "do" you're just learning them in relation to the first note that's been played. You learn the interval, but you don't fully learn to hear it in context.

So if you hear two notes three semitones apart you go "that's a minor third!" but you still don't know if it's a 3rd and a 5th or a 2nd and a 4th or a 6th and the octave. (assuming a major key)

What are the songs everyone is taught when learning solfege? The 4th is Here Come the Bride or Auld Lang Syne or Amazing Grace.

Except those aren't root-fourth relationships, those are fifth-octave relationships. But everyone learned it as the 4th because they were focused on the interval & not the key.

It's a fairly common complaint against solfege the way it's normally taught.

You always use "do mi" for a third - but why never fa-la or so-ti? Solfege assumes "a third is a third" - that all thirds are the same, but they're not. Not in the context of a tonal harmony.

So his method (presumably) is to teach you to recognize the difference between "do mi" and "fa la" and "so ti."

 

[HaVIC5]

That's not quite right. What he's saying is that when you learn intervals, you learn intervals. You're not really learning them in relation to "do" you're just learning them in relation to the first note that's been played. You learn the interval, but you don't fully learn to hear it in context.

So if you hear two notes three semitones apart you go "that's a minor third!" but you still don't know if it's a 3rd and a 5th or a 2nd and a 4th or a 6th and the octave. (assuming a major key)

What are the songs everyone is taught when learning solfege? The 4th is Here Come the Bride or Auld Lang Syne or Amazing Grace.

...that's not solfege, that's interval learning. I can definitely sympathize with the sentiment that states that this sort of study is useless, but it is without a doubt NOT solfege in any way. Moveable Do is pretty much exactly the method that you are/he is advocating. Hearing the relationships within in a key, tendency tone patterns, etc, versus pure intervals.

Now, intervallic ear training becomes necessary in atonal non-key based music, but that's a level of solfege that's far beyond the system that we are discussion.

Except those aren't root-fourth relationships, those are fifth-octave relationships. But everyone learned it as the 4th because they were focused on the interval & not the key.

It's a fairly common complaint against solfege the way it's normally taught.

You always use "do mi" for a third - but why never fa-la or so-ti? Solfege assumes "a third is a third" - that all thirds are the same, but they're not. Not in the context of a tonal harmony.

So his method (presumably) is to teach you to recognize the difference between "do mi" and "fa la" and "so ti."

Again, this is intervallic learning, and not solfeggio. Solfege is simply attaching names to pitches. Moveable Do classifies each pitch based upon its relationship to "do". Through sight-singing, identifying tendency tone pairs and listening to relationships between notes, a teacher of moveable do teaches tone-recognition the exact way you are describing. It isn't novel, in fact, its how its done in a large number of higher learning situations.

 

[Ten Four One]

In that case, then he isn't offering much that solfege doesn't, at least not from my superficial reading of the promotional materials.

 

[SuperFunkyPete]

I have to admit, it does like like solfege.

Thanks for your insights gentlemen. I will now return to my regular solfege practicing with an easier mind...

Pete

 

[SpawnofHastur]

I have just a few questions, having read the thread and not quite understood all of it.

First: do you people think that interval training is complimentary to fixed do solfege, or does it interfere with it?

Second: when you change key in fixed do solfege, say from do as the tonic to fa as the tonic, do the syllables you're using change to fit the key? (for example, a note in the first key might be a specific syllable, but in the second the note, while remaining the same in absolute terms, has a different syllable to indicate that it's a different scale degree?)