Sulfege, Solfege, Sol-fa

TomAto, Tomahto. We say the same words different ways. Some people will firmly stand behind why their way of saying a word is absolutely correct and should be the only way, but the fact still remains that everyone doesn't agree and there are different ways to say the same word. This is the case with solfege.

In short, solfege was developed a very long time ago (992AD) by an Italian Monk (Guido D’ Arezzo). He assigned syllables or words to pitches to help communicate the pitches to his singers.

There are two applications of solfege in use today. One application assigns the names Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Ti to individual pitches, and no matter what, those names stay consistent to the pitches. The more common use is one that assigns "Do" to the pitch that serves as the root, tonal center, or home base, or the scale. Do, Re, Mi, etc. are assigned to pitches in relation to the song and which pitch is the tonal center of the song.

Why do we use solfege today?
Solfege is a way to communicate about and organize music. There are other ways we can accomplish the same goal, such as letter names or notes, to indicate pitches. When one uses their voice first to learn to write and read music, solfege serves as a practical tool to communicate about pitches.

Movement helps solidify learning, especially for children. We also often associate hand signs with the solfege syllables. These are called Curwin Hand Sings. These hand signs are illustrated in the introduction of the USOE 100 Favorite Songs Collection. Click here to see online

Comment with questions!