Solfege is a way of assigning syllables to names of the musical scale. In order, they are: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do (for the octave). Solfege was a pedagogical technique created by Guido of Arezzo. These names are still used for the notes in latin countries, while in english and germanic countries the letter naming convention is used.
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2 Variations 3 Common scales 4 Other meanings 5 See Also 6 External Link |
"Solfege" came from French solfège in the 1910s. The French word in turn came from the Italian solfeggio, which is a combination of sol and fa. Its equivalent since Early Modern English is sol-fa.
The syllable names come from a formerly well-known medieval hymn, entitled Ut queant laxis, in which each successive verse starts on the next higher scale degree in the major scale; The first word in each verse corresponds to the solfege syllable, with the exception of "Do," which was "Ut" in the hymn.
There are two main types of solfege: moveable Do, in which each syllable corresponds with a scale degree, and fixed Do, in which the syllables correspond to fixed pitches. The advantage of moveable Do is that Do always corresponds to the tonic; the disadvantage is that the singer must do a harmonic analysis of the piece in order to sing the correct syllables. In fixed Do, the pitches are set: the tonic, Do, is C, Re is D, and so on; Fa is easy to remember, since it is F.
There are also other syllables corresponding to notes outside of the major scale. All the solfege syllables are listed in the table below; the syllables in the major scale are shown in bold.
Etymology
Variations
| Scale degree | Syllable | Mnemonic |
|---|---|---|
| Unison, Octave | Do | dough |
| Augmented unison | Di | Dee |
| Minor second | Ra | "Rah rah rah" |
| Major second | Re | ray |
| Augmented second | Ri | like reach |
| Minor third | Mé | May |
| Major third | Mi | like the word me |
| Perfect fourth | Fa | 'a' as in father |
| Augmented fourth | Fi | like feet |
| Diminished fifth | Se | say |
| Perfect fifth | So(l) | long 'o', like sold |
| Augmented fifth | Si | see |
| Minor sixth | Le | lay |
| Major sixth | La | 'a' as in large (like Fa, above) |
| Augmented sixth | Li | like lean |
| Minor seventh | Te | like take |
| Major seventh | Ti* | tea |
| * In Continental Europe and East Asia, si is the seventh major, instead of ti. | ||
Some common scales are given below in solfege for reference.
Ascending the chromatic scale (using sharps):
Common scales
Descending the chromatic scale (using flats):
The major scale:
In colloquial language, singers sometimes use "solfege" and "sight reading" as synonyms, though sight reading can also mean reading the piece without benefit of previous study, or numerical sight-singing, where the hard-to-memorize solfege syllables are replaced by the numbers one through seven.