Solfège is still used for sight reading training. There are two main types:
Movable do and
Fixed do.
Movable do solfège In
Movable do or
tonic sol-fa, each syllable corresponds to a
scale degree; for example, if the music changes into a higher key, each syllable moves to a correspondingly higher note. This is analogous to the Guidonian practice of giving each degree of the hexachord a solfège name, and is mostly used in Germanic countries,
Commonwealth countries, and the United States. One particularly important variant of movable do, but differing in some respects from the system described below, was invented in the nineteenth century by
Sarah Ann Glover, and is known as
tonic sol-fa. In Italy, in 1972,
Roberto Goitre wrote the famous method "Cantar leggendo" (singing by reading), which has come to be used for choruses and for music for young children. The pedagogical advantage of the movable-Do system is its ability to assist in the theoretical understanding of music; because a tonic is established and then sung in comparison to, students infer melodic and chordal implications through their singing.
Major Movable do is frequently employed in Australia, China, Japan (with 5th being so, and 7th being si), Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, and English-speaking Canada. The movable do system is a fundamental element of the
Kodály method used primarily in
Hungary, but with a dedicated following worldwide. In the movable do system, each solfège syllable corresponds not to a pitch, but to a scale degree: The first degree of a major scale is always sung as "do", the second as "re", etc. (For minor keys, see below.) In movable do, a given tune is therefore always sol-faed on the same syllables, no matter what key it is in. The solfège syllables used for movable do differ slightly from those used for fixed do, because the English variant of the basic syllables ("ti" instead of "si") is usually used, and
chromatically altered syllables are usually included as well. If a piece
modulates, then it becomes necessary to change the solfège syllables. For example, if a piece begins in C major, then C is initially sung on "do", D on "re", etc. If, however, the piece then modulates to F major, then F is sung on "do", G on "re", etc., and C is then sung on "sol".
Minor Passages in a minor key may be sol-faed in one of two ways in movable do: either starting on do (using "me", "le", and "te" for the lowered third, sixth, and seventh degrees, respectively, and "la" and "ti" for the raised sixth and seventh degrees), which is referred to as "do-based minor", or starting on la (using "fi" and "si" for the raised sixth and seventh degrees). The latter (referred to as "la-based minor") is sometimes preferred in choral singing, especially with children. The choice of which system is used for minor makes a difference as to how you handle modulations. In the first case ("do-based minor"), when the key moves for example from C major to C minor the syllable do keeps pointing to the same note, namely C, (there is no "mutation" of do's note), but when the key shifts from C major to A minor (or A major), the scale is transposed from do = C to do = A. In the second case ("la-based minor"), when the key moves from C major to A minor the syllable do continues to point to the same note, again C, but when the key moves from C major to C minor the scale is transposed from do = C to do = E-flat.
Fixed do solfège In
Fixed do, each syllable always corresponds to the same pitch; when the music changes keys, each syllable continues to refer to the same pitch as it did before. This is analogous to the Romance-language system naming pitches after the solfège syllables, and is used in Romance and Slavic countries, among others, including Spanish-speaking countries. From the
Italian Renaissance, the debate over the superiority of instrumental music versus singing led Italian voice teachers to use Guido’s syllables for vocal technique rather than pitch discrimination. Hence, specific syllables were associated with fixed pitches. When the
Paris Conservatoire was founded at the turn of the nineteenth century, its solfège textbooks adhered to the conventions of Italian solfeggio, solidifying the use of
Fixed do in Romance cultures In the major
Romance and
Slavic languages, the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si are the ordinary names of the notes, in the same way that the letters C, D, E, F, G, A, and B are used to name notes in English. For native speakers of these languages, solfège is simply
singing the names of the notes, omitting any modifiers such as "sharp" or "flat" to preserve the rhythm. This system is called
fixed do and is used in Belgium, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Romania, Latin American countries and in French-speaking Canada as well as countries such as Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Israel where non-Romance languages are spoken. In the United States, the fixed-do system is taught at many conservatories and schools of music, including The
Juilliard School in New York City, the
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the
Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, the
New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, the
San Francisco Conservatory of Music of Music in San Francisco, California, and the
Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio. In the fixed do system, shown above, accidentals do not affect the syllables used. For example, C, C, and C (as well as and , not shown above) are all sung with the syllable "do".
Chromatic variants Several chromatic fixed-do systems have also been devised to account for
chromatic notes, and even for
double-sharp and
double-flat variants. The
Yehnian system, being the first
24-EDO (i.e., quarter tone) solfège system, proposed even quartertonal syllables. While having no exceptions to its rules, it supports both si and ti users. ==Note names==