Glover developed her method in Norwich from 1812, resulting in the "Norwich Sol-fa Ladder" which she used to teach children to sing. She published her work in the
Manual of the Norwich Sol-fa System (1845) and
Tetrachordal System (1850). Curwen was commissioned by a conference of
Sunday school teachers in 1841 to find and promote a way of teaching music for Sunday school singing. He took elements of the Norwich Sol-fa and other techniques later adding hand signals. It was intended that his method could teach singing initially from the Sol-fa and then a transition to
staff notation. Curwen brought out his
Grammar of Vocal Music in 1843, and in 1853 started the Tonic Sol-Fa Association. The
Standard Course of Lessons on the Tonic Sol-fa Method of Teaching to Sing was published in 1858. In 1872, Curwen changed his former course of using the Sol-fa system as an aid to sight reading, when that edition of his
Standard Course of Lessons excluded the staff and relied solely on Tonic Sol-fa. In 1879 the
Tonic Sol-Fa College was opened. Curwen also began publishing, and brought out a periodical called the
Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and Magazine of Vocal Music for the People, and in his later life was occupied in directing the spreading organisation of his system. The Sol-fa system was widely adopted for use in education, as an easily teachable method in the reading of music at sight, but its more ambitious aims for providing a superior method of musical notation have not been generally adopted. By the end of the nineteenth century, this notation was very widespread in Britain, and it became standard practice to sell sheet music (for popular songs) with the tonic sol-fa notation included. Some of the roots of
tonic sol-fa may be found in items such as: • the use of syllables in the 11th century by the monk
Guido de Arezzo • the cipher notation proposed by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France in 1746, • its further development by
Pierre Galin and popularization by
Aimé Paris and
Emile Chevé, and • the
Norwich sol-fa of
Sarah Ann Glover of England. Reverend
John Curwen (1816–1880) was instrumental in the development of tonic sol-fa in England, and was chiefly responsible for its popularity.
William Gray McNaught (1849-1918) helped build its popularity in schools. When John Windet printed the 1594 edition of the
Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter, he added the initials of the six syllables of Guido (
U, R, M, F, S, L) underneath the note. Windet explained, "...I have caused a new print of note to be made with letter to be joined to every note: whereby thou mayest know how to call every note by his right name, so that with a very little diligence thou mayest more easilie by the viewing of these letters, come to the knowledge of perfect solfeying..." Rousseau, Curwen and others would have been aware of this popular
psalter.
B. C. Unseld and
Theodore F. Seward, with Biglow and Main publishers, imported Curwen's
tonic sol-fa to the United States, though the method was never widely received. Before this, the 9th edition of the
Bay Psalm Book (Boston, USA) had appeared with the initials of four-note syllables (
fa, sol, la, me) underneath the staff. Reverend
John Tufts, in his
An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes in a Plaine & Easy Method, moved the initials of the four-note syllables onto the staff in place of "regular notes", and indicated rhythm by punctuation marks to the right of the letters. These may be considered American forerunners of Curwen's system, though he may not have been aware of them. Tufts'
Introduction was popular, going through several editions. Nevertheless, his work probably did more to pave the way for
shape notes. When Unseld and Steward introduced tonic sol-fa in the late 1800s, it was considered "something new". In 1972
Roberto Goitre printed one of the most important modern versions of the method in
Cantar Leggendo with the
moveable Do.
Solmization that represents the functions of pitches (such as tonic sol-fa) is called "functional" solmization. All musicians that use functional solmization use "do" to represent the tonic (also known as the "keynote") in the major mode. However, approaches to the minor mode fall into two camps. Some musicians use "do" to represent the tonic in minor (a parallel approach), whereas others prefer to label the tonic in minor as "la" (a relative approach) Both systems have their advantages: The former system more directly represents the scale-degree functions of the pitches in a key; the latter more directly represents the intervals between pitches in any given key signature. ==Notation==