A Deer, A Female Deer

So I'm thinking about teaching myself chromatic fixed-do solfege. You may have noticed in my previous blog I mentioned something about all mankind needing to learn solfege. "What is solfege?" you ask? To put it simply, "When you read you begin with ABC when you sing you begin wth Do Re Mi." At least, that's one way to do it. The thing is, there's more than one kind of solfege.

The solfege I know and love is moveable-do solfege. In moveable-do solfege, do is always the tonic of a song. So in the key of C, C is do, and in the key of E flat, E flat is do. This is very helpful in learning relative pitch, that is, finding where you are in a key in relation to the tonic (do). A problem that can occur in moveable-do is if you have to modulate (change) keys in the middle of a piece. You then have to change where do is, because the tonal center (tonic) (do) has moved.

Another kind of solfege is fixed-do. In fixed-do solfege, the note C is always do. F is always fa, A is always la. Even when accidentals (notes outside of the key) are involved the notes are the same. For example A is la, but A flat and A sharp are also la. I'm not a huge fan of this, because it somewhat tends to defeat the purpose of fixed do, that being that with the notes always the some, it gives keys a uniqueness, or color. So I'm going for Chromatic fixed-do, where every note has a specific name. So F sharp isn't Fa, it's Fi, and it's always Fi.

The moveable-do I learned uses the chromatic notation, but I want to learn fixed as well, because I think it gives keys personalities. At least, I hope that's what happens. We'll see as I learn it.

Just to give you an example of each, here you go. We'll use the key of D playing the major scale in each of the systems.

Moveable-do
Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do

Fixed-do
Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do Re

Chromatic Fixed-do
Re Mi Fi Sol La Ti Di Re

I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes, in most countries outside the US, Si is used instead of Ti. However, since I'm learning chromatically, Si is used as Sol sharp so it can't be at the seventh scale degree as well. I hope that clears things up. Peace.