Tools for Teaching Music Literacy: Solfege

Music literacy denotes the ability to communicate through music's unique language of tonal, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns. Music reading is a vital component of music literacy; it leads one to read, interpret, understand, and perform music notation. It also guides students to musical self-reliance.

Teaching music reading is similar to the processes of teaching language, understanding mathematical symbols, and interpreting computer machine code. Such teaching requires a well-planned and sequential development of the content. Many music educators utilize the sound-to-sight learning process for teaching music reading. Mursell (1943) was one of the earliest to insist that musical content be organized and taught in a sequential process with the student experiencing sound before notation. Edwin Gordon (1977) explains the sound-to-sight as a four stage process beginning with aural perception of short melodic and rhythmic patterns followed by oral repetition of these patterns using verbal labels. Solfege and tonic solfa are two verbal labeling systems for melodic patterns.

Solfege is traced back to Guido of Arezzo (Phillips, 2004). Beginning with the note "C," Guido assigned each note (C through A) with a verbal label taken from a common hymn of the times. Later, the syllable si was added for the note "B" and the first syllable ut was changed to do. The entire octave included do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and si. This system always applied do to the note "C" thus resulting in the title "fixed do." Within this "fixed do" system "C" is always labeled do and sharps and flats are assigned altered syllables. In addition, within the "fixed do" system, the interval size between solfege syllables changes frequently.

Tonic solfa, a similar system, was developed in England during the 19th century. It used an Anglicized version of Guido's Solfege syllables, applying these to the degrees of the major scale. Doh was assigned to the first (tonic) note of the major scale; each solfege syllable was assigned to subsequent scale notes. These tonic solfa syllables remained constant for every major scale: doh was always the name of the first note; ray was always the syllable attached to the second note, etc. Eventually, the Anglicized syllables were altered to the current syllables: do, re, me, fa, so, la, and ti. This modernized system is often labeled as the "moveable do" system. In the "moveable do" system, the intervals between the syllables remain the same in all key signatures.

Zoltán Kodály effectively utilized the "movable do" system as a melodic reading tool within his teaching method (Choksy, 1988). He also adapted the Curwin hand signs to provide a visual link for the students. He adopted the "moveable do" system for minor key melodic reading. This la based process maintained do as the label of the tonic of the related major key and la as the sixth note. In his teaching method, Kodály detailed a specific learning sequence beginning with the so-me interval followed by the gradual introduction of scale tones. Students begin by the aural perception and rote imitation of the note or interval, associate a verbal label (the tonic solfa syllables), recognize it in familiar songs and musical materials, and finally learn the written symbol (the notes on the melodic staff). Each student actively works with the new sound, identifying it, reading it, writing it, and creating with it. After each note is learned, the student continues to work with the note in new patterns applying knowledge in new situations (generalization). Important to this sequential process is the use of varied activities that reinforce learned materials.

This tonic solfa system is one of the music reading processes used by John Feierabend (2000) in his Conversational Solfege program. The ultimate goal of this method, intended for first through eighth grade general music, is to "create fully engaged independent musicians who can hear, understand, read, write, compose, and improvise" (Feierabend, 2011). The program, organized into three sequential levels, utilizes American song literature.

An important component of using the tonic solfa system for music reading is the eventual move toward using letter names. This can be incorporated into later elementary music study with instruction on playing the soprano recorder, generally occurring in the late third or fourth grade. The student begins to play by attaching tonic solfa labels to specific pitches on the instrument. This is followed by identification of these syllables with letter note names, thus providing a smooth transition to subsequent instrumental music reading.

The tonic solfa system can also be utilized in the teaching of choral music reading. Again, the process must be based on a systematic procedure introducing the syllables. It is one of two major components of Krueger's (2010) Progressive Sight Singing and is also the basis for McClung's (2008) Moveable Tonic sight singing method.

Cited Works

Choksy, L. The Kodály Method (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Feierabend, J. M. Conversational Solfege, Levels 1, 2, & 3. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2000.

Feierabend, J. M. (2011). Conversational Solfege, Level 1 - Teacher's Edition. http://www.giamusic.com/search_details.cfm?title_id=753.

Gordon, E. E. Learning Sequence and Patterns in Music. Chicago: GIA Publications, 1977.

Krueger, C. Progressive Sight Singing (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

McClung: A. C. Moveable Tonic - A Sequenced Sight-Singing Method. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2008.

Mursell, J. L. Music in American schools. Morristown, NJ: Silver Burdett, 1943.

Phillips, K.H. Directing the Choral Music Program. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.