I also found it really confusing when trying to teach traditional
music in this system to French speaking groups.
Given that tonic solfa allows a movable "doh" (Or should that be "Doh!"?
) it's a very helpful system for singing with, as long as you indeed
don't forget which of the arbitrary names means which relative pitch.
But when you're familiar with that system, trying to then translate a
tune in G from the alphabetical name system into continental style
solfa, where the instinctive tonic "Doh" of G is now called "Sol", etc.,
so that players can sing it knowing which note they're going to use on
the instrument, left my brain even more confused than you probably are
after trying to read this.
(Meanwhile trying mentally to summon my inadequate French in order to
explain the next bit of teaching material without saying anything
unintentionally rude or nonsensical at the same time.)
:)
Richard.
On 12/01/2011 09:14, [email protected] wrote:
I think in France they have a "fixed do" system, where mib
=Meeflat = Eb
This is correct. At the Conservatoires they teach people to sing the note names, which I personally find a
pointless exercise for various reasons, including the fact that they miss out the words "bémol, dièse
and bécart" (flat, sharp, nat) because there is no time to fit them in. There is also the fact that the
note-names are arbitrary (they are the initial syllables of the lines of an ancient Latin hymn - Ut quaent
laxis) and hence don't follow any pre-existing sequence (unlike A, B, C etc.). This is also why C is often
referred to in French as "Ut", which is strictly speaking bottom C in an octave, the top C (or do)
being, historically "haut" i.e. high.
It's very impressive to hear French-trained musicians do this at high speed tho.
c
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