Doe, a deer, a female deer,
Ray, a spot of golden sun,
Me, a name I call myself,
Far, a long, long way to run...
Sew, a needle pulling thread,
La, a note to follow Sew,
Tea, a drink with jam and bread,
That will bring us back to Doe.
Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do -- so, do!
When I was growing up, I always struggled with music theory. I had a learning disability in math, and there just seemed to be an impenetrable barrier between me and the advanced mathematics behind how music theory worked. And it is hard. There are scales, chords, key signatures, and time signatures, beyond that there are melodic and harmonic minor scales, strange chords like the N6, Dominant 7, the tritone, picardy third, polychords and polyrhythms, it just makes your head spin!
I heard my friends talk about these things, and felt like
they were equations of Advanced Calculus beyond my understanding.
Music theory was impossible for me to understand until I
learned it through solfege. Suddenly the world made sense. I had the building
blocks to understand whatever weird chord or scale I saw. My understanding of
music skyrocketed and I grew enormously as a musician: composing, transcribing,
arranging, improvising, sight-reading better than I ever had before. But
despite its reputation for being the ABCs of music, there is not much public
information on solfege available.
Almost everyone has been introduced to solfege through Julie
Andrews in “The Sound of Music.” She says it’s the musical ABCs. But unlike
ABCs, music is made up of half steps and whole steps, changing patterns
depending on what scale is being used. In “The Sound of Music,” the children
learn a basic major scale:
Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do
But this scale is not a bunch of whole steps. It is whole
steps mixed with halfs.
There is a half step between Mi and Fa, and between Ti and
Do. In fact, that Ti NEEDS to be a half step so our ears can hear the note and
WANT it to travel upwards a tiny bit to finish the scale and become Do. It’s
how a major scale works. You can see (and hear) this best on a piano:
But solfege can be used not only in a major scale but other
scales as well. Each solfege syllable can move a half step lower or higher. The
common vowel for a syllable that’s been lowered by half a step is an ‘e’. Like “Me,
Le, Te, Fe.”
So how do you sing a minor scale? A natural minor scale, involves
moving the 3rd , 6th, and 7th notes down a
half step. So instead of Mi, you sing Me. Instead of La, you sing Le, and
instead of Ti, it’s Te.
Do Re Me Fa Sol Le Te Do
1
2 b3
4 5 b6 b7 8
Before we called a scale a scale, it had another name. The
Greeks called scales “modes” and had seven of them that musicians still use
today. Each of these modes have their own solfege syllables to remember them
by. We already know Ionian. Here is it’s closest relative, the Lydian scale.
Do Re Mi Fi Sol La
Ti Do
1 2 3 #4
5 6 7 8
See, it’s JUST like a major scale, except for ONE note. You
move Fa up a half step, and sing “Fi.”
Because the 4th note in the scale is sharp, I
place it ABOVE a normal major scale (Ionian) in the list of modes. The other
modes use flat notes. Here is a list of them all, as well as the notes that are
altered:
Lydian Do
Re Mi Fi Sol La Ti Do
1 2
3 #4
5 6 7 8
If you go to the piano and play this, you’ll notice it
sounds like a 90s film score. Like Titanic, “Back to the Future,” or "E. T.” The raised 4th
brings a sense of comfort and beauty. To me, it brings more inner peace than an
Ionian major scale. This is why composers like James Horner used it to give a
sense of childlike innocence and safety in kids movies like “An American Tail,”
and “Balto.”
 |
| I know you're confused right now, but read the article through a couple of times. You'll catch on! |
Ionian Do
Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do (a
normal “major scale”)
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
This is the scale everyone learned in “The Sound of Music.”
Notice how I left the numbers at the bottom alone, because these are our
default “scale degrees.”
Mixolydian Do
Re Mi Fa Sol La Te Do
1 2 3
4 5 6 b7 8
Te is a useful syllable in an otherwise major scale. If you
use the notes Do Mi Sol Te (instead of Ti) in a chord, you get a perfect
barbershop 7th chord. This is called a Dominant 7th
Chord, and is an essential part of music
theory. (Actually, all atoms vibrate the notes Do Mi Sol Te. Your atoms do too.
It is theorized that if atoms vibrated the note Ti instead of Te, something
weird would happen like they would explode or disappear or something. So this
chord holds the universe together. No big.)
Dorian Do
Re Me Fa Sol La Te
Do
1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7 8
Just like our normal major and minor scales go together,
Lydian has a minor scale to go with its major one: Dorian. Dorian is like a
natural minor scale without a flat 6 scale degree. That “La” in a Dorian mode
is just as beautiful as the “Fi” in the Lydian mode. (would it blow your mind
to know they are the SAME NOTE? Start on the note Me as your 1, and work your
way up on the piano, There is La, the #4.)
Dorian is the scale used in Ralph Vaughn-Williams’ “Fantasia
on Greensleeves.” Listen to the piece and see if you can hear the La instead of Le.
Aeolian Do
Re Me Fa Sol Le Te Do
1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8
Aeolian is the name of the natural minor scale that you’re
used to. Like Dorian is related to Lydian, Aeolian is related to Ionian (our
natural major) in the same way. Use Me as your 1, again, and travel up on the
piano. You’ll find 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are all normal like a major scale.
This is because all minor scales start three notes below their major scale
counterparts. Some teachers like to teach solfege using a “fixed do” system,
meaning that your Do stays the same and you start a minor scale 3 notes below
that on La. A fixed Do minor scale will go: La Ti Do Re Mi Fa Sol La.
Phrygian Do
Ra
Me Fa Sol Le Te Do
1 b2 b3
4 5 b6 b7 8
Phrygian is an Aeolian (natural minor) scale with its 2nd
note flatted. This makes it sound
a little gypsy like. It can also make for a really cool theme in a film score.
The “Men in Black” main theme by Danny Elfman is in Phrygian, as is the track “Nice to Meld You,” from Michael Giacchino’s “Star Trek” score.
Locrian Do
Ra
Me Fa Se Le Te Do
1 b2 b3
4 b5 b6 b7 8
No one ever uses Locrian. The addition of a b5 to a scale
that already has a b2, b3, b6, and a 7b makes it sound very unstable, like it
could collapse into random dissonance and tone clusters at any minute. Sorry
Locrian, but no one likes you.
Now that a whole new world of musical possibilities has been
opened up to you, lets try solfeging something a little more complicated than
Do Re Mi. You can use the piano to help you out. How about the theme to “Men in
Black” that I talked about earlier?
Do Do Ra Ra Do Do Ra Ra Do Do Me Me Re Re Ra Ra (it just repeats like that.)
That was in Phrygian. How about something in Lydian, with
the #4?
Do Fi Sol Do Fi Sol La
Fi Sol La Fi Sol
Recognize it? Now you can solfege West Side Story!
How about Dorian?
Do Me
Fa Sol La Sol Fa Re Te Do Re Me
Do Do Te Do Re
Te Sol…
This is probably pretty difficult right now since you JUST
learned all these new syllables. Don’t worry about it, I had to take 4
semesters of Ear Training at Berklee to get all these modes and syllables in my
head! It’s all a matter of practice. But hopefully now you see how solfege
really is an alphabetical tool in the language of music, and how it can be used
to understand complicated things like different scales and complex chords. I
hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the world of musicians and composers, and
that it wasn’t too confusing. This topic can be really hard to explain,
especially on paper. But I encourage you to try this stuff out. Find out which
mode is your favorite (Lydian is mine, and my husband’s is Dorian.) And explore
the new world of music at your fingertips!
~Hannah Hoyt
As an afterthought, yes, there are hand signals that go with
each solfege syllable, but I’ve only learned the ones in Ionian. The hand
signals are fun and useful when trying to visualize each sound, but as a person
struggling with dyslexia, they’ve been pretty confusing and hard to deal with
as well.
If you do want to learn them, though, scroll back up to the beginning of this article and look to your right. There's a link to Kodaly's "Hand Signs" book there and a couple of other music books Charlotte Mason recommended, too.
Don't forget to click on the highlighted words and listen to all the great music in different modes!
Wow, this is a great resource! I played piano and sang for years without understanding any of this. Not that I understand it *all* after reading this once, but its a start :)
ReplyDeleteThere is an even simplier way of explaining the different modes. Like this: The major scale starts (and ends) on do. Dorian on re. Phrygian on mi. Lydian on fa. Mixolydian on so. Eolian (or natural minor) on la. (and Locrian if you choose to teach it as a mode on ti.) This way you don't have to learn new names. (And save the harder names like me and ta, for more advanced tonal or even free-tonal music. Though you will need fi and si for melodic minor and si for harmonic minor.) Some find it hard though to "feel" that re is the "tonic" of the Dorian scale etc. When working with children I find this simplified way the easiest. While older students often benefit from learning the difference between the scales and thus needs to know that Dorian has minor 3rd and high 6th, while Phrygian has low 2nd, minor 3rd, low 6th, low 7th etc. I do agree whith you that solfege makes music theory so much easier! Especially with the hand signs.
ReplyDeleteI only learned basic Solfege .Thank-you for the explanation.Now to learn the hand signs for sharps and flats ! Kathy S.
ReplyDeleteI only learned basic Solfege .Thank-you for the explanation.Now to learn the hand signs for sharps and flats ! Kathy S.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this post. Where are the links to the books? I can't seem to find them.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Hal Leonard book link in the right sidebar -- near the top of the page.
ReplyDelete