Tonic Solfa Pdf

[Randell Magtoto]

Curwenwas 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.

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.

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".

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.

In Curwen's system, the notes of the major scale (of any key) are notated with the single letters d, r, m, f, s, l, and t when in the octave of middle C (or C4). This means, no extra notation will be added to any of the notes when do is anywhere between C4 - B4. Any notes in the octave(s) above will have a superscript, starting with 1 for the first octave above, 2 for the second, so on and so forth, if it were ever necessary. The same goes for the octave(s) below, except it will be notated with a subscript instead. To reference these when talking about them, in the case of do, do1 would be called "one-do", and do1 is called "do-one".[2] Chromatic alterations are marked by the following vowel, "e" for sharp (pronounced "ee") and "a" for flat (pronounced "aw").[3] Thus, the ascending and descending chromatic scale is notated:

Such chromatic notes appear only as ornaments or as preparation for a modulation; once the music has modulated, then the names for the new key are used. The modulation itself is marked by superscript of the old note name preceding its new name; for example, in modulation to the dominant, the new tonic is notated as sd. The music then proceeds in the new key until another modulation is notated.

Dynamic symbols are used the same as in the staff notation more commonly seen.[clarification needed][citation needed] A horizontal line under a single letter means that note is to be sung legato, or smooth.[citation needed] A horizontal line spanning under multiple letters signifies a slur, connecting the letters together.[2] In Curwen's Tonic sol-fa, time signatures are not used, so various forms of notation are used to divide up measures into beats and beats smaller.[2] Vertical bar lines are used to separate measures, like in the more commonly seen staff notation.[2] A double bar line at the end also signifies the end.[2] Colons (:) are then used to separate the beats:[2]

Dashes in place of a letter means to hold out the note until either the next note appears, a rest appears, or the end of the piece comes, whichever may come first.[2] Rests are just notated with a blank space; no letter, no dash:[2]

This relationship between the notes and their names stays the same, no matter what pitch we start the scale on. Instead of having to think about the names of the different notes in a scale, we can simply sing the scale by the solfa names, and this way we already know all major scales. We have learned it like a simple tune.

In music theory, we have a term, scale degree, which refers to the position of a note within a scale. The first note is the tonic, then they are called supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, subtonic, and tonic again.

Moving down, that is adding flats to lower the pitch by a semitone, we have some options. It is good to pick one and stick to it, so after reading through this pick the version that you like best and use only that one.

When children are taught tonic solfa, they are also taught hand symbols for each note. It is not essential to learn them to be able to use the system, but for the sake of completeness, I include it here.

For someone with perfect pitch, whether we play a C or a D makes a big difference, because they can hear that these are totally different notes. For most people, however, transposing to a different key is more natural, and we can hear the melody of a scale before knowing the absolute frequency of its pitch.

Tonic solfa is a system for understanding the structure of scales and the relationship of the notes inside a scale based on hearing intervals between the notes. It helps learn different scales and key signatures, where the letter names can simply be confusing.

Just like the modern classroom picture above, you can display your printed solfa ladder at home! While teaching songs using solfa, use the ladder to guide your children in the understanding of melodic direction and interval training! You know you are a Jedi Curwen Master when you can point AND show the hand sign simultaneously! (Or, lead a two-part choir with the hand signs!)

I hope you enjoyed reading a little bit about this cool invention and how we can still benefit students today by using the tools adapted for sharing music education! If you have any questions for me I would love to hear from you! Email: raea...@gmail.com

The following tutorial shows how to understand the guitar fretboard by applying the technique of 'tonic-solfa' or 'movable do solfege'. Once familiar with this technique, playing by ear and sightreading/sightsinging will become trivial tasks. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read this page;

The following diagram shows the guitar fretboard with the notes on it. Sharps and flats are not shown but pretend they're there. For example between F and G is F#/Gb. This diagram should be printed and kept for reference until you can memorise it completely. The red C is middle C on a piano keyboard.

The next diagram is the most import and diagram you'll see as a guitarist. It represents the notes in any key as their 'solfege' or ' tonic - solfa' syllables. It is a looping diagram with no end (i.e. the far right hand side and the far left hand side join together), two sections have been shown for clarity, . It may seem corny at first but it lets you distinguish between notes in terms of their function - AND it will train your ear. This diagram should be thoroughly memorised (you probably already have memorised it in terms of dots, not syllables). The do's (pronounced dough) are coloured blue in order to show the pattern that exists between the octaves up the fretboard. This pattern occurs with all notes, not just the do's. There are 5 patterns and then they repeat.

Now, to play in any major key, simply take this diagram and superimpose it on the first diagram to line the do's up with the key you want. For example - to play in E major, line up all the do's with the E's on the fretboard. The following is the result;

In many songs, some notes played fall out of the key such as stairway to heaven. The 7 notes that fall in key are do re mi fa so la ti (the diatonic notes). There are 12 notes in total chromatic scale, so there is another 5 notes that are out of key and they are: di ri fi si and li.

You don't have to use do re me to identify the notes, you could use 1, 2 , 3. If you learn the major scale pattern only, it's damn near impossible to identify the notes in terms of function - which is the whole idea of using solfege.

This technique has been used in piano teaching for years and years. But in my opinion it suits the guitar even better because it establishes a direct connection between the ear and the guitar because of the 'relative' nature of the instrument.

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