Solmization

Solfege is a technology developed in the Middle Ages procedure to sing the pitches of a song on certain syllables, " in order to recognize their place in the sound system ( qualitas ) ". Probably in the 13th century, they began to call the method specifically, saying, inter alia, of solfatio derived from the syllables sol and fa. Towards the end of the 15th century, the Middle Latin word formation solmisatio / solmizatio is then assignable, derived from the syllables sol and Intl. Today, a distinction is made between solmization of "relative " and "absolute ".

Historical Outline

Syllables were used in ancient China, and in the Indian music they are still alive. The ancient Greece knew onomatopoeia for the tetrachord. Even the Syrian and Byzantine chant used syllables, whose function is not known, however.

As the " father" of Guido of Arezzo solmization applies ( born about 992 ), which then assigned the six pitches of the medieval Hexachordes six syllables: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la. The distance between mi and fa was half the distance between the other pitches each a whole tone. Guido had won the syllables from the Latin Johannes hymn; which may specially composed or revised anthem melody was memorizing the syllables together pitches. Not later than the 12th century, the so-called Guidonian hand was used to convey that sound system.

Almost 600 years guido African syllables designated no fixed pitch, but certain places in the sound system, in modern terms: "relative" pitch. By 1600, however, began French musicians who apply to fixed pitch syllables - ut corresponded to c, the re d, etc. To complete the scale degrees of the diatonic scale, they named the seventh stage si, possibly derived from the initials of the words Sancte Ioannes, which includes the guido African anthem. Even Jean -Jacques Rousseau was with the newer, 'absolute' practice not agree:

"C and A denote specific, immutable sounds that are always struck with the same keys. Ut and la are something else. Ut is always root ( tonic, first stage) of a major scale and a minor scale la always root. The French musicians have oddly blurred these differences. You have unnecessarily doubled the wording for the keys and sounds and left remaining no sign of the naming of the stages. "

From the mid- 17th century, the more unsangliche syllable ut was gradually replaced by do - the ( C ) major scale now so called up do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, DO. The division into an older "relative" and a younger "absolute" tradition was maintained; the inclusion of chromatic pitches resulted in the two systems to different consequences.

In the German-speaking world in the 20th century made ​​successively two complex concepts of career (although the influential Fritz Jöde propagated the relative solmization ): "absolute " Tonwort by Carl Eltz and Jale, a 'relative' system of Richard Munnich. Towards the end of the 20th century, a revival of the relative solmization began to emerge in music pedagogy.

Relative solmization

1742 Jean -Jacques Rousseau had presented a numerical method that listed the root with the number 1, the second stage by the number 2, etc.; the seven digits were on the traditional syllables ut, ré, mi, fa, sol, la, si sung. The mathematician Pierre Galin, his pupil Aimé Paris and its brother Emile Chevé worked out Rousseau's method and made the Galin -Paris- Chevé method temporarily very successful. The Englishwoman Sarah Ann Glover tied to the old Solmisationsgedanken and developed it further, not least by the syllables Anglicized ( doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, te ) and abridged (d, r, m, f, s, l, t). In the syllable soh the guido African sol was adjusted to the other ending with vowel syllables that te is owed ​​to the fact that a se could not be distinguished in an abbreviated form from the soh. 1842 published John Curwen, a term coined by Heinrich Pestalozzi educator, a first article on Glover's approach; he subsequently revised this approach with great skill and advocated it as a tonic sol -fa system across the UK; In 1870 he added the method by Aimé Paris ' clock language and self-developed hand signs. Agnes Hundoegger adapted the principle in the tonic -do method for the German-speaking countries, Zoltán Kodály in the Kodály method for Hungary, Edwin E. Gordon in the Music Learning Theory for the USA and Dick Grove for jazz education and harmony, especially the chord scale theory and as a basis for Jazzharmonisation and reharmonization. Based on Kodály developed the Estonian choir director Heino Kaljuste own Solmisations syllables for the territory of the USSR. Since the Guidonian syllables were used for the absolute solmization in the USSR, developed Kaljuste for the relative solmization own syllables with changing consonants, but while maintaining the Guidonian vowels. From Heino Kaljuste were for the relative solmization the syllables jo, le, wi, well, so, ra, ti used.

In the solmization "relative" since Sarah Ann Glover are the syllables do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do for any major scale (be it C major, D flat major, D major or E-flat major ... ), the syllables la, ti, do, re, mi, fa, so, la for any natural minor scale (be it a minor, g sharp minor, g minor and F sharp minor ... ). In the harmonic minor scale with their increased seventh stage from such a si, in the melodic minor scale in addition from the fa a fi - increases are thus indicated by the lighter vowel i. According are darker vowels for degrading, in some authors a and o, others consistently and most important high - alterations are do → di, re → ri, fa → fi and so → si, the main deep alterations ti → ta, la → lo and mi → → ma ti or tu, la lu and mi → → mu.

Absolute solmization

The "absolute" solmization comes, inter alia, in the Italian solfeggio lessons and French solfege instruction on the application, ie, in particular in countries that use the solfeggio and differ depending as note names. In this solfeggio or solfege lessons, the study preliminarily takes place especially melodies of all levels are sung in solfeggio and differ depending where the derived tones get the syllable of the naturals. For example, the B major scale, the different h- minor scales, the B major scale and the different b- minor scales mi, fa, sol, la, si are all si, do, re, sung. C major, C minor, C # major and C sharp minor hot do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do, A major, A minor, A flat major and A flat minor la, si, do, re, mi, fa, sol, la.