Solfege

[Teamedup]

As the rentree is well under way and everyone is signing up for all the courses, including music, one would assume, what do you think of the separate solfege lessons. If you have kids, how are they finding them, or if they have done them in the past how did they like them or not.

These lessons only used to be over two years, and they said that they were going to change the system and they then increased them to three years, around here at least.

[Dick Smith]

For those of you who don't know (and I certainly didn't) solfege is the study of musical notation, apparently...

[Teamedup]

And obligitory when learning an instrument, (instrument learning  is quite a separate lesson), around here.

[Chrisb]

My 10 year old son starts his for the first time tomorrow morning. I didn't realise that they teach musical notation over here as Do,Ray, Me etc whereas he learned to read music in the UK using A,B,C etc. One of the music teachers is going to take him on a 1-1 basis for the first term to help him switch from one to the other and then he will move to a group lesson.        He plays the trumpet, and is hoping to get into the town band in a year's time. Me too, apparently the mayor is very keen on having a youth band in the town and subsidises the cost of the lessons to band members, reducing the cost from 160€/year to just 34€!!

Regards

Chris

 

[SaligoBay]

[quote]My 10 year old son starts his for the first time tomorrow morning. I didn't realise that they teach musical notation over here as Do,Ray, Me etc whereas he learned to read music in the UK using A,B,C ...[/quote]

Even the doh-ray-me is different!

It goes doh-ray-me-fa-so-la-si-doh.  That thing you drink with jam and bread is more English than we thought!

"Flat" is "bémol", and "sharp" is "dièze".

I'm SO glad my guitar teacher knows the ABC, because I still can't think fast enough in do-ré-mi to jump about chords and notes.  The choir lady is German, so she knows ABC too. 

Still get chords, cordes, and accords mixed up in the guitar lessons tho  

[Chrisb]

Well, he has just had the first lesson......and loved it - he thinks it great that in the future he will just be able to pick up a bit of music and sight-read it 'That means I'll be able to play anything,Mum!!'

Regards

Chris

 

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

[quote]My 10 year old son starts his for the first time tomorrow morning. I didn't realise that they teach musical notation over here as Do,Ray, Me etc whereas he learned to read music in the UK using A,B,C ...[/quote]

Wouldn't the doh etc vary according to what key it was in? Is doh equal to A or to middle C for example? But surely they must use ABC etc too, or musical works wouldn't be in the key of C they would be in the key of doh or whatever? So isn't this doh business to try to simplify it for the non-musician? But if you are not playing an instrument, what is the point?

[Clarkkent]

[quote]Wouldn't the doh etc vary according to what key it was in? Is doh equal to A or to middle C for example? But surely they must use ABC etc too, or musical works wouldn't be in the key of C they would...[/quote]

You are absolutely right, Jill. Tonic sol-fa is about recognising the relative pitches of notes and doh is always the tonic of any particular scale. As far as singers are concerned it does not matter what key a piece is in, the relative distances between the notes are always the same (in a tempered scale).

As far as the German lady is concerned, SB, beware - the Germans have H in their scale!!!

[SaligoBay]

Jill, the doh-ré-mi as they use it here in France isn't relative, it's fixed.

Doh=C, ré=D, mi=E, etc.  Always!  They just don't use ABCDEFG.

The guitar chord that I know as D is ré in French.

Which is why I'm glad the teacher can "translate" into ABC quickly for me, because I have enough to cope with remembering where to put all these fingers!

At least, that's how I understand it from guitar, piano, and choir.  I hope I'm right