Solfège is a system for singing or sight-singing that uses syllables to represent pitches. Solfège works by associating the syllable with the sound of the musical pitch, the sign used to notate that pitch, the location on an instrument (if applicable), and the movements required to perform that pitch. The goals include, but are not limited to accurately singing music at sight, teaching and learning music quickly, imagining the sound of written music, memorizing music, and more. It is an effective and useful musical tool.
What Are The Types of Solfège Systems?
There are generally two types of solfège systems: fixed do and moveable do. Fixed do solfège systems assign the syllable do to the pitch class C. Moveable do systems assign the syllable do to the tonic of the given music. We at Sage Music strongly recommend fixed do for many reasons, our primary two are listed here:
- Association: Because solfège works by associating the syllable name with pitch, sign, movements, and note locations, the associations that are developed in movable do are less strong and can be confused when ‘do’ represents different sounds, or changes location on an instrument. In other words, there is not a one to one correlation between these elements. For example, the syllable do could represent the pitch G or the pitch C and would be played in two different locations in two different ways on the piano. When one hears or says ‘do’ in a fixed do system it always refers to the same sound and location on an instrument, thereby preventing unnecessary confusion.
- Modulation: music often modulates or changes key. When a piece modulates, the singer must change the pitch that is assigned the syllable do during the performance of the piece. Thus, in order to sight sing in moveable do solfège the singer must analyze the music and key changes before singing, which, in part, defeats the purpose of solfège being used as a sight-reading tool. In other words, moveable do would have to be treated as fixed do in sight reading complex music. Why then bother learning two systems?
The solfège syllables used vary slightly depending upon the country, and have undergone adaptions by various music educators and theorists. The most common solfege systems are 5 flats/5 sharps, Hullah, Siler, Sottorio. In considering these different system, I am proposing some slight adaptions to create a better system.
Sottorio bases his system on assigning one syllable per pitch class. For example, C, B♯ and D♭♭ are sung as ‘do’; F♯ and G♭ are sung as ‘jur’. This makes a simple system, but there are some inherent issues. With the exception of equal tempered instruments such as piano and guitar, F♯ and G♭ are not actually tuned the same. Neither are they written the same, or even played the same. The violin, for example, would use different fingers. Thus, if we are trying to associate sound, sign, and syllable, this system can create some confusion as the ‘jur’ of F♯ and G♭ are tuned differently, or played differently. Recall of the sound represented by ‘jur’ can thus cause problems of association. The 5 flats/5 sharps system has the same trouble.
Siler, however, proposes a system with more syllables. In his system all notes that are sharp have the same vowel sound (de, re, fe…), all notes that are flat have the same sound (do, ro, mo…), etc. In this way, each pitch has its own unique syllable, sound, and sign and eliminates most confusion by only associating unique variables. In addition, the vowels are ordered from the darkest to the brightest u, o, a, e, i and correspond respectively to the lowest to the highest in pitch ♭♭, ♭, ♮, ♯, 
.
I think that Siler has the best system yet, but my only concern is that Siler’s fi corresponds to the note F
, whereas most musicians have already been trained to know fi as F♯. Thus, musicians would have to reassociate to learn Siler’s system.
The Sage Solfège System
As an alternative, I am proposing our system below. It does not suffer as much from the possible confusion from past association that Siler’s does, but it lacks the beautiful ordering of vowel sounds. I’m curious about your comments, as I’m hoping to refine this system as needed. We’ll be using either our system or Siler’s when we start publishing our method books and want to ensure that we’ve got the best stuff out there. If you don’t see the document below, click here to view it: Sage Solfege System
– double-sharp syllables end in ai, such as dai, rai, and mai. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘my’.
♯ – sharp syllables end in i, such as di, ri, and mi. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘me’.
♮ – natural syllables end in o, such as do, ro, and mo. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘low’.
♭ – flat syllables end in e, such as de, re, and me. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘day’.
♭♭ – double-flat syllables end in ah, such as dah, rah, and mah. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘spa’.
Sage Solfege by Sage Music is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.sagemusic.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/SageSolfege.pdf.
3 Comments
This is so confusing to me, I play the alto sax,and I have no clue how to use solfege.
Hi! I am really intrigued by your Sage Solfege System. I do not have a music degree, nor have I formally studied solfege, but I have played around with this on my own off--&-on for a while for my own learning benefit. Thank you so much for putting this together.
I agree about Siler, but I see how the pitches mixing with traditional Solfege would form a need for re-association. Plus, it seems like "Doe, a deer" being Cb instead of C-natural would be disconcerting to say the least!
Because English is highly irregular, would you mind clarifying exactly how you hear these? I think double-flat "ah" is like paw, saw, natural "o" is like doe, foe, row your boat, & sharp "i" is like see, me. But, I am torn between Cb = day, Cx = die verses Cb = deh, Cx = day.
I have been working with a single-syllable number system for relative pitch & the single-syllable traditional Solfege for actual note names. More theoretical than actual practice.
I see benefits for the double-sharps & double-flats, but I probably would never have hunted for something besides traditional Solfege if saxophone wasn't my primary instrument. Alto mostly until the past decade, then soprano.
I found you while hunting single-syllable letter names (German has a potential for this) that I could use for singing, inner hearing, thinking of my saxophone music in note names as I play them that are different from traditional solfege that I use for concert pitch. Give myself an alternate system to use when I want to think in my instruments' tuning when it is in Bb or Eb. (Or anything else in theory.)
I appreciate your putting this out. I like your improvements from traditional Solfege, keeping many of the notes the same.
Have a wonderful day!
-Dolly
Hi Dolly,
Thanks so much for your comments. I appreciate you being attentive to the sounds, so I've updated the post with the following chart to clarify the vowel sounds that are used.
double sharp – double-sharp syllables end in ai, such as dai, rai, and mai. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘my’.
♯ – sharp syllables end in i, such as di, ri, and mi. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘me’.
♮ – natural syllables end in o, such as do, ro, and mo. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘row’.
♭ – flat syllables end in e, such as de, re, and me. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘day’.
♭♭ – double-flat syllables end in ah, such as dah, rah, and mah. Use the vowel sound from the word ‘spa’.
I do think that using fixed do, for the associative reasons is the best solution, but I had not yet considered transposing instruments. Thanks for bringing this up! This provides some interesting challenges.
As I understand, instruments like the saxophone transpose in order to aid reading. But now this seems at odds with developing an association between the name of the syllable and the pitch. For example, the syllable Do on the piano is the pitch C, on the alto saxophone it is E-flat, and on the tenor saxophone it is B-flat. If you use fixed Do, you will develop an association between the syllable and the fingering, but will have several pitches that are associated instead of one.
How do you think this might be managed, Dolly?
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