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02-05-2023 01:03 PM
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On a slightly less dumb level, I don’t know about anyone else but I find that my ear playing on the guitar has never had much to do with solfege unlike my sight singing (at least early on). It’s a much more intuitive thing where I just kind of see the notes light up on the fretboard. Which is like what many people describe it being like on piano. sometimes I hear a guitar chord and my fingers go to it.
Annoyingly this is something I have to practice to keep up.
I think there’s a lot more to ear training than pitching individual notes correctly; I think recognising and recalling the sound of common pitch collections is incredibly important for audiation (which is something you cultivate via exposure to a lot of music after the initial ‘do re mi’ steps). But I also notice formal ear training practice does seem to help everything which is interesting.
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The quote was
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
'If kids started with dots they'd be better at it quicker.'
Better at dots :-)
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Ok, so that means what exactly? reading on their instruments? Originally Posted by ragman1
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Christian, I've no intention of getting into some technical thing about music teaching systems.
I'm older than you. I don't remember any sort of singing lessons although there was a lot of singing going on. We learnt by repetition and imitation. If you didn't know the songs you soon learnt them. Most of them could sing and there were always those who couldn't. Personally, I could and had no trouble with it. Incidentally, I went to a choir school and very good they were.
I'm not saying that the implementation of some system or other wouldn't have made those who could sing naturally better at it, it may well have done, but it wasn't around when I was. Nor was it strictly necessary as far as I can tell from this distance.
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OK, so doesn’t sound like you did much work on sight singing at your school then? Originally Posted by ragman1
So, as it’s you who is asking why, I’ll boil it down. movable do solfege is designed to teach sight singing (and by reversal aural dictation of melodies) for those who do not possess perfect pitch. This is generally considered a branch of ear training. It’s very common.
It’s nothing to do with developing vocal technique or sound. It’s about musicanship (anyone who’s spent time with opera singers will know the two don’t always overlap.) instrumentalists study it as well as singers.
Incidentally, this is how my wife learned to sight sing and she is (or at least was) quite comfortable sight singing one voice to a part in vocal ensembles with little or no rehearsal, which is expected in the professional choral world. It works.Last edited by Christian Miller; 02-05-2023 at 04:03 PM.
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Thanks Christian....GREAT POST.
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My brother being one, even though he loved it so and kept on trying. Decades later he took some lessons that included some form of solfege. I'd guess the moveable kind as it helped his relative pitch tremendously..... Most of them could sing and there were always those who couldn't...
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Nor was it necessary. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Don't bother with your tricks, I haven't asked for a thing. That's why you get cross, you see, you want to fulfil yourself through a big discussion and when it's blocked you lose it. But I'm the wrong person and you should have known that. If I was interested in solfege, moveable or otherwise, we'd be having a lovely time discussing it!So, as it’s you who is asking whyLast edited by ragman1; 02-05-2023 at 08:51 PM.
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Your brother was someone who couldn't sing but he loved it? Sure :-) Originally Posted by ccroft
(The people I'm talking about couldn't sing to save their lives, they wanted to be out playing football or something. And quite rightly, we can't all be the same. They probably thought singing was for poofs
)
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What makes you think I don’t enjoy it? Originally Posted by ragman1
Think about it - it goes the same way every time. There’s not many things in life that are that dependable.
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sounds like a choir school tbf Originally Posted by ragman1
Your brother was someone who couldn't sing but he loved it? Sure :-)
(The people I'm talking about couldn't sing to save their lives, they wanted to be out playing football or something. And quite rightly, we can't all be the same. They probably thought singing was for poofs)
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You guys ... Originally Posted by Christian Miller
... are making me wonder if solfège classes wouldn't be a perfect weapon to slow down dementia
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Hang on am I missing something here? Solflege? Had to look that up, as in singing ‘do re mi fa so la ti do....’? And we are asking why a bunch of 6 to 16 year old kids aren’t interested in it?
Well the obvious reason is that it ain’t cool... reminds me of jumped up overweight classically trained dragon music teachers. Kids don’t want anything to do with that. I don’t know what the supposed benefits of it are, but teach em the same thing using Baby Shark or Foo fighters as examples and you’ll have a lot more luck!
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the foo fighters?? What’s that, grandad? Originally Posted by KingKong
Rockschool grade repertoire, that’s what. May as well be flipping Schumann.
I tell you what I was teaching Shake it Off by Taylor Swift thinking ‘oh here’s a current pop song in G major, teach them three chords and a G pentatonic scale.’
This song came out 9 years ago. Before those students were born. FFS.
they all really like Polyphia for some reason.
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I don't agree. There still is something about music theory that makes I seem to start reasoning in circles, have to hold my own hand to re-read the same passage way too often and even when I think I finally understood it I can't seem to commit it to memory. And that while I can still learn easily enough. I can be a sponge when I get interested the way I am now in luthery for instance. Learning (at least the basics) of playing an instrument is also pretty easy for me (I must be in my 4th year taking classes and I'm tackling -easier- pieces by Llobet and Barrios atm). Originally Posted by kris
I think the point here is that I've never been curious how one composes and the few times I've meddled with transcribing scores I had Musescore to assist me with chores like transposing everything up or down so many steps.
(Why is playing not so easy anymore? When was it easier?)
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Oh get into Konnakol instead. I started doing it and my wife thought I’d joined a cult. It’s perfect. Originally Posted by RJVB
You guys ...
... are making me wonder if solfège classes wouldn't be a perfect weapon to slow down dementia
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Why would I bother to make up such a thing? He didn't know he couldn't sing to save his life. What we used to call tin ear. He liked to strum guitar and play folk songs. Dylan was passable. Gordon Lightfoot was really bad. This is 1965 and it was a cool thing to do back then. He's waaayyy better at it now. Originally Posted by ragman1
Your brother was someone who couldn't sing but he loved it? Sure :-)
(The people I'm talking about couldn't sing to save their lives, they wanted to be out playing football or something. And quite rightly, we can't all be the same. They probably thought singing was for poofs)
For whatever reason he wanted to sing in a choir about 15 or 20 years ago, so he took lessons. I imagine it was in fact a choir school. He told me about the do re mi exercises. I'd never heard about it before either. He's older than both of us. He did get to sing in the choir.
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Then I don't know why he couldn't sing before. Mind you, there's a difference between being literally tone deaf, which certainly exists, and being shy, reticent, self-conscious, worried about making mistakes, and so on. Maybe that was it. Maybe he just needed drawing out.
Gordon Lightfoot had tin ear? Could've fooled me!Gordon Lightfoot was really bad
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Just believe what I say man! He couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, and he was quite happy to prove it. Everyone in the family talked about it, but nobody wanted to hurt his feelings.
I would say he was tone deaf and didn't know how off it was. He certainly didn't require any drawing out! He just went right at it. No possible way he was worried about making mistakes. Or... maybe he was but didn't realize he was making them.
adjective. ?t?n-?def. : relatively insensitive to differences in musical pitch.
My point in bringing it up at all is to say that yes, ear training through do re mi definitely can help some people. I'm not kidding when I say he can sing now. He met his new wife gigging on an Alaskan cruise, which is quite amazing to me. Both the gig and the wife. New love at 76! Marriage in April.
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Does this involve kids having to sing solfege alone in front of the class, or even from their desks with the class?
Public speaking is the most common fear people have on the planet, and you expect them to not be afraid of public singing?
With me, I loved to sing in front of the kids in Chorus. I was so good at remembering pitches, that the music teacher had to make me first first soprano, because none of the girls had my ability in the school chorus. The girls all hated my guts, and didn't like that I got all their solos.
Then I started my own rock band, and I wasn't afraid to sing in front of large audiences at dances, Battle of the Bands, etc...
But when my voice changed, it made me more self-conscious about singing as I got older.
By college, I was scared to death of singing in music class. Thank God, I passed out of having to take any ear training/solfege classes.
The only ear training we had in college was identifying chord types in Harmony class.
As soon as the teacher played a chord I could ID a chord without raising my hand.
The other students thought I was some type of freak, and hated me because they had to think about what chord it was for more than a split second. They were all Classical "vitrtuosos of course, and weren't used to dealing with music completely aurally, without a sheet of music in front of them.
But the point is, people can be self-conscious at any point in their lives at varying ages, and this could have some bearing on why kids don't like solfege.
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It's okay, it's okay, I hear you! You sound like a good guy to me. But maybe the question is whether tone-deafness is curable. I mean, I've met people who are seriously going to ruin anything they try to join in with. And they know it. In church they just mouth the words Originally Posted by ccroft
Well, if he was singing in a choir before he can't be one of the tone-deafs otherwise they couldn't possibly have him. He'd be out of tune the whole time! I mean, this is only fair, right?
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Sorry... let's try again: When my bro sang Dylan it was passable. We he tried to sing Lightfoot he had problems. Originally Posted by ragman1
Originally Posted by ccroft
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Sorry, I've got it. Dylan, passable, Gordon, no way :-)
I wish him/them all the best in April. Tell him from me!
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Well... let's keep trying. 'Seriously going to ruin anything they try to join in with'? 60 years ago that was true. Originally Posted by ragman1
It's okay, it's okay, I hear you! You sound like a good guy to me. But maybe the question is whether tone-deafness is curable. I mean, I've met people who are seriously going to ruin anything they try to join in with. And they know it. In church they just mouth the words
Well, if he's singing with a choir now he can't be one of the tone-deafs otherwise they couldn't possibly have him. He'd be out of tune the whole time! I mean, this is only fair, right?
'Out of tune the whole time'? Not quite, but sometimes the whole song. You ever hear a singer who loses the key centre? Like that. Almost all the time.
He's not in a choir at the moment. He's in a trio. He was in a choir. He sang out loud.
Is tone-deafness curable? I imagine it's probably like most things: it comes in degrees. Maybe he had a mild case. It didn't sound like a mild case.
Two or 3 years of lessons and 20 years of practice have improved it tremendously. A large part of those lessons was do re mi stuff according to my brother.
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