The Tonic sol-fa music system, as known to millions from The Sound of Music, dates right back to the medieval age. Rick Jones traces its fascinating history <\/p>
Doh re mi<\/em>\u2004is almost as familiar in society as ABC and that its application as a means of describing melody is easy to understand. <\/span><\/p>\n For the reader it identifies a simple motif and for the writer it supplies him with seven monosyllabic synonyms for those otherwise notoriously clumsy musicological names of the different notes: tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant and leading note. How much easier simply to write doh, re, mi, fa, soh, la, ti!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> The\u00a0<\/span>tonic sol-fa method, or doh-re-mi system, was invented by the monk Guido d\u2019Arezzo around 1000 AD as an effective way of keeping hold of a melody from one day to the next. From the confines of a Benedictine monastery at Pomposa on the Adriatic coast, he became renowned for his ability to teach the fraternity to learn chants faster than anyone else. <\/span><\/p>\n Notation could do it too, although it implied fixed pitches and was intrinsic to paper. The beauty of doh re mi is not only its \u2018movable doh\u2019, by which name it is also known, but also its use as an oral medium. Guido had the choir singing straight away. Can\u2019t read or write, sir? Not a problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The text which Guido used for his scale derives from the first syllables of the plainsong Ut queant laxis \/ Resonare fibris \/ Mira gestorum \/ Famuli tuorum \/ Solve polluti \/ Labi reatum \/ Sancte Johannes<\/i>, an eighth-century prayer to St John for music\u2019s resonating strings (resonare fibris<\/i>) to proclaim the saint\u2019s miraculous acts and absolve his servant from sin. At some point, \u2018ut\u2019 became \u2018doh\u2019 everywhere except France.<\/span><\/p>\n Ut queant lax\u012bs Do let our voices <\/p><\/div> <\/section> There, and in Italy and Spain, musicians have never officially adopted the alphabetical note names which the Germans and English use. It is unknown, and ultimately immaterial, whether Guido composed the plainsong melody of the prayer or merely chose it because of its intriguing feature that each line begins one note higher than the last. Each initial syllable claimed ownership of a different degree of the scale and Guido had only to give the monks a notional \u2018doh\u2019 for them to be able to pitch re, mi, fa, soh, la or ti immediately.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I decided to put the familiarity and usability of what has been known in English since the middle of the 19th century as Tonic sol-fa to the test, and concocted a survey, co-opting the assistance of my music-student daughter who obviously had nothing better to do. On an autumn morning towards the end of 2016, we erected an easel in London\u2019s Leicester Square, wrote on it the words \u2018Music Survey\u2019 and posed 100 respondents of either sex and any age or nationality three questions:<\/span><\/p>\n The first question tackled familiarity, the second musicality and the third whether the respondent could apply the knowledge to a code.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 1. Can you complete the sequence doh re mi\u2026?<\/p>\n 2. Can you sing it?<\/p>\n 3. Can you sing and\/or identify any of these tunes:<\/p>\n a) doh doh soh soh la la soh | fa fa mi mi re re | doh |<\/p>\n b) doh re mi doh | doh re mi doh | mi fa soh | mi fa soh | soh-la soh-fa mi doh | soh-la soh-fa mi doh | doh soh doh | doh soh doh |<\/p>\n c) doh-re-mi-fa soh la | fa | fa-mi re-doh doh soh | soh doh soh doh re |<\/p> <\/div> <\/section> The results were these: of 100 passers-by, <\/span>randomly selected by gender, age or nationality, <\/span>81 were able to complete the sequence doh re mi. Sixty-one could sing it as a scale, and 12 could work out all three Tonic sol-fa formulae. <\/span><\/p>\n A few people, maybe half a dozen, could sing the notes in their head, which was impressive. About five per cent of the sample were French\/Italian\/Spanish and to a respondent they followed it up unprompted with a fast rendition backwards as they had been taught at school. They also quibbled about ti which they render as si. Less than ten per cent could sing example 3c accurately, although it was easier once they discovered what the tune actually is.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n One interesting outcome was the way Tonic sol-fa imparts a sense of tonality<\/a> <\/strong>in the hearer. Doh works as an anchor. The 3c tune was hardest to sing because of the difficulty of pitching the second fa which seems to hang in mid-air, and literally in the sense of mid-melody, half wanting to resolve onto mi, half trying to hear itself as the concluding note of a theme. If, however, we began 3c on soh, making the fa now doh, it becomes much easier to work out: Soh-la ti-doh re mi | doh<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n This is the benefit of moveable doh. The mind\u2019s ear senses the cadence more clearly in mi-doh than it does la-fa. Every ear feels doh as the magnet drawing other notes toward it. In fact, which is the real doh in the Eastenders<\/i> music<\/a><\/strong> (as perhaps by now you have discovered) is open to question, since being only a theme tune, it has no counter-melody, middle section or development to establish firmly one tonality or the other. <\/span><\/p>\n\n
Who invented tonic sol-fa method?<\/h2>\n
Ut queant laxis Latin lyrics<\/i><\/span><\/h4>\n
English translation of Ut queant laxis<\/i><\/span><\/h4>\n
The benefits of the tonic sol-fa method<\/h2>\n