I just had a quick scan through the muscle memory and Learning note sounds threads and they reminded me of a fun exercise you can do whenever you’re stuck in traffic or on a walk etc.
I always associated Solfège (Do Re Mi…) with Julie Andrews prancing in drapes to the Sound of Music but it’s a fun exercise to just sing up and down the scales. (It took me quite a while to remember the names going back down ). When you’re comfortable with that you can then do your variations like 1, 3, 5, 8, 5, 3, 1 (do mi so do mi so do). Then you can practice all your different intervals or tunes if you like, adding in minors etc. (I think this may be more popular on the European mainland then in the UK, no idea of the rest of the world…)
You don’t need an instrument as you can start from any note you want.
The sky’s the limit
Brian @brianlarsen
I had difficulty learning to go backwards and still do on occasions.
In terms of JA and the film, is she actually playing the notes of scale, I don’t think so but could be wrong.
Michael
Thanks for sharing this Brian.I actually do this regularly and I find that it has really helped my singing , but my kids probably think I am a bit crazy .
Funny that you should start this thread Brian. I was involved with the “Learning note sounds” thread and it got me thinking about Do Re Mi and how it could be used to learn interval sounds.
You say that minors can be added. There are of course minor intervals in Do Re Mi - but is it possible to represent the minor 3rd instead of major 3rd in Do Re Mi?
A good vocal warm up (and I know this thanks to Corinne’s choir sessions, nothing to do with me vocalising) is to sing up and down in steps …
Do
Do Re Do
Do Re Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So La So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti La So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do Ti La So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti La So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So La So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa So Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Fa Mi Re Do
Do Re Mi Re Do
Do Re Do
Do
Haha, she’s not playing the guitar. At the beginning the low note is out of tune, but she tunes the high e-string I don’t recognise the chords she’s playing either…
But the do re mi notes she sings at the beginning of each line are the equivalent of C major scale
That’s ok, Eddie. We all do
I haven’t read much about it, David, but my understanding is that the intervals in solfege are simply those of a major scale (2,2,1,2,2,2,1). You can figure out what the minor (or flattened 3rd) would be by singing do re mi, then just modulate between re and mi back and forth. Now imagine the note between those and that’ll be the flattened third.
@Richard_close2u That’s funny. I came up with that exercise on a long walk
It’s also fun just to randomly switch direction anywhere on the way.
I suppose the ultimate would be to become so comfortable with it that you could skip around and sing melodies with the solfege system
I’ve done a bit of research and it can get complicated. There are 2 systems. There’s “Fixed Do” and there’s “Movable Do”
Sounds like movable is the one used in English speaking countries.
“Do” is the first degree of whatever key you are using.
The relative minor is built from the sixth degree, so would be:
La Ti Do Re Mi Fa Sol La
So the minor 3rd there is La - Do
There is also a way to sing a chromatic scale. I’m not typing it out though! Have a look at this.
Haha, you can’t ‘hijack’ a general topic in my opinion, although sometimes it makes sense to start a new one as I just did
That’s an excellent example of both singing the solfege melody followed by the playing. For your next trick, you should compose and sing a solfege harmony/second voice over your lovely guitar playing
You earn something new every day:
The origin evidently derives from a Latin hymn
Ut queant laxīs re sonāre fibrīs Mī ra gestōrum fa mulī tuōrum Sol ve pollūtī la biī reātum Sancte Iohannēs.
(loosely translated) Do let our voices re sonate most purely, mi racles telling, fa r greater than many; so l et our tongues be la vish in your praises, St John the Baptist
I recently bumped in a video by a Music Teacher that explains how this went…and that’s what it’s all about! Everyone was very devote to St. John at that time and everyone knew this hymn, it was so well consolidated in their musical imagination that the notes names were choosen because of that, because everyone could recognize and sing it, in the same way everyone would recognize, remember and sing the notes do re mi!
MUSICAL IMAGINATION! That is what I’ m feeling I have to work on to really improve!
We all can sing the notes…each one of us can!
Challenge accepted! I will @you from my Learning Log as soon as it’ll be ready. Many thanks for giving me the idea…I’m going to work on it straight away
I remember when I was a kid taking piano lessons, I had to practice all the scales up and down (as ‘warm up’ exercises). After completing each scale, you had to play the 1, 3, 5 and 8. It has quite a distinctive ring to it. Once you have that pattern in your head, I reckon it would be much easier to figure out which one is missing. I wish I had been taught the point of all this 40 years ago
). When you’re comfortable with that you can then do your variations like 1, 3, 5, 8, 5, 3, 1 (do mi so do mi so do). Then you can practice all your different intervals or tunes if you like, adding in minors etc. (I think this may be more popular on the European mainland then in the UK, no idea of the rest of the world…)
.
I don’t recognise the chords she’s playing either…
