by Sean Stone-Ashe
Solfege has been a long-standing and well-known system for understanding music that dates all the way back to the medieval period. The beginning of the system we now refer to as solfege was invented by the Benedictine Monk and music educator Guido of Arezzo, who lived from approximately 991-1033 C.E.
Over the following millennium, solfege has been slowly modified, and is now used as the predominant language for understanding vocal and instrumental music alike. It is not only well-known in the music world, but has been made famous in pop culture as well, being referenced in hit movies such as The Sound of Music and Aristocats.
For any serious musician, it is imperative that they learn solfege to adequately understand the music they play. Whether you sing or play an instrument, we will discuss why solfege is a must-learn language.
The Sound of Music and Aristocats.
It is important to realize that each note in music serves a specific function. While we may be able to hear these functions intuitively, it is immensely beneficial to be able to explicitly recognize and label the specific functions of each note that you hear.
This is why solfege is such a helpful musical language to be able to speak, sing and hear. We can determine the function of each note of a scale based on its position within the scale, and the purpose of solfege is to put a label on each of these notes. Do is always the home note, which is most stable in a piece of music. Notes such as Re and Ti have strong tendencies to move towards Do and therefore resolve. This function is so strong that we refer to certain solfege notes as “tendency tones.”
By gaining fluency with solfege, you can begin to hear each syllable when it occurs in music, and have a better sense of what is happening in the piece. This will allow you to make better expressive decisions with each piece, and therefore sound like a more confident and fluent musician as a whole, whether you are singing or playing an instrument.
Furthermore, being able to hear solfege well in a piece allows a musician to more effectively and efficiently transcribe music that they hear. Let’s say you hear a nice piece of music and would like to be able to play it yourself, but do not have access to the sheet music – or perhaps the piece is not for your instrument, but you still want to play it. By developing your aural skills, you can simply listen to the piece, and be able to figure out which notes you will need to play throughout.
Make Sense of Music Theory
There are additional benefits of learning solfege when considering your relationship to music theory. When you study music theory, you see many notes written down on paper, but it can be hard to connect all the theory and terminology you learn to actual sounds in music. Solfege can bridge this gap, by starting to see notes in chords as not just stacks of notes, but specific sounds with different applications and functions.
By learning music theory, learning solfege, and learning to play an instrument or sing well, you can master music from every angle. This is why all of these courses are mandatory for several years in order to receive degrees in higher education in music.
Build Confidence as a Singer
A final benefit of learning solfege is that you can boost your confidence as a singer. Whether you are training specifically to be a singer, or if you are more focused on an instrument, it never hurts to feel confident as a singer.
I often find that young or inexperienced singers are reluctant to sing out with volume or even use good vocal techniques if they are not sure what pitch they are supposed to sing. By learning solfege, and thinking about notes as solfege syllables, singers become immensely more confident at finding the exact note they should sing, and therefore feel more confident to sing out with confidence.