Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...

to each note of a

musical scale In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Often, especially in the ...

. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world, but

solfège In music, solfège (, ) or solfeggio (; ), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach aural skills, Pitch (music), pitch and sight-reading of Western classical music, Western music. Solfège is ...

is the most common convention in countries of Western culture.

Overview

The seven syllables normally used for this practice in English-speaking countries are: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti (with sharpened notes of di, ri, fi, si, li and flattened notes of te, le, se, me, ra). The system for other Western countries is similar, though si is often used as the final syllable rather than ti.

Guido of Arezzo Guido of Arezzo ( it, Guido d'Arezzo; – after 1033) was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had a ma ...

is thought likely to have originated the modern Western system of solmization by introducing the ut–re–mi–fa–so–la syllables, which derived from the initial syllables of each of the first six half-lines of the first stanza of the

hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...

Ut queant laxis "" or "" is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist, written in Horatian Sapphics with text traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in par ...

''.

Giovanni Battista Doni Giovanni Battista Doni (bap. 13 March 1595 – 1647) was an Italian musicologist and humanist who made an extensive study of ancient music. He is known, among other works, for having renamed the note "Ut" to "Do" in solfège. In his day, he was a ...

is known for having changed the name of note "Ut" (C), renaming it "Do" (in the "Do Re Mi ..." sequence known as

). An alternative explanation, first proposed by Franciszek Meninski in ''Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium'' (1680) and later by J.-B. Laborde in ''Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne'' (1780), is that the syllables were derived from the Arabic solmization system درر مفصّلات ''Durar Mufaṣṣalāt'' ("Separated Pearls") (''dāl, rā', mīm, fā', ṣād, lām, tā) during the Middle Ages, but there is not any documentary evidence for it.

Byzantine music Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή μουσική) is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical ...

uses syllables derived from the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...

to name notes: starting with A, the notes are pa (alpha), vu (beta, pronounced v in modern greek), ga (gamma), di (delta), ke (epsilon), zo (zeta), ni (eta). In Scotland, the system known as

Canntaireachd Canntaireachd (; ) is the ancient method of teaching, learning and memorizing ''Piobaireachd'' (also spelt ''Pibroch''), a type of music primarily played on the Great Highland bagpipe. In the canntairached method of instruction, the teacher sings or ...

("chanting"') was used as a means of communicating

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...

music verbally. The

Svara Svara or swara (Devanagari: स्वर, generally pronounced as ''swar'') is a Sanskrit word that connotes simultaneously a breath, a vowel, the sound of a musical note corresponding to its name, and the successive steps of the octave or '' ...

solmization of India has origins in

Vedic texts upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

like the

Upanishads The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...

, which discuss a musical system of seven notes, realized ultimately in what is known as sargam. In

Indian classical music Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not ...

, the notes in order are: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni, which correspond to the Western solfege system. For

Han people The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive ...

's music in China, the words used to name notes are (from fa to mi): 上 (siong or shàng), 尺 (cei or chǐ), 工 (gōng), 凡 (huan or fán), 六 (liuo or liù), 五 (ngou or wǔ), 乙 (yik or yǐ). The system is used for teaching sight-singing. For

Japanese music In Japan, music includes a wide array of distinct genres, both traditional and modern. The word for "music" in Japanese is 音楽 (''ongaku''), combining the kanji 音 ''on'' (sound) with the kanji 楽 ''gaku'' (music, comfort). Japan is the world ...

, the first line of ''

Iroha The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to the founder of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism in Japan, Kūkai, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The f ...

'', an ancient poem used as a tutorial of traditional

kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...

, is used for solmization. The syllables representing the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, G are i, ro, ha, ni, ho, he, to respectively.

Shakuhachi musical notation Shakuhachi musical notation is a traditional tablature-style method of transcribing shakuhachi music. A number of systems exist for notating shakuhachi music, most of which are based on the ''rotsure'' (ロツレ) and the ''fuho-u'' (フホウ) s ...

uses another solmization system beginning "Fu Ho U". Javanese musicians derive syllables from

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

: ji-ro-lu-pat-ma-nem-pi. These names derive from one-syllable simplification of the

Javanese numerals The Javanese language has a decimal numeral (linguistics), numeral system with distinct words for the 'tweens' from 21 to 29, called ''likuran''. The basic numerals 1–10 have independent and combining forms, the latter derived via a suffix ''-n ...

''siji, loro, telu, papat, lima, enem, pitu''. ('' aat'' and ''pi u', corresponding to 4 and 7, are skipped in the

pentatonic A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancie ...

slendro Slendro ( jv, ꦱ꧀ꦭꦺꦤ꧀ꦢꦿꦺꦴ, ban, slendro, translit=Sléndro) ( su, salendro, translit=Saléndro) is one of the essential tuning systems used in gamelan instruments that have pentatonic scale. Based on Javanese mythology, ...

'' scale.)

References

{{Authority control Ear training Musical notation et:Silpnimetus

Overview

See also

References