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27 Mar 97 - 03:21 AM (#3533) Subject: Sol-fa From: Murray This derives from Les Blank's query on the "Ploughboy" thread. Sol-fa is a system of writing notes using the ordinary alphabet and some punctuation, called properly "Tonic Sol-Fa", invented last century, the most famous brand being that of Curwen. The notes of the scale (made famous by Julie Andrews) are shortened to drmfsltd' --the tick (I use a single quote) indicating the octave; and a low tick (I use a comma) for the low octave. That gives you 3 to play with. Length of note can be indicated by a system of dots and dashes. I don't bother with them most of the time, mainly using just the letters, as a sort of shorthanded way of showing a tune -- to differentiate, e.g., between two tunes with the same title, like "Highland Laddie" (dr mm fr m/mr rdr mr r etc.) versus (sf/md ms lsfm r sf/md mfs ltd's ms etc.). The tune of the Ploughboy could be represented by: s/ ms dm l, s,d/ t,r fm mr- s/ ms dm l, s,d/ t,r ft, d--m/ rf, f,f, f,m,- m/ rf, f,f, m,- m/ rf,f,f, f,m,- s,/ dr mfe s--sf/ (repeat first strain). The system can be really accurate, in that whole choral works have been issued in this format. Try it! |
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27 Mar 97 - 09:05 AM (#3540) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: Les Blank Wow ! I'm surprised at the simple elegance of it. And somewhat embarassed I couldn't (or wouldn't) figure it out. This does the trick however !! Now I can exchange tunes with the other folkie pages I'm onto. Wonder if they knew about this and just didn't tell me !! Many thanks Murray !! What a community !! Les |
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27 Mar 97 - 03:48 PM (#3555) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: LaMarca This is really neat!. Now what we need is someone to write a program to read sol-fa text strings and translate them into standard staff notation for them what has music notation programs on their computers... (Not me, alas; I'll need to do it by hand on staff paper, but it's a great way to send tunes back and forth!) |
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27 Mar 97 - 04:48 PM (#3563) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: Rodney Rawlings/subm How do you show sharps and flats? |
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28 Mar 97 - 02:57 AM (#3580) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: Murray Rodney, a sharpened note is shown by a change of the vowel in the pronunciation of a note: d is "doh" [a deer], and a sharpened doh is "dee", which is written "de" -- and so on for the rest of the scale. A flattened note gets the sound "aw", e.g. "maw" = a flattened third, written ma. A minor key, by the way, has to be treated as beginning on the sixth of the relative major. You'll have to look up all the refinements of this, using punctuation marks to indicate a half-beat and so on. Hope this works for you. |
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28 Mar 97 - 02:58 AM (#3581) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: Murray Rodney, a sharpened note is shown by a change of the vowel in the pronunciation of a note: d is "doh" [a deer], and a sharpened doh is "dee", which is written "de" -- and so on for the rest of the scale. A flattened note gets the sound "aw", e.g. "maw" = a flattened third, written ma. A minor key, by the way, has to be treated as beginning on the sixth of the relative major. You'll have to look up all the refinements of this, using punctuation marks to indicate a half-beat and so on. Hope this works for you. |
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28 Mar 97 - 03:30 AM (#3586) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: Bo Vandenberg Sol Fa Trivia: The roots of it all From a book on Gregorian Chant The DO SI LA notes are said to have been first used in XIth century by a Benedictine Monk called Guy of Arezzo. He was a choir master seeking something to help his choiristers learn intervals. The notes came out of a hymn. Each of the notes was originally the first syllable of a phrase in latin. The first notes were Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La. from: UT que'ant laxis RE-so-na-re fibris MI-ra gesto rum FAmu-li tu-o- rum SOL-ve polluti LAbiire- atum Sancte Iohannes. In the 17th cent the syllable UT was changed to DO and is now more generally used, (UT is still used in germany) The Gregorians have a seventh note they call SI, not TI, and then they bigin the scale again. bo |
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28 Mar 97 - 09:53 AM (#3587) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: belter I agree that this is in dead a neat way of transmiting tunes, but I'm not shure there is any advandage over using the letter notes as in as in abc notation, well, aside from using the high and low ticks, and the vowel change for flat and sharp. The proponents of abc notation hve developed programs for translating it back and forth. I've no direct experience with thoose programs and I'm not trying to put sol-fa down. I doen't want to start an arguement either. I just wanted to get some feedback on the relitive merits and drawbacks of each system. |
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01 Apr 97 - 11:28 PM (#3724) Subject: RE: Sol-fa From: Jerry Friedman, jfriedman@nnm.cc.nm.us To finish off the trivia, I believe "ut" and "si" (for the initial letters of Sancti Iohannes) are used in most languages other than English. "Ut" was changed so all the syllables would be a consonant followed by a vowel (same reason the l in "sol" was dropped), and "si" was changed so there wouldn't be two syllables beginning with the same letter. All this was part of an attempt in England to provide some kind of singable musical "notation", especially for people who couldn't read music, I guess. And by the way, Mary Martin can share some of the credit with Julie Andrews for making it famous. And, I guess, Rodgers and Hammerstein. |