Solfeggio. Vocals for beginners

Hello everyone, dear vocalists!

Today we will go through the basics of solfeggio, find out what it is and how to study it step by step correctly and competently. The textbook will not be useful yet, all the most important things are in this article. So

Solfeggio is a discipline that is designed to develop an ear for music, and studies notes, octaves, keys, durations, intervals, etc... This allows you to train your ear with musical dictations, analyses, solfeggio, etc.

1. The first thing you need to know is, of course, the notes (there are only 7 of them) and their symbols.

1st - BEFORE (C)

5th - SALT (G)

7th - SI (H, can also sign B)

Example on piano keys.

If you don't have a piano, you can download an app to your phone or computer to practice solfeggio.

Here is an example in a music book in treble clef, in the first octave.

What is an octave?

An octave is a musical interval consisting of 8 steps! Example:

Do, re, mi, fa, salt, la, si, do. Also, do not forget about such a concept as scale.

A scale is a series of sounds arranged in ascending and descending order in solfeggio. Vocals for beginners are possible without this knowledge, but they will be useful to you in the future.

Octaves on the musical instrument piano.

You should know how many octaves, notes, keys there are and their names:

• Subcontra octave (this octave is incomplete, starts with “A” and has only 3 notes)
• Contractave
• Major octave
• Small octave
• First octave
• Second octave
• Third octave
• Fourth octave
• Fifth octave (has only one note “C”)

There are 88 keys on the piano - 52 white and 36 black.

Keys

The key determines the arrangement of notes on the stave in solfeggio. Vocals for beginners do not require knowledge of the keys, but if you want to sing from notes, this will be useful.

There are 3 of them in total:

• The treble clef is the most common and popular clef. It comes from the note “sol” of the first octave. It is drawn on the second line of the staff.
• The bass clef is the second most common clef after the treble clef! It is drawn on the fourth line of the staff and surrounds the line on which the note “F” of the small octave is written.
• Alto - denotes the note “C” of the first octave. It is drawn on the middle line of the staff.

Alteration

Raising or lowering the pitch of a note.

Let's find out what signs there are with the key:

• sharp - raising by a semitone,
• flat - lowered by a semitone,
• bekar - canceling signs at the key.

Alteration signs are divided into 2 types:

• key ones - are written next to the key and are valid until new ones appear.
• random - placed before the note.

Tone and semitone.

A semitone is a smaller distance. That is, 2 adjacent keys, including black ones. A tone is 2 semitones.

Intervals

Interval - 2 sounds, which can be the same note, or two different ones.

The bottom sound of an interval is its base, and the top sound is its top.

Intervals are divided into 2 types:

• melodic - notes that are taken sequentially,
• harmonious - the same note played at the same time.

So, let’s look at what interval sizes exist:

• Prima (1)
• Second (2)
• Third (3)
• Quart (4)
• Quinta (5)
• Sexta (6)
• Septima (7)
• Octave (8)

Also, the size of the interval is the number of semitones and tones in it. Thus, the following intervals are formed between the steps: Pure prima (0 semitones)

• Minor second (1 semitone)
• Major second (2 semitones)
• Minor third (3 semitones)
• Major third (4 semitones)
• Perfect quart (5 semitones)
• Augmented fourth (6 semitones)
• Perfect fifth (7 semitones)
• Diminished fifth (6 semitones)
• Minor sixth (8 semitones)
• Major sixth (9 semitones)
• Minor seventh (10 semitones)
• Major seventh (11 semitones)
• Pure octave (12 semitones)

Duration

If we listen to songs, we notice by ear that notes and pauses have different durations. Some sound longer, some faster... In order to understand the durations, we need a 60-beat metronome.

So, let's look at the names and designations:

• a whole note is the longest. Rhythmically consists of 4 metronome beats.
• A half note is 2 times shorter than a whole note. Therefore, it sounds rhythmically on 2 metronome beats.
• quarter note - goes rhythmically to each beat of the metronome.
• eighth note - accelerated in rhythm compared to a quarter note by 2 times. Therefore, there are 2 eighth notes per beat of the metronome!
• A sixteenth note is, of course, still 2 times faster than an eighth note. Therefore, for one metronome beat, 4 sixteenth notes can pass.

Here, our dear readers, are the basics that you must know for a solfeggio vocalist. Vocals for beginners are possible without this, but for those who want to sing with pure intonation and feel the rhythm of the songs, this will definitely come in handy.

If you've read this far, then you clearly have a serious approach to vocals. And we have a serious approach to learning:

A unique technique that has shown its effectiveness on hundreds of students.

Exercises that will allow you to sing both high and low notes within a month, and in two months to perform and earn money with vocals.

Teachers who cannot imagine their lives without the progress of their students.

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I wish you success in studying the material! You will definitely succeed!

Music is a synthesis of the rational and the emotional. Like any other science, it has basic concepts that every musician should be familiar with. If you are just beginning to understand the wonderful world of sounds and melodies, then this page is for you. After reading it, you will be able to understand the basics of musical notation. Music notation will become clear, and you will be able to play simple and perhaps complex pieces.

What does musical notation consist of?

What, what is our musical notation made of? From:

• Music staff;
• Note;
• Durations;
• Signs of alteration;
• Keys;
• Size.

Let's take a closer look at each of these points to better understand musical notation.

Staff

The staff of music is the basic element of musical language. It contains five lines and four spaces between them. It is worth considering that each of these spaces and lines corresponds to a specific piano key (or other musical instrument).

If we consider notation of notes for a piano, then it usually consists of two staves; it is called a large staff. The upper staff is used to record music played by the right hand. The lower staff represents the musical notation for the left hand. They are usually combined with a special curly brace.

Example of a large staff

The staff has several main components, namely clefs, time signatures, measures and bar lines.

Keys

The clef is a musical sign that appears at the beginning of the staff and thereby opens the recording. There are several varieties, the most common being violin and bass, so they need to be considered in more detail.

The treble clef usually appears at the beginning of the top staff. The central part of the sign wraps around the second line, which is why it is usually called the Sol key. If you don’t yet know what names the notes have and where they are located, we suggest you read the article “Learning notes together. You will find a lot of useful information in it.

Treble clef example

The bass clef is a musical symbol that opens the lower staff; the starting point of the symbol covers the fourth line, on which the note “F” is located, therefore this clef is called the “F” clef.

Bass clef example

Duration and size

Sounds in musical works must be maintained in a certain rhythmic pattern, otherwise the work will not be similar to itself. A system of durations is used to indicate the amount of time. The most common durations are:

• Whole;
• Half;
• Quarter;
• Eighth;
• Sixteenth;
• Thirty-second.

Whole note is a white, unfilled circle. Usually the duration is maintained during the count: one, two, three, four.

Half It is an unpainted head with a stem. She counts on the count: one, two.

Quarter It is a painted head with a stem. It is considered at once.

Eighth It is a painted head with a stem and a single tail. The score is half less than a quarter.

Sixteenth It is a painted head with a double tail. The count is half under eighth.

Thirty-second It is a painted head with a triple tail. The count is half under a sixteenth.

It is worth noting that a note of longer duration can be quantitatively equal to another. That is, a whole is equal to two halves, four quarters and eight eighths, etc. It turns out to be a kind of arithmetic progression. Let's look at an example.

Size

Music notation for beginners also includes the concept of meter.

The size is always indicated by a fraction: the numerator is the amount of duration in a measure (more about this concept below), the denominator is an indication of the duration. Typically, the time signature is placed once for the entire work and is located after the key and key signs (more about key signs below).

There are several most common sizes:

To better understand this material, explanations in a specific size are necessary. Let's take one of the most popular sizes, namely 4/4.

In this size, the unit chosen is a quarter, which is indicated in the denominator of the fraction. In total, a bar should contain the number of notes that will give a total of four quarter notes.

Note: many people at the beginning of learning think that if the time is 4/4, then you can only use quarters and there should be four of them. No, the durations can be very diverse, the main thing is that their sum in a measure does not exceed 4/4.

Bars and barlines

Tact interacts directly with size. Many people are interested in what measures are needed for, because they could simply write the durations in the required order. But everything is more complicated. The fact is that rhythm in music is achieved by alternating strong and weak beats, which is called meter. If there is no constant pulsation, then the entire melodic structure will fall apart.

As for bars and bar lines specifically, everything is much simpler here. One measure includes the total number of durations assigned in the size. Bar lines separate one bar from another. There are several types of bar lines, the two most common are:

• The interbar bar is used between measures.
• The double barline is used at the end of the piece and closes it.

Alteration marks and tonality (key signs)

If you imagine a piano keyboard, you can see that in addition to white keys, there are also black ones. Black keys represent chromatic sounds, that is, they are either a decrease or a rise in the fundamental tone. This effect can be achieved using alteration signs.

At this point in time, the most common accidentals are sharp, flat and becar.

The first symbol raises the note by a semitone, the second symbol lowers the note by a semitone, and the third cancels the alteration. A note with signs is read. This symbol is valid only within one measure.

For example:

Explanation: G-sharp, salt-bekar, salt| G-flat, G-flat||.

If accidental signs are valid only for one measure, then there are key signs that remain rising or falling throughout the entire piece.

Key signs are assigned on the music lines immediately after the key. Depending on the key signs, you can determine the tonality of the work. It must be remembered that they go in a certain unchanging sequence, which cannot be violated when recording notes in key. There are sharp and flat keys. Consider the position first in sharp and then in flat keys.

IN sharp the following sounds increase (one sound, one tone):

1. Salt

IN flat The following sounds are reduced (one sound, one tone):

1. Salt

Now that the order of indicating the key signs is remembered, you can move on to studying the main tonalities. But what is tonality?

Key plays an important role in the work; it allows you to reflect the nature of the music, making it either simple or difficult to perceive. Any tonality consists of two characteristics: tone and inclination. IN musical notation for beginners tone is the main sound from which the scale will be built. Mood is the nature of the music; sometimes it’s major and sometimes it’s minor. Roughly speaking, major is joy, and minor is sadness. Determining inclination for a beginning musician is quite difficult at first, especially if you are not familiar with elementary structural units such as intervals. So let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Let’s figure out the tonalities using a convenient table.

Sharp keys

Key (Major and minor)	Key signs
C major and A minor
G major and E minor
D major and B minor
A major and F sharp minor
E major and C sharp minor
B major and G sharp minor
F sharp major and D sharp minor
C-sharp major and A-sharp minor

From the editor. With this material, the editors tried to answer numerous search queries from Internet users related to visual aids on solfeggio for children's music schools. The most popular manuals in teaching practice are needed both by the teachers themselves and by the parents of students, whom teachers usually ask to produce some of them. The material may also be useful to students of music schools who are starting to teach solfeggio in the sector of teaching practice. For ease of use by young teachers, all manuals are briefly described and attached in PDF format for downloading.

E. Copiy

In solfeggio lessons, various visual aids are of great importance in mastering theoretical material. From the first lessons in the preparatory class, it is proposed to use the “buttons” manual. These are two staves with treble and bass clefs. Lines are stretched vertically on them. Two buttons are put on each line - white and black. As a result, a row of white buttons is lined up at the top, and a row of black ones at the bottom. The buttons move freely along the fishing line, short sounds are indicated in black, long sounds are indicated in white. This manual first helps you study notes, and in both keys, then with the help of buttons you “record” the simplest and even more complex melodies. Since there are many forms of work in a solfeggio lesson, and small children write notes poorly and slowly, this manual saves time.

It is well known that the use of manual cards greatly enlivens solfeggio lessons. In preparatory, first and even second grade, it is advisable to tell children small, exciting stories, the heroes of which are musical terms. The fairy tales of V. Kiryushin are very suitable for this purpose. You can introduce children to different intervals and give them a bright emotional coloring using the example of “Tales of the Stupid Giraffe Octave” and “Tales of Two Brothers Consonance and Dissonance.” On the other hand, no one is stopping a creatively oriented teacher from composing his own fairy tales and suggesting another character, depicting him on a card. With the help of fairy tales, children easily remember the names of intervals. Of course, the teacher must accompany his story with music. After mastering the material, children like to play “interval tracks” using cards, “riddle” intervals on the piano, and the whole group demonstrates the answer cards.

The manuals help in the development of modal, harmonic, inner hearing, and promote pure intonation. We can offer three more manuals that are used from the preparatory class onwards in subsequent years of study.

The first manual is LADDER. The ladder is offered as a manual in the textbook for the preparatory class by M. Kotlyarevskaya-Kraft. It is based on a relative method of studying the relationship between steps and sounds in a scale, which has proven itself very well for the development of pure intonation, helping to expand the range of a child’s voice. It is proposed to accompany the study of the ladder with hand signs. It is recommended to start the first intonation exercises on the ladder with chants and songs on two steps III-V (VI-ZO), then the VI-step RA is added to these chants, only then step I (Y), the concept of tonic is given, then all the rest. It is proposed to differentiate the steps of the staircase in terms of color and associate the color of the staircase with fairy-tale characters. The LADDER we use is painted in the colors “favorite” of the main characters of V. Kiryushin’s fairy tale “In the Land of Harmonic Functions”. It is better to tell the tale when the stage E (I) is introduced - Tonic, according to the fairy tale by V. Kiryushin - the Queen of the Country of Harmonic Functions, who lives in an eight-story palace, on the first floor there is her throne room, and on the eighth there is a rest room. There is another main character in the fairy tale - the Dominant - the chief minister of the Country of Harmonic Functions, who wears a red cloak and a red hat. The fourth step is painted yellow, since the main cook of the Country, the Subdominant, “lives” on this floor in the palace, preferring yellow in her outfit. The rest of the coloring of the steps of the staircase is also associated with the characters of the fairy tale. Thus, already in the preparatory class, you can introduce children to the names of the III stage - Mediants, VI stages - Submediants, connecting them with the heroes of the fairy tale and giving a certain functional affiliation of these stages. Using the example of the LADDER, it is advisable to study the structure of the major scale, and with the help of the extended LADDER - the minor scale. It is suggested to sing songs, showing the movement of the melody along the Ladder.

The second manual, well known to solfeggio teachers, is the Bulgarian Column. It is recommended to present the main degrees of mode I, IV, V in the same color scheme as on the Ladder, that is, use blue, yellow, and red. On the Column, it is advisable to use arrows to show the gravity of unstable steps into stable ones. It is very useful to duplicate the resolution of steps with manual signs in intonation exercises. With the help of the Column, it is convenient to fix in the minds of children the structure of major and minor scales. Even the designations of steps in Roman numerals can be studied well using the Column. According to the Column, you can conduct chants when the student acts as a teacher, improvise, sing familiar songs, “make riddles” from the melodies, thus developing children’s inner hearing. With the help of the Column, students are clearly introduced to intervals, chords and their deeper study in high school. To study chromaticisms, types of minor and major, it is recommended to put sharps and becars on the right side of each step, and flats and becars on the left side.

The third proposed manual is the KEYBOARD OF SOUND CHORDS. In this manual, the main steps of the mode are very clearly highlighted, and in the same color scheme as in the Ladder and in the Column. Since the black keys are not painted in the required colors, children are asked to figure out the key signs on their own.

It is common knowledge that learning all scales, intervals, chords is important in connection with the PIANO KEYBOARD. It is often impossible to call all the children to the instrument during a group solfeggio lesson. Therefore, this manual is extremely useful in all classes of children's music schools during solfeggio lessons.

We talk about the most convenient approach for guitarists to the development of musical ear, the so-called “solfeggio with moving C”, and its practical application in improvisation and note reading.

The article will be of interest to all non-classical musicians - jazz, rock and pop musicians.

If you have never thought about developing your ear for music and are not at all familiar with solfeggio, we recommend reading What is solfeggio and why is it needed?

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

"Classical" solfeggio and guitar

The average guitarist spends much less time developing his ear for music than he does on technical exercises.
Meanwhile, a developed ear for music is what distinguishes a musician from a non-musician. It is impossible to improvise clearly and clearly express your musical ideas without pulling your ears along with your fingers.

One thing always stops me - the excess of information inherent in the traditional system of teaching solfeggio, and the lack of understanding of how all this ponderous theoretical component can be applied in everyday musical practice.

We guitarists think in fingerings. When changing the key, for example, from B major to A flat major, I won’t realize that B major has 5 sharps and A flat major has 4 flats - I’ll just move my hand to the desired position and change the a fingering picture of the world in your head. It’s not that this knowledge is not necessary or important - not at all, but on the guitar you somehow don’t feel the primacy of this knowledge.

Why do we associate solfeggio with the piano?

About 150 years ago in Russia, any more or less educated person, and even more so a musician, almost necessarily mastered the piano in a course of study. This is how the “classical” system of teaching solfeggio appeared, with its strict connection to the piano.

It is natural for a pianist to visualize the relationships between sounds using the piano keyboard. It is clear: the keyboard is in front of your eyes, how many “black keys in what key” are memorized - on the piano, willy-nilly, you will begin to think harmoniously.

However, times have changed. There are only a few guitarists who begin their acquaintance with the guitar through the piano. Now the piano is more of a barrier for many. Nobody studies hearing; it seems unbearable.

Is it possible to develop hearing in any other way?

Yes.
Our usual “piano” solfeggio is by no means the only way to a developed ear for music. Solfaging, i.e. singing melodies by notes as a method of developing musical ear appeared long before keyboard instruments became widespread.

In general, there are quite a decent number of solfeggio systems. And they are no less “classic”. In modern European music, as opposed to “piano” solfeggio, the so-called “solfege with moving C” is used, or Movable Do System, as this method is called at Berklee College of Music (USA).

What is “solfeggio with moving C”?

The idea behind the moving do system is extremely simple:

Regardless of what key you are in now, we will call the first degree of the scale, i.e. tonic - “Do”, second - “D”, etc.

The tonality has changed, and so has our Do:

Thus, we perceive the melody not as a set of specific notes on the piano, but as movement along the steps of a scale (scale). Willy-nilly, we will thereby correlate each note of the melody with the tonic.

By the way, our traditional system is called “solfeggio with fixed Do”, fixed Do system.

Nobody claims that the system with mobile Do is somehow better. And it has its drawbacks, which are discussed below - it’s just that its feature that you can abstract from the piano suits the modern guitarist perfectly. After all, in order to hear any step in the scale, it is not at all necessary to know what specific note it is - it is important to be able to correlate it with the tonic.

The fact that Do is the first step (and not, say, A) has been written in our subconscious since elementary school. It is much more difficult for us to perceive “F# - A# - C# is a tonic major triad in the key of F sharp major” than to simply say that “this is C – E – G in the key of F sharp major.” It is easier to concentrate on learning the relationships between degrees (notes, sounds). But this is why solfeggio was invented, this is the development of musical ear.

Having remembered how the relationship between, for example, the 6th degree (A) and the tonic (C) in the key of C major sounds, you can easily extend this skill to all other major keys, because the relationship between the degrees of scales of major keys is the same. And having heard a similar attitude in the key of F sharp major, you will confidently say that this sounds like the 6th degree, i.e. A, key F-sharp major. What has been said is true for minor and any other keys. Solfeggio with moving C gives a confident sense of scale.

Ease of transposition. Having learned a melody in one key, you can easily transfer it to any other - we are dealing with scale degrees, not notes.

Ease of fret changing. Once you are confident in hearing one mode, you will be confident in hearing the other as you work through the changes in the relationships between the degrees.

Improvisation in harmony. What does it take to improvise confidently? Be able to build melodies in your head and not go out of tune. What is tonality?

Key = Tonic + Mode

The tonic will be given to you (for example, by the bass player, if he is adequate), we can hear the degrees of the mode - that’s freedom of improvisation.

By the way, many people call solfeggio with moving C this way - improvisational solfeggio.

Additional benefits for guitarists

Let's return to fingerings.
Here, for example, is one of the basic fingerings of the major scale with the tonic on the 6th, 4th and 1st strings. Let's put the scale degrees on this fingering:

It is suitable for any major scale and will not change at all for C major, nor for B-flat major, nor for G major (except, of course, that it will begin with the corresponding fret on the fretboard):

Where the tonic (C) is is always clear, and where is which level, too. Why not a piano?
Having worked through the remaining fingerings in this way, we will connect visual perception with auditory perception. This is extra first plus for guitarists. As a result, we get a conscious game.

Second plus, as a consequence of the first, is reading notes. We have worked out the fingering-visual and auditory components, where is which step in the fingering and how it is connected to the tonic - why not start reading notes?

There is, however, a small nuance: with a system with a moving C, you will not be able to read the notation “as it is written”; you will have to learn to perceive musical notation from the point of view of the tonic and degrees. This is actually not difficult and is quickly mastered, but it still has its place. And this first minus.

For example, “Chizhik-fawn”:

Second minus. What if the music is atonal? If it is impossible to understand what tonic is?
True, this phenomenon is rare and is located in the universe of avant-garde music. But even there you can get out of it by, for example, mistaking the first degree of the chord you are currently playing for the tonic. If at all you play chords in this case... and on the guitar...

Pavel Tyukavin

Guitar, improvisation, solfeggio teacher