The Case for Movable “Do” in Classroom Ear Training
Posted on Feb 4, 2009
| 40 comments
Filed under: ear training, featured, fixed do, Kodály, movable do, Musicianship, Sight Singing, Solfège, Teaching
Against my better judgment, I’m jumping into the fray regarding methods used in the teaching of sight singing. Normally I try to stay away from such conflicts, but I can only take so much disparagement of my beloved Movable Do system. The last straw is the discovery of this web site, which contains misleading information designed to promote the sale of a book.
(Warning: This post is intended for musicianship and theory nerds. If you are not in that category, your eyes will glaze over shortly.)
What are we arguing about?
The age-old argument is this: Do we teach students to sight sing using an absolute system (Fixed Do) or a relative one (Movable Do)?
Using the Fixed Do system, the syllable do corresponds directly to the note name “C”, such that Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti(Si)-Do is a C major scale. Re is D, So is G, etc. Teachers who use this system value pitch memory as a way of learning how to read. Over time the student should learn from this what each note feels like and sounds like.
The Movable Do system emphasizes each note’s function in the given key. In the major, Do is always scale degree 1, So is always scale degree 5, etc., no matter what the key. Here what’s important is knowing what each note’s role is in whatever key you’re in. People with perfect pitch have a hard time with this.
I won’t be coy about my own preference. In a classroom musicianship setting, the movable Movable Do system has the most pedagogical value. We have an excellent fixed system in the English language for expressing absolute pitches. It’s called “letter names”. The Fixed Do system is nothing other than what’s used in certain European countries as an equivalent to our letter names. Over time, using it may teach students by rote how to sing the notes, but it will not teach them intervals. It will not teach them anything about harmony or function, to say nothing of voice leading. There are times where musicianship and theory students need to be able to sing and identify specific notes, and in those cases our English-language letter names are at their disposal.
What about scale degree numbers?
Good question. Yes, scale degree numbers accomplish the teaching of intervals and functionality very well. Thumbs up on numbers. Up to a point. What happens when you’re working in a minor key? What happens when it goes chromatic? Sing me a German augmented 6th chord, please, using numbers. You can sing “6-1-2-4″, but that comes nowhere near expressing what’s happening in this chord. At best you can sing “lowered 6 – 1 – raised 2 – raised 4″, but that is unreasonably clumsy.
What’s so great about Movable Do?
The value of the Movable Do system over Fixed Do and scale degree numbers is consistency. In Movable, the interval between do and mi is always a major third no matter what. The student can count on those syllables to mean only one thing. In Fixed, if we’re in C minor, then the interval between do and mi is a minor third. The aural connection between those syllables and their interval is broken. Again, the syllables here serve no purpose beyond that of our usual letter names. In Numbers we have the same problem. Depending whether you’re in a minor key or a major key, the meaning of “1-3″ can vary, so they run out of steam pretty early on in the training process.
It becomes clearer when you start talking about minor keys and chromatics. There are diverging approaches regarding Movable Do and minor, but my particular flavor is the one that uses the syllable “la” as the first scale degree in minor keys. So, that’s la-ti-do-re-mi-fa-so-la (natural minor). I’m aware that some advocate sticking with do as the first scale degree in minor, but that just defeats all of the benefits described above. Now, if la is the tonic, then we still have that consistency: do-mi is still a major third, although now it functions somewhat differently.
In Movable Do there’s a convention for dealing with chromatics. Let’s get back to that German augmented 6th chord, where there’s a lowered 6, a raised 4 and a raised 2. We can sing the 6 as “lo” instead of “la“. We can sing the raised 4 as “fi” instead of “fa“, and we can sing the raised 2 as “ri” instead of “re“. Chromatic chords like this are born of moving voices. This chord is by nature part of a process of “going somewhere” within a chord progression by altering some of the scale degrees. Altering the syllables accordingly helps students absorb that. It engenders a sense of voice leading, which makes it easier to hear and sing the odd intervals, such as the augmented 6th from the “lo” up to the “fi“, that come about as a result.
What could anyone possibly have against Movable Do?
That’s always been a mystery to me. This post began as a response to the site referred to above, run by a choral conductor who wants his chorus to learn their music more easily, (and who wants to promote the sale of his book), where I read some incoherent assertions regarding the disadvantages of Movable Do, to wit:
- Does not develop a sense of relative pitch. “Do” is always changing as the key signature changes.
- Accidentals (sharp, flats or naturals) must still be accommodated by “change.”
- Modulations to new keys are not easily performed.
- Harmonic and melodic minor scales as well as modes must also be accommodated by a “change.”
Regarding #1, well, yes “Do” is always changing, sometimes even when the key signature does not; that’s the point. But a sense of relative pitch is exactly what it does develop. Students learn to negotiate a descending tritone in context. Fa-ti. Always a tritone. They learn that the descending 4th, la-mi in context sounds and feels completely different than the descending 4th that is is do-so. Or that tricky augmented 6th described in the German augmented 6th example above, lo-fi.
#2 and #4 don’t make any sense to me at all, so I’ll leave them un-rebutted. They seem redundant to each other and to #1.
I think the key complaint is most clearly expressed in #3. So, in other words: It’s harder. The mistake being made here is to think that this would ever be a quick or easy process. It is in fact a very slow-moving process whose purpose is to bring about deep understanding of the musical processes that drive the music we’re learning to sight read. It is not meant to be a quick way to get your chorus to learn their material. In fact, if the process of teaching this way takes any less than three years, you’re not doing it right.
Yes, you have to decide where the do change occurs, and there isn’t always one right answer, but with practice you become adept at analyzing music on the fly and you always know where you are within the big picture.
What about my perfect pitch?
It will help you when you’re singing letter names and hinder you when singing movable do. I ask my students who have perfect pitch to please leave it at the door when they come in. I’m sure it comes in handy at parties, but it certainly does not mean you don’t need ear training. If anything it is an obstacle you need to learn how to deal with so you can learn how to focus on the tonal context of the notes you’re singing.
What about atonal music?
Fair question. See above: “letter names”. Actually I have no problem with Fixed do here, other than that it would be unnecessarily confusing for students who have had three years of Movable. Once tonal sight singing is mastered, students need to learn to negotiate music one interval at a time without the tonal context, and letter names are fine for this. I don’t buy the argument often made about “singability” of solfège syllables versus letter names. It’s not a liederabend. It’s musicianship class.
What have others written about this?
Reams and reams, I’m sure. In addition to the site mentioned above there are a handful of other interesting discussions of this topic on the web. I single out Jody Nagel’s article on this for being the most thorough (and neutral) explanation of all the methods and their advantages and disadvantages, plus his fascinating explanation of why this problem is unique to the English-speaking world.
Scott Spiegelberg’s blog Musical Perceptions has an interesting item on this topic. An anonymous commenter offers what might be the only convincing argument for Fixed Do having to do with how a string player processes music while reading. It is food for thought, but doesn’t quite apply to the classroom musicianship setting.
Do you disagree?
Please feel free to comment below, but please let’s all be nice.
First, let me say this is a very interesting post, and post-discussion; thanks to the author and all who’ve contributed
Max, I have to take issue with your characterization of pitches and intervals. You write:
“If one can recognise both a c# and F# the only thing left to do is simply count between. In fact, I submit that the teaching of intervals could be done away from the classroom, away from the keyboard or their instrument of choice and even away from any textbook for the very reason that it really is about counting. It may be studied much the same way that one learns the multiplication table; through association. Just as one is to remember that they should say “8″ when they are given “2×4,” the same student should envision “m6″ when they hear a given “C” played below an “Ab.” And if one is concerned that they might not know the quality of an interval because they were focusing on the notes as individual entities, this really that isn’t a factor because they already know the quality. They know this because they’ve been listening to music long before they came to class. They know what intervals sound like; music is peppered with them. If we are successful in our job to teach them to identify the notes they hear, they will have access to any and all intervals.”
Intervals are really about counting? I disagree. Yes, a minor sixth can be measured as eight half-steps. And a perfect fifth as seven half-steps. (For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll assume equal temperament.) But that measurement tells us nothing about the quality of the interval. Or rather, it tells us only how “far” our voice must reach to sing it, but not that the perfect fifth is easier to sing and has a certain consonant, open quality.
I am a composer, and I have perfect pitch. So it’s easy for me to hear or think of two notes, C up to Ab, and recognize it as a minor sixth. But by “recognizing” it in this way I don’t have to pay much attention to the quality of the interval — I can remain analytically detached, unmoved by it. And although I can sight-read (at the piano) or sight-sing very proficiently (especially with fixed do, which I was trained with), I am easily confused when listening to music where the tuning lies “between” two keys — like some early music recordings. Because I’m so accustomed to recognizing pitches first, and second (almost instantaneously), recognizing the intervals from my internal pitch table (much like my multiplication table tells me instantly that 8×3 = 24), I’m not so skilled at recognizing intervals purely by their aural quality. If I hear a G-up-to-Eb in the context of Eb Major, I’m likely to mistake it for a major 6th, before I ‘measure’ it or ‘look it up’ and identify it correctly as a minor 6th. If I’m listening to an early music recording and I hear two notes, the first a G# or G, the second and higher one an Eb or E, I’ll be stumped on what kind of 6th I’m hearing. It’s because I’m always so aware of the pitches I’m hearing, that I rarely have the opportunity to practice listening to intervals per se — and when I do, it becomes obvious how underdeveloped is my interval-hearing, or “relative pitch”.
From a more philosophical perspective, I also believe the interval is a more fundamental musical unit than a single pitch. With a single pitch we do not really have music. With two pitches, music begins — something begins to express itself. And I would say that what is expressive and ‘meaningful’ in music is what lies ‘between’ the notes — just as what is essential in a human being is not the matter of their body, but what shines through and enlivens their body, their soul or spirit or being, one might say — and just as meaning in speech or writing does not lie in individual words but ‘between’ or ‘through’ or ‘by way of’ them. (Meaning is what is intended; words are marshalled by a speaker or writer to serve his intended meaning, but the meaning is not contained in the individual words.) Notes, matter, words, are the vehicle or vessel through which something else expresses itself.
Anyway, maybe there is no definitive answer to which is best — fixed do or movable do — but only that they serve different purposes. (Rarely have I met any music teacher who did not have a strong, and often dogmatic, opinion about which system was superior.) For myself, fixed do is useless; all it did was enable me to breeze through the ear training courses of a leading conservatory, without ever being challenged to develop relative pitch or practice hearing or singing intervals as such. Having perfect pitch, I could already sight-sing accurately; it just took a little while to associate the syllables with the letter note names I grew up with, and after that it was easy. I am now eager to try movable do (with chromatic alternations), partly for my own benefit, and partly in teaching a music theory and ear training class to non-musicians.
PS
ermm.. oops
I meant ‘Moveable Do Rules!’
I’m an amateur instrumental player (guitar) and I’ve only done a little voice / ear training by myself. I guess I learned solfa in the major scale at school and from The Sound of Music and had no idea there was a non-moveable way of singing, as you’ve described (I’m English). When I later tried to adapt this myself to accommodate other scales, it just seemed natural to me to invent altered syllables to ‘remind myself’ how notes should lie relative to more familiar tones – turns out this was close to how I later discovered chromatic solfa is sung. Now I am getting better at reaching the pitches I find I can more or less move around within different modes relative to a fixed tonal centre(do), and sing different triads and so on.
Now here’s the thing, it turns out I’m still a bit useless at harmonic progression, so after wandering around the scale relative to some Do for a while I sometime suddenly realise ‘do’ isn’t ‘do’ anymore – I’ve inadvertently modulated and settled into a new tonal centre (e.g. ‘so’). I feel it is only logical to then start naming the tonal centre at this pitch ‘do’ – of course I should be able to do this deliberately, but the point is there is a definite feeling of a tonal centre that you can associate with ‘do’, regardless of what mode you are singing in, and if the centre moves to a new pitch the names should shift too.
For what it is worth I recently opened up my version of Piston’s Harmony (barely used!)and he says there that the major / minor distinction is ‘not as distinct in usage as their two scales would seem to indicate…’ and ‘Change of mode from major to minor, or vice versa, does not affect tonality…’. Fixed Do Rules! Rock on Dudes!
In the contemporary Early Music scene, A=430, 415, 409, 392 Hz are variously used… this is because there was no ‘standard’ or ‘international’ A way back then, and this is reflected in antique instruments and their copies. Fixed do and absolute pitch would not have been preferred in such a world, would it?
But I write primarily to ask for recommendations for good books to learn movable do solfege, both for me and my 11 year old son who is starting voice lessons. Is ‘Solfege, Ear Training, Rhythm, Dictation, and Music Theory: A Comprehensive Course’ by Marta Árkossy Ghezzo a fixed or movable do book? Thanks.
Interesting topic. Even more interesting responses!
It seems to me that this article is merely pointing out the pros and cons of both systems. What I’m getting from both “sides” is that with fixed “do” the emphasis is on specific pitch, where as with movable the focus is on the interval.
As a comp teacher, I’m all for understanding intervals for the purposes of voice leading. It’s nothing short of imperative. However, with a movable system if I, as a composer, sing one song in F, then another in C, my original “do” becomes a “fa.” Being in music for as long as I have, I can take an educated guess as to how one should think that scenario out and make sense of it. But it’s not about me. It’s about the student. And they might leave the lesson confused, which is the antithesis of a teacher’s role in society.
There is no question that the identification of a particular pitch is equally important as the familiarity of two pitches sounding simultaneously. And although one discipline should not govern over the other, I firmly believe that the naming of pitches should take precedence over teaching the interval, and here’s why: the pitch takes far longer to develop in one’s mind than the distance between two of them. You even said yourself (regarding Mr. Tyrrell’s point on a movable system and modulation to new keys [not being easier]): “So, in other words: It’s harder. The mistake being made here is to think that this would ever be a quick or easy process.” I agree with that statement. But what I believe makes it “harder,” what makes it a 3+ year endeavor, is the lack of knowledge with pitches, not intervals. It becomes clear that this is a matter of choosing the shortest path to understanding how to read and perceive the note. Concentration on the lesson of pitch identity would make for a greater solution to the issue of sight-singing, not to mention the single most important tool for composers next to creativity itself: mind-singing. To be able to sit down with nothing more than a pencil and paper and compose a piece is one of the greatest dreams of composition students. Yet, it is rarely realised.
True, the characteristics of two pitches sounding is unique. However, the interval can be represented by a symbol or a number. In the mind’s eye, the pitch cannot. Giving a student the task of analysis you will find that by developing a relationship with each of the pitches, most (not all!) of their work is done. If one can recognise both a c# and F# the only thing left to do is simply count between. In fact, I submit that the teaching of intervals could be done away from the classroom, away from the keyboard or their instrument of choice and even away from any textbook for the very reason that it really is about counting. It may be studied much the same way that one learns the multiplication table; through association. Just as one is to remember that they should say “8″ when they are given “2×4,” the same student should envision “m6″ when they hear a given “C” played below an “Ab.” And if one is concerned that they might not know the quality of an interval because they were focusing on the notes as individual entities, this really that isn’t a factor because they already know the quality. They know this because they’ve been listening to music long before they came to class. They know what intervals sound like; music is peppered with them. If we are successful in our job to teach them to identify the notes they hear, they will have access to any and all intervals.
(Man, this comment thread is getting long!)
I think I see what’s going on now. Here’s what happened: When I originally wrote this post I was only vaguely aware of such a thing as DO-based minor, and didn’t understand how it works (lowering 3 to MA/ME, etc.). I had assumed that you just sing DO-MI as a minor third instead of a major third, which I’m sure you would agree would be less than ideal. I’ve realized since then that this isn’t how it works. Hopefully, this explains the mixup. So, I retract my statement that DO-based minor “defeats all of the benefits described above.”
Here’s what else is going on. You’re looking at solfa from a music theory point of view, and I look at it from an ear training point of view. I do value the use of solfa in teaching common practice harmony and voice leading, so don’t get me wrong, but this is a subsidiary use of solfa, which was in use as an ear training tool for a good 600 years before common practice harmony came about.
The purpose of solfa is primarily to learn intervalic relationships, regardless of I-V-I. It doesn’t treat the minor as a “subordinate modulation” or anything else. It just helps you learn the melodic tendencies of the scale degrees. When you say “each diatonic function is associated with one and only one syllable”, you’re missing the real point of solfa, and you’re clinging to the fallacy that DO has to be “1″.
I can’t elaborate anymore here, but if you’re interested in this and willing to look beyond what your theory teachers have taught you, you’ll find it very edifying to read up on the history of solfa and how it was used in the period between 1026, when it was invented and the Renaissance, when there was no such thing as I-V-I.
And, by the way, I wouldn’t quite say that I agree that DO-based minor is useful for advanced lessons. What I said was that, in addition to learning modes naturally by starting scales on different syllables, it is a useful exercise to also learn how to form them by chromatically altering syllables, as is done with DO-based minor. Sorry to split hairs, but it’s not quite the same to me.
Michael, when you said, “I’m aware that some advocate sticking with do as the first scale degree in minor, but that just defeats all of the benefits described above,” it seems clear to me from the context that you’re assuming that do-based minor is saddled with the same problem as fixed-do and Numbers in being unable to accommodate different interval qualities. My argument is that between a single major/minor relative pair, la-based minor is no different from fixed-do.
No, I don’t consider the minor scale to be a chromatically altered major scale, but what does that matter when it often behaves like one? And since the natural minor is taught with its harmonic and melodic equivalents from the very beginning, how is having to teach le and te any more complicated than teaching fi and si? If anything, it’s less confusing, because each diatonic function is associated with one and only one syllable.
Which leads to my next point. Even if the do-based minor does treat the minor as a chromatically altered major, the la-based minor does something far worse: it treats the minor as a subordinate modulation of its relative major, and creates a misleading association with it. This is counterproductive for understanding music theory. A ii6 chord in minor might sound like a vii6 in the relative major, but it behaves more like a ii6 in the parallel major.
Since you agree that do-based minor is useful for advanced lessons, perhaps our differences centre not on why each should be taught, but rather on when and for how long. I was taught using la-based minor and understand the benefits, but felt that these were outweighed by the drawbacks within the first week or two.
Bennett, I can’t find anything in my post or comments where I said that do-based minor is unable to deal with lowered scale degrees. Are you confusing DO-based minor with Fixed DO?
But, I do prefer LA-based minor. It probably warrants a whole additional post, but I’ll give you a thumbnail here. Would you consider a minor scale to be a chromatically altered major scale? I hope you agree that it is not; it is an independent, different scale. So, to treat it as that with solfa is misleading and unnecessarily confusing for students. It makes sense to teach chromatic alterations in a certain order, having students master them one at a time. Using something like MA (lowered 3 in major; probably ME for you) would require them to master some pretty complicated chromatic stuff before introducing the minor. Using LA as the tonic for the minor reinforces the intervals mastered during the study of the major. Going from “1″ to “3″ in the minor should not feel like a chromatic altaration.
Using MA (or ME) for lowered “3″ carries an implication of a tendency downward to “2″ which is not the case in a minor scale. Also, when it comes to the harmonic and melodic minor, the scale degrees that indeed are chromatically altered (“6″ and “7″) are treated appropriately in LA-based minor as FI and SI, which reinforces the student’s understanding of what’s happening in the music.
I must add that the presiding notion that DO is ALWAYS “1″ is a complete fallacy. In order to preserve the meaningful relationships between syllables (particularly MI-FA and TI-DO), ANY syllable can be considered to be the tonic. This makes it easy to master the modes, Dorian starting on RE, Lydian starting on FA, etc. Of course, later, as chromatics are addressed, it is a great exercise to do exactly what you endorse for the minor, which is to start on DO and become proficient in altering the appropriate syllables to form the modes.
Hello, you dismiss the do-based minor for being unable to deal with lowered scale degrees, but then in the very next paragraph you talk about how to deal with chromatics. Well, that’s exactly how the do-based minor works.
I’m surprised you prefer la-based minor, because the argument in favour of do-based minor is the same one which you use to defend movable-do over fixed-do: consistency and facilitated comprehension of music theory. For example, in the la-based minor, your augmented sixth is now fa-ri. But in the do-based minor, the raised fourth is still fi and always fi, just as it is in major. And isn’t that sort of consistency the exact reason you’re arguing for movable-do in the first place?