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Music History
Your friend and mine: Solfege
What is solfege?

System for naming the notes in the scale(s)
 Each note gets a solfege syllable
 “Do” corresponds to the key note of the scale
Where did solfege come from?
 11th
century monk and music theorist
Guido of Arezzo
 Guido invented this system in order to
teach sight singing and help monks
remember the pattern of whole steps and
half steps in an octave
 Syllables came from a well-known Latin
hymn, Ut queant laxis

Original syllables were ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la
Guidonian Hand

Followers of Guido
were taught a
pedagogical aid to
help them sing
intervals accurately
 Pupils were taught to
sing intervals as the
teacher pointed to the
locations on the left
hand
Modern Solfege
 Used
primarily in music education as a
method for teaching sight singing and
interval relationships
 Further developed by Hungarian
composer Zoltan Kodaly and his follower
John Curwen, who brought us the modern
hand signs