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2009.05.21 - Tonic Sol-fa 2 (Movable Do)

In the previous post, I introduced tonic sol-fa, a musical system invented in 19th century England. It's an amended version of the preceeding Do Re Mi.. system.

What's new in tonic sol-fa versus the older Italian system is that we now have a name for each and every note, including sharpened and flattened notes. (The sharpened Do is Di, etc.)

There's another new feature in tonic-sol-fa. You can move your Do to anywhere you like and rebuild the whole system from there. For example, you can say your Do is now on Eb and your tonic sol-fa system will be based on that note, Eb.


Tonic Solfa in Eb

If Eb is the new Do, then your Re will be on F, because the interval between Do and Re is major 2nd (or a whole step, or two semi-tones). Likewise, Mi will be G, again because Mi and Re are supposed to be separated by two semi-tones. And you can carry on the universal rule of tonic sol-fa: sharpened and flattened notes also hold a name.

Therefore, E natural, which is a half step higher than Eb, is Di or Ra. In the same way, F#, which is a semi-tone away from F, is either Ri or Me.

By the way, whether you want to call the E natural Di or Ra will depend on the context. I'll need another page to explain this fully, but basically it has to do with harmonic analysis: you decide whether to name it Di or Ra after finding out what the note is doing in relation to the chord and the key of the moment.

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