Solfege: The Difference Between Fixed Do and Movable Do Systems

Solfège, also known as solfeggio or sol-fa, is a music education method used to teach pitch, sight-reading, and aural skills in Western music. It involves assigning syllables to the notes of a scale, which enables a musician to mentally hear the pitches of a piece of music and sing them aloud.

There are two main ways to apply solfège: fixed do and movable do. In fixed do, syllables are always tied to specific pitches, while in movable do, syllables are assigned to scale degrees.

The origins of solfège date back to eleventh-century Italy, where Guido of Arezzo invented a notational system that named the six notes of the hexachord after the first syllable of each line of the Latin hymn "Ut queant laxis". This yielded ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, which eventually evolved into the seven syllables commonly used in English-speaking countries: do, re, mi, fa, so(l), la, and ti.

Movable do is commonly used in English-speaking countries, as well as in Hungary where it is a fundamental element of the Kodály method. Fixed do is used in Romance and Slavic countries, where the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si are used to name notes.

While there are differences between the two systems, both are still used today for sight-reading training and music education.

Fixed Do means that the names of the notes stay the same, regardless of the key that the music is in. In this system, the note C is always called Do, no matter what key the music is in. Some musicians prefer fixed Do for complex music that uses many different keys, because it allows them to think about the notes more abstractly, without getting confused by changing names.

However, musicians who learn with fixed Do may have difficulty playing music written for transposing instruments, like clarinets in B-flat or French horns. This is because the notes written on the page don't always match the actual sound that comes out of the instrument, and musicians need to be able to figure out the function of each note in the key that the ensemble is playing in. Musicians who learn with movable Do may have an easier time with this, because they are used to thinking about the relationship between notes within a key.

If you are a beginner, playing by note can be difficult. It is easier to follow color-coded circles with note letters.
This book was written to help the absolute beginner, whether child or adult learn to play in a simple and easy way that requires no knowledge of reading music, and learn to read music notes along the way.