167: Solfeggio Panel (Baragwanath, Gjerdingen, IJzerman, van Tour)
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
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0:00 Intro
0:36 Start
1:19 Guest Introductions
6:30 How did each of you get interested into solfeggio?
18:24 What's the difference between this solfeggio and the solfege practiced in modern conservatories?
26:12 Solfeggio in the classroom
36:40 Do I need to sing solfeggio to be good at realizing partimenti?
48:07 Q&A: What's the main purpose of hexachordal solfeggio? Why can't we use fixed do? Why did it change in history? Is it necessary today?
51:43 Q&A: Why didn't the students in Professor IJzerman's class use hexachordal solfeggio in a previous video?
54:12 Q&A: Advice for applying solfeggio in the short 30min lessons
58:57 Q&A: Using hexachordal solfeggio to analyze Bach
1:02:07 Did Bach know hexachordal solfeggio?
1:04:52 Q&A: What are the fundamental elements of this historical pedagogy that are best suited for a theory class?
1:10:49 Solfege example from Edoaurd Batiste (+50 variations)
1:13:20 Q&A: Should we be focusing more on solfeggio instead of partimento, since that was the case historically?
1:15:18 Final comment on hexachordal solfeggio's applicability today
1:19:56 Wrapping Up
1:20:24 Outro
I'm humbled by this panel. I learned how to sing in church. The worse I sang, the more my brothers would laugh, and they'd get into trouble. Choir classes were mandatory until 2nd year of Secondary School. From 3rd grade of Primary School, the teachers told me to move my lips and not make a noise. I laughed and said I was born with two left ears.
I did try at University to develop a stage voice at the bequest of my opera singing friend since he wanted to use me in his student directed plays. I signed up for Beginning Singing. It was summer semester so the campus was more laid back. The soprano for the opera had just had a baby and she was sleeping in a crib next to the piano. The professor said we'd start with a 16th century Italian piece. I said I didn't sing. She said that we'd sing a Renaissance piece. I said I didn't sing. So she asked me what I sang. I said I didn't sing, and didn't know. So she played notes and asked me to sing them back. Low, middle, high...middle, low, middle.
She then asked me if it wasn't too late to be refunded for the class. It was. I had to go back for the second lesson. She apologized and tried to teach me the fundamentals of projecting my voice and feeling the pitch in the nasal area. But I was devastated and didn't make any progress.
I started piano at 65 yoa, like my Mother. I learned about the Rule of the Octave from Gareth Greene at Music Matters last October. And I've become your nerdy groupy. I do practice singing the notes on the parts of the octave using a pitch monitoring software.
Is it too late to be refunded for the software?
This was a really engrossing and stimulating discussion. Thank you!
Thank you so much for the effort put in all your interviews and particularly in this superheroes meeting!
You're most welcome, thank you for listening!
I watched the whole interview and I'm amazed with this topic and with knowledge of all pannelists, but I must say I'm little bit dissapointed with prof. Baragwanath last words - I think we definitely NEED those kind of musicians today, it's the whole point of this partimento/solfeggio revolution.
I think we need a little bit more of Barry Harris attitude, going stubbornly and passionately in one direction.
Thank you Nikhil so much for all your work and passion! ❤
Thank you for watching!
I'm just a self-taught beginner, but I first began to put together how actually useful this approach was when I was learning some 'vocal exercises' from the Italian composer and teacher, Nicola Vaccai. Check out his first vocal lesson for a beginner. You can find many versions of it on youtube.
Here's one: ua-cam.com/video/1E6LT5ifyNk/v-deo.html
Analyzed using a typical approach, it may not be clear what this lesson is about, but when considered in terms of hexachordal solfege, it becomes very obvious:
a b c# d e f#
DO RE MI FA SO LA,
(straight up the natural hexachord
- teach the student the hexachord)
b c# d# e f# g
SO RE MI FA, MI FA
(mutate to the hard hexachord, starting on its fifth,
then the soft hexachord starting on its third
- teach the student that mi-fa is always the half step
and to mutate the hexachords to fit)
b a g f# e d
LA SO FA MI RE DO,
(straight down the soft hexachord)
f# e d c# b a
LA SO FA MI RE DO
(straight down the natural hexachord to complete the scale)
a b c# d e f#
DO RE MI FA SO, RE
(back up the natural hexachord, this time mutate to the hard hexachord
at its tonic)
g# a b b c#
MI FA SO SO LA
(the rest of the way up the hard hexachord to complete the scale,
doubling the fifth to make a nicer phrase)
c# b a g#
LA SO FA MI,
(come down the hard hexachord, mutate to the natural hexachord)
f# e d c# b b a
LA SO FA MI RE RE DO
(come all the way down the natural hexachord to complete the scale
doubling up on the second to make a nicer phrase)
Now this is a nice sounding little piece of music - it's a scale exercise, but it's a *musical* scale exercise, something that many music exercises fail at rather badly, and yet, it manages to accomplish this while consisting of little more than simple walks up and down the natural, hard, and soft hexachords.
It's a tiny little masterclass in how to write melodically, an introduction to using hexachordal solfege, a whole set of lessons about where the tonic, subdominant, and dominant are located and used, and how motives can be repeated at these points, and a singing lesson all in one. :)
On that last note, it's probably worth mentioning one of the things I don't hear stated very often about the benefit of hexachordal solfege, is that it is a practice that was developed when vocal (not instrumental) music was predominate, and that while it can be used to cover any set of intervals (as Vaccai's further exercises do), it is oriented toward and works very well for teaching vocal phrasing, and how to work around the natural breaks in the voice.
I should repeat that I am just a self-taught beginner, so if anyone has corrections/alternatives to the above, or additional examples, I would love to get your feedback. I posted this, not because I think myself expert enough, but precisely because I suffered mightily when trying to figure this stuff out, due to a real lack of simple examples, so I thought I would put one out there. It seems that there is little material nowadays that teaches this from the ground up, and all the really old material simply assumes you already know things so basic. :)
Great comment! "When Vaccai turned twenty one, he went to Naples and became a disciple of Paisiello"
@StephenJamesBell I am studying solmization too. I would like to discuss this passage you pointed out: b - c# - d# - e - f# - g (as being SO RE MI FA, MI FA). Can one sing this passage as MI FA SOL LA, MI FA? I understand this passage as the standard tetrachord (Lamento Bass) inverted, going up from MI to LA but having the notes FA and SOL sharpened. As minor passages bear the schemata RE MI FA and RE FA LA I think it fits better. What do you think?
@@millennial8441 That's an interesting question, and one I wish I were expert enough to answer with confidence. I hope to soon take a course in hexachordal solfege that will put me on firmer ground and if I come up with a definitive answer, I will try to return here to provide it. In the interim, I think I can state with some confidence that this form of solmization doesn't always lead to a singular way of solmizing a phrase, so there can be more than one correct representation. With a bit less confidence I think I can state that it was not nearly so common in this practice period to alter notes than it was to mutate hexachords, and given that this was a very gentle, introductory piece, I think it is fairly likely that Vaccai was introducing hexachord mutation.
Thanks for reply.
Thank you Nikhil!
You're welcome!
Wonderful show, Nikhil ! Love the comment by Prof. Gjerdingen (later stressed by Prof. Baragwanath) of starting "small" and building up skills gradually. Baragwanath mentioned an awesome course he termed "Pastiche" composition. ....
Thank you for watching!
@@NikhilHoganShow Thank you, Nikhil !
I LOVED THIS !!! Thank you for getting these four wonderful teachers and scholars together for our benefit. It was great to learn from their individual perspectives. I guess the bottom line is that partimento is more useful nowadays than hexachordal solfeggio but hexachordal solfeggio helps you to understand music and musicians from earlier periods. 👏👏👏👏👏👏
You're welcome! Personally I'm an enormous fan of the hexachordal approach and want to see it become popular again.
If someone could teach me how to improvise counterpoint through singing in hexachordal solfeggio then I would change my mind about its value for contemporary musicians. I don’t think that any of these great teachers have figured out how to do that. Or maybe it just takes years of intensive study.
Hi Angela, Your ambivalence over the usefulness of hexachordal solmization for modern musicians has stimulated a response. Hear me out. I think that hexachordal solfeggio can relinquish its secrets at the keyboard more readily for students who don't have occasion to sing "super librum” in a group, which is more often the case. Unfortunately, this presupposes a facility in counterpoint. Ironically, terachordal/hexachordal singing is so fundamental to counterpoint, that one can learn counterpoint through it rather than “using it” to “make” counterpoint.
Only today, I had a student play a bass from Heinichen in 4 voices while singing the soprano with syllables. I then wrote the syllables they had just sung over HALF the bass, and they then played the bass only, and sang the syllables, improvising the 2nd half of the melody - in the same style. Next, the same syllables with diminution, inganni, (I give different accompaniments to motivate passaggi), etc. The ear is governing this process, by a mixture of memory (the known bass line) and anticipation of a given set of possibilities. This is after 6 months of gradually incorporating solmization and improvisation into their studies, which with previous teachers had been the “memorize piano repertoire and sing fixed-Do” approach.
My point is that 18thC solfeggio as presented in Prof. Baragwanath's analysis has the potential to expand horizontal melodic awareness while providing a vocabulary in an already familiar style. Counterpoint is the language spoken with this vocabulary (syllable groups, affinities, and mutation points). But, once they are “speaking”, they can learn different vocabulary by building on familiar voice-leading idioms, with for instance Bertalotti or Cerone (pick a tradition), according to their capacity for hearing.
For example, one can eventually test-drive the “Expositio Manus” of Tinctoris and acquire many more mutation points in the context of a given mode. At this stage, style is not important for the training in counterpoint of 21stC ears, insofar as the language is a consistent handle on the material manipulated in the mind. In essence, there is nothing more important for modern musicians, whose context is, a priori, determined by conventions whose causes are obscure to them. Bonne chance!
Great comment! 👏
Putting down my new lute (a solfeggio siren).....If this is how Wagner came to understand harmony, and Palestrina, the question is not "who is it for?", but "Where are the simple, painless methods?" a teenager would enjoy, or a retiree. The idea we don't have the time anymore....we have UA-cam. We can rewind. What we need are a corp of inspired presenters to lead the plebs in re-enlightenment. Thank You, Heros of Music and interview Maestro! I pinch myself!
Thank you so much for listening, I really appreciate it!
Wagner practiced solfege?
@@willbrooksy478 no idea about his solfege training, but he studied harmony and counterpoint with Theodore Weinlig, student of Stanislao Mattei, who was a student of Padre Martini.
This podcast is worth gold
🙏
Que emoción ❤🎉😊
🙏
This was a great talk, wonderful panelists! I am of the opinion that there is no reason to completely reject one system for another or to become excessively dogmatic about practices especially in regards to our own musical education. I don't think there is a perfect system to describe music, otherwise nothing would have ever changed. I think it is wisest to use a system in so far as it helps. When I practice the rule of the octave thinking in terms of tonic, dominant and subdominants works for me. In sequential patterns I don't think functionaly until the cadence is approached. When I am working on imitative counterpoint in Fux I try to keep track of the positioning of mi-fa relationships in the appearance of the subject so as to adhere to that character. Everything is out there for us to use in whatever way helps us to understand something which is by it's nature very difficult to express completely in verbal terms.
You're definitely right about certain tools being better for different styles. I find for old Church music, it's hard to beat the old systems of hexachordal Solfeggio and partimento. Blending it with modern methods makes it confusing for me!
@@NikhilHoganShow Early church music is modal and functional harmony is completely useless there because the functions are different for each mode, but in music that floats around the major/minor modes where it is easy I think that thinking in terms of Tonic and Dominant relationships, is helpful. However, any moment where I am not sure what something is there is no point to holding on to the system because the music itself probably doesn't care either. That's just me, and compared to all of these musicians you interview I am less than a beginner. I take a lot from this channel and look for ways to incorporate it into my practicing.
The reduction of Bach’s example contains parallel octaves (bar 3, beats 2 and 3). I mean, I know it’s just a reduction to support the solfeggio method but…🤷♀️
Mesure 6 as well. I didn't read his book, which could shed light on the appropriateness of this writing even having this issues involved
I'll ask in the next interview but my guess is what you said, that it's mainly a melodic reduction for analysis.
Very interesting discussion. As someone who has had close to 10 years of formal training in harmony, counterpoint, and fugue and 5 years of training in old-style solfeggio (using old French solfeggio books), as well as having recently written a harmony manual that combines the schema approach with "modern" theory (Roman numerals and chord inversions), I would like to defend both Roman numerals and fixed-do solfeggio. Starting from the latter, I agree with Prof. IJzerman that solfeggio is primarily about pitch relations. However, it is perfectly possible when using the fixed-do method to have the local tonal center in mind and “feel” the relation of each note to the local tonic when singing. If this is done, moveable do looks like an unnecessary complication. Regarding Roman numerals, they are not just “labeling” but are closely connected to the theory of chord roots and inversions, which in my opinion is the best harmonic theory we have for teaching purposes, as it helps the student make sense of and remember the material in the simplest possible way.
I would also like to say that for those who are not primarily interested in investigating old methods but simply want to compose convincingly in a 18th- or 19th-century style, I believe that the fastest and best results can be achieved by combining the schema approach with modern theory. The general lack of skills that is a characteristic of our times is not due to any defect of modern theory but rather to the lack of good teachers and practice. I fear that the obsession of many proponents of the partimento movement with 18th-century theoretical concepts and methods, which clash with modern ones, may well prevent this new laudable movement from ever really taking off.
exactly .
I'll just make a quick comment about the issue of Roman numeral analysis. I am someone who is pretty well versed in it and can clearly see its limitations and serious problems with 18th century music and earlier. I could even argue that much of early 19th century music fits perfectly with partimento, as does it does with Debussy and Ravel or anyone from the Paris conservatory. Let me share this playlist of excerpts of past interviews critiquing Roman numeral analysis, as well and function theory:
ua-cam.com/play/PLXgZOmjds9Ek9NwSf67bdSfeXBzqM-nvy.html
@@NikhilHoganShow I'm in the figured bass camp with you, but I think there's some use for Roman numeral analysis. The problem with Roman numeral analysis is that it has an underlying "theory" of the fundamental bass. What's astonishing is that this theory is actually very good and explains around 90% of the music Bach wrote. HOWEVER - it doesn't admit that bass functionality exists i.e. chords that have the same bass are "equivalent" (e.g. on scale degree 6 the 5/3 and 6/3 chord have the same function, which is where you get the progression from V to IV6 which is somewhat common, even though it "goes in the wrong direction").
But theoretical purity should be of no concern to the practicing musician, and it simplifies things considerably if we take the attitude that "the theory of the fundamental bass is quite good, and usually works, but there are exceptions because tonality is an evolving tradition".
I learned about some of the limitations described above by sending an email to Dmitri Tymoczko at Princeton who was generous in replying to me, but he pointed me to a book that's about to come out: "Tonality: An Owner's Manual". There are excerpts of the book available online. Professor Tymoczko has written a defence of Roman Numeral analysis against the new historicist Schema theory of Gjerdingen et al.
It would be interesting to hear a discussion of Roman numeral analysis here, but I believe a defence of it will be available once the book is released in a month or two if you're interested.
Well said. I also don't think that partimenti, figured bass, and functional analysis are enemies. For example, when analyzing a piece, now it's easier for me to recognise and name "Quiescenza" rather than "dominant to subdominant in the tonic organ point". But essentially, I'm describing the same phenomenon with different words. I agree that the best results can be achieved by combining them.
BTW, you mentioned a harmony manual that combines schemata with modern theory. Is there a chance to find this textbook somewhere? Thanks
@@NikhilHoganShow For example, Tchaikovsky wrote a textbook on traditional harmony using functions, chord inversions etc. Does that mean his music can be analysed using Roman numerals? Or should one look for partimento tradition there, even though the composer probably didn't know about it? (By the way, in his music, there are some schemas, but that's more of a common occurrence for Romantic composers.)
The conflict between figured bass and functional theory happens in almost every discussion on this topic. Nikhil, it would be great to organise a panel discussion between the proponents of these approaches😀
❤❤❤
🙏🙏🙏
You might like to invite Florian Birsak, here from Salzburg and interview the students of Harnoncourt. I don’t want to devalue Gjerdingens work, but i guess these ideas were already circulating in austrian music theory, i feel like at home. What i find new is the level of organization and didactic focusing on one style and in a practical sense, in This sense Gjerdingers book looks like a paradigm shift. But stilistical books were already famous at least in german: for example Thomas Daniel and De La Motte wrote didactic books on Bach and Palestrina . However, mostly exercises. De La Motte, still, has a book on harmony that can be used in a very practical manner, and it supposed to be combined with figured bass praxis. Figured bass praxis is also nothing new for organists; the universities that employed organists in to teach harmony and piano cultivated these traditions. The schemes are always given anyway, only the names and focus i find something new. It is true that Charles Rosen wrote about the classical style, but in american theory this keyboard praxis was missing in the classical scene, despite being at its fullest in the jazz scene. Gjerdingen helped to fill hole. But what i feel is that the american-english reception fails to understand the importance of function and its integration with the figured bass didactic paradigm . A closer look into Rheinbergerˋs education help in this direction. De La Motte ˋs students give equal importance to figured bass , schemes and function : Hans Joaquin Reutter, my former teacher, and probably others.
Harmonic functions can't teach you very much. What is the best method for someone who wants to be a part of classical tradition is practical stuff like partimento, old solfeggio, practical counterpoint and of course listening and imitation of old masters.
@@bornaerceg9984 How can you describe the sonata form without harmonic functions? or a periode? It teached me a lot. ANd others. I guess you ignore everything said above. ; )
@@LearnCompositionOnline If you want to compose and improvise you need more listening/observing/imitating old masters then all that theory.
@@bornaerceg9984 can you describe the sonata form without harmonic functions?
@@LearnCompositionOnline if you learn for example so called "Rule of the Octave", you dont need to know that chord on 2. note of a scale is inversion of dominant. That knowledge is not wrong per se, but its not very practical and useful, especially if you work with children.
As a musician trained with the fixed do system I never understood the people who are obsessed with the exact frequencies of the current tuning system. They make a big deal when they hear 430hz or something different. 12 tone equal temperament wasn’t sent by God or discovered in the nature. It’s just arbitrary and historical. It could’ve easily been a system with different frequencies or unequal temperament like in some other cultures. Focusing too much on some arbitrary frequencies and syllables is missing the point.
A lot of things really went out of whack in the 19th and 20th century!
How would music which treats all keys equally work without equal temperament?
A++
Tuition for Berklee School of Music for Composition or Performance is approximately $45,000 U.S. which teaches useless roman numerals and useless moveable do.
This video contains more useful content than their entire music theory sequence therefore is worth approximately the same amount. In cash.
Imagine a 4-year college course of intense hexachordal solfeggio, partimento, schema, and counterpoint: would be amazing!
@@NikhilHoganShow Split the curriculum to place music theory & composition & audiation under the Physics Department and relegate the Performance studies to the Kinesiology department as playing for stage is a near-Olympic-level athletic activity. Then perhaps the false mythologies and false methods continually defended under the term of "art" can slowly evaporate once and for all.
I would like to know any of the panelists' opinions on the musicology work of Dmitri Tymoczko, in "A Geometry of Music" where he attempts to "prove" tonal-function-theory and harmony-root-analysis by geometry and math and pitch classes. I would guess that Gjerdingen might not think it is a valid approach (i.e. Palestrina, etc, which Tymoczko analyzes, used schemata/sequences and partimento, not topographical-mathematics, when writing music, and it is far simpler to understand the music and write similar music by simply using partimento, compared to trying to use Nth-dimensional-mathematics).
@@NikhilHoganShowit is what i did, but 7
19:32 Prof. IJzerman hates “fixed do” system as it doesn’t have any musical meaning 😂
Well, it is absolutely the same meaning as “a, b, c” but easier to sing, that’s it 😊
You can still use guidonian syllables in Italian Solfeggio, but now they will have powerful contrapuntal and schematic implications!
1:01:00 la so fa, his fa sounds above la, and etc. I hope his income is paying well to afford some practice time in his own expertise
"La so fa, his fa sounds above la"
It's the semitone fa above la (fa sopra la) in the Bb hexachord.
@@NikhilHoganShow Ok, than he tried something that maybe was not clearly explained for the majority of the audience. I talk from the point of view of solfeggio do-re-mi-f-a-sol-la-si meaning c-d-e-f-g-a-b . because other notes he singed according to this way. Is there utility in thinking a semi-tone between la and fa? Maybe good question for the next podcast. The another good question is how to conceptualize form of dramatic works without the concept of function, how to explain a simple romantic prelude for organ, and to define the criticized concept of function. Success there!
Hahaha man your criticism to partimento and solfeggio are always funny, you probably only read Gjerdingen’s Music in the Galant style. What about reading other authors? And you don’t need to focus on North American authors, what about Holtmeier, Johannes Menke, Felix Diergarten to stay in your loved German speaking countries…. And before trying to blame solmization it’s better to learn the the basics, try to inform yourself ;) otherwise you sounds like a charlatan. You don’t need to go far, to North America, to see how partimento is being used. take a train from Salzburg to Basel or Freiburg for instance… Or even next year to Wien (oh!) mdw partimento conference…
@@robertocornacchionialegre which is my criticism of partimento and solfeggio? And where did I blame solmization? YOu know so much about me, thanks for the attention
@@LearnCompositionOnline well, I visited your channel and partimento trap video :)
This is still very frustrating. I have been devoted to figure bass for fifty years. The introduction of partimento is a great event. BUT WHERE IS TUNING THEORY. I have vast amounts of material for this breakthrough, I am not yet published. However, I have a pre-cultural, pre-historical axiomatic approach to what creates a musical system, a scale system, or different tuning systems. Without this, the throwing around of names of notes is as ill-founded as the use of Roman numerals are, Wake up,
Hello. What would the most suitable solfeggio resources for use in partimenti realisations? Are they available online? Thanks.
Go to partimenti dot org and check out the solfeggi section, lots of good stuff for free there. You might want to join Art of Solfeggio on Facebook too.