Welcome back to Between the Barlines! You’re in for a very special episode today because it’s Music Theory Friday! Today we are going to wrap up important theory practices in the medieval era of music. These practices have helped shape how we teach and learn to sight read today. 

As I mentioned a few episodes ago, there was a really cool dude named Guido of Arezzo who was a responsible party for helping to create our modern day staff. I also mentioned that he was responsible for another key part in music theory’s history, and that is primarily to do with the concept of sight reading. We have all probably heard of the solfege or solfeggio system; most notably, there is a song called “Do-Re-Mi” that is sung in the Sound of Music by Julie Andrews as the character Maria. The syllables are do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do. This is very much a modernized version of what our friend Guido of Arezzo was credited with creating back in the 11th century. Scholars still are not sure if it was actually his creation, or if it was just credited to him because of his work in solmization syllables. Solmization in that time was similar to today’s solfege device, but instead of “do” being the first syllable, “ut” replaced that. There also was no usage of “ti” or the final half step of this device.

In order to facilitate fluency in using this device, the Guidonian Hand was a mnemonic device created for this purpose. The Guidonian Hand is a way of using the different knuckles to represent different pitches within the diatonic scale. Burkholder states that “the notes are laid out in a counterclockwise spiral, beginning with the lowest note at the tip of the thumb, moving down the thumb, across the base of each finger, up the little finger, across the tips, down the index finger, and around the middle points, then to the back knuckle of the middle finger. With all of this being said, it is a device that is definitely more visually understood than aurally, so I have included a visual of this device in the episode notes as well as a link to a video of a professor named William Mahrt utilizing the method on his own hand.

Since the creation of the Guidonian Hand, the solfege system has undergone several revamps in the last 800 years, as you can imagine, and the systems that come out on top in our aural skills classes and music education courses are solfege and the Kodaly method. Solfege or solfeggio is basically what was just stated, but now we recognize it as a way or method of teaching tones and pitches through ear training with the help of vocal exercises. Our modern day solfege switches out “ut” for “do” and also adds “ti,” or the final half step in the scale, to the mix. The syllables are do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do. These syllables are used by musicians to audiate, vocalize, and picture where pitches are in the scheme of things. An overlapping method that you might remember from music class in elementary school is the Kodaly method. In the Kodaly method, hand symbols represent these pitches as the musician moves through the scale.  When using this method, one should also raise or lower their hands in sync with the notes they sing. What’s cool about this, is that musicians can create a mind/body connections within the pitch space!

These syllables are mostly used in two different ways in the academic setting; these methods are called moveable do and fixed do. In our last music theory friday episode, I was referring to scale degrees when talking about modes; this is similar to using moveable do in that whatever the tonic of the scale is, we start our solfege scale there (scale degree 1, do, start of the scale of the key that one is currently in.) However, when we used fixed do, the syllable do is ALWAYS C. C natural, C sharp, C flat, C double flat, they are ALL “do.” Using either of these methods to sight read can be very helpful providing that you have a strong foundation utilizing the method within the scale.

I am really excited for the next few episodes because we are nearing the end of the middle ages and medieval era in music. We will start to talk about dance music and polyphony in the next few episodes until we finally reach the renaissance. I look forward to talking about these subjects next week with you on Between the Barlines. See you then!