Getting your child interested in music at an early age can have great learning benefits. Certainly, parents who love music and are musicians themselves love to expose their children to the music they enjoy in hopes their child pursues a musical future of some kind, whether it’s just learning an instrument or eventually making it a career. We typically start with learning pitches and rhythms at home and in school, but these techniques need to be continually reinforced to encourage musical growth.
What is Solfege?
A great way to start your child early in learning pitches and memorizing songs is with a method called Solfege, and chances are you’re already a little familiar with it. “Do a deer, a female deer.” Yes, that’s right… the movie “The Sound of Music” really brought Solfege into popular culture and children everywhere were soon singing “Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do.” The name itself came from the syllables So and Fa. Now you recognize it but what really is Solfege?
Solfege is a method to teach pitches by assigning syllables to different notes. Every note in a scale is given its own unique syllable and then the syllable is sung (and sometimes written down) when the note comes up. This reinforces the association of that syllable to the note and eventually results in memorization of that pitch. The advantage to Solfege is that syllables are easier to sing than letters; therefore, it’s easier for your child to pick up and internalize.
Notice that the syllables start with Do and also end in Do. This is because in a major or minor scale, there are seven notes with the eighth being the same note as the starting note but just an octave higher. You may often see a Solfege teacher make hand signs for each syllable as well. We won’t cover that here but know that these hand signs help with the development of sight-singing, which often goes along with Solfege.
Two Types
Before you start, you need to understand the two types of Solfege and which one to use in your child’s learning process. The type you choose is often determined by the skill you’re looking to help your child develop and whether perfect pitch or relative pitch are important to you.
Fixed Do
In this method, Do is always the note C, Re is always D, and so forth. Parents hoping to develop their child’s perfect pitch skills would do better with this method. It’s a little easier in that you also don’t need to know the key the music is in because Do is always C.
Movable Do
Here, DO is always the tonic (root) note of that major scale. For example, in a D major scale, Do is D. In a G major scale, Do is G. Of course, you do need to know the key that you are in, but it does have its advantages. Movable Do is great for teaching relative pitch, which is being able to identify the interval between two notes.
Typically, you would compare a note to the root in that scale and identify the distance between them. Exact pitches are not important but since the relationship of each syllable is always the same, you can learn relative distance between notes regardless of what the key is. For example, the interval between DO and Mi is always a major 3rd. Later, having learned Movable Do and relative pitch will be helpful in developing and discerning harmonies and voice leading.
Minor and Other Keys
Solfege applies easiest to major keys, but you can use it with minor keys as well. In these situations, when the note is raised or lowered by a semi-tone, the vowel sound of the syllable is changed accordingly. We won’t get into this here, as it is an advanced concept but know that there are conventions for using Solfege with these keys and you should seek out this info after you have gotten into it a little deeper.
Advantages of Your Child Learning Solfege
Solfege is an excellent way to teach children the different pitches and the earlier you expose them to music, the better the imprint. They are already at the point of trying to make sense of sounds and this helps stimulate the linguistic synapses in their brain, which in turn tells the brain that it should maintain these learning pathways.
In addition…
- Solfege helps your child recognize patterns in music by becoming familiar with the individual notes.
- When your child begins to create their own songs, they will already have the pitch foundations to create rudimentary melodies and maybe even add their own lyrics
- They help teach perfect and relative pitch although which one they learn depends on whether they experience Fixed Do or Movable Do.
- They can develop a better ability to recall melodies and even create some of their own.
- If they become a musician later in life, it will help with sight-reading and sight-singing skills, as well as helping with transcriptions.
- It’s a great primer for musical theory.
How Should I Start My Child on Solfege?
You can start by finding dedicated Solfege songs and singing along with the songs to get them engaged. For infants, you can bounce and dance them along to the rhythm of the music while singing. For toddlers, if they can sing along, encourage them to do so. There is no harm in playing your baby Solfege songs, but these methods will be most effective after your child has reached the toddler stage and can understand and repeat syllables while joining along with humming or singing for better imprinting.
Here are some other methods of getting started:
- Play simple music they enjoy and see if they can associate the melody notes with the syllables.
- With your child, use flash cards to have them sing the note as you reveal the card to them. This will also help with letter recognition.
- As we all know, children respond well to colors so assign a color to each pitch/syllable and have them color a series of musical notes on paper. Then, practice choosing the syllables by color. You can even put colored stickers on your piano keys and have them learn the melodies that way.
- Create games to reinforce the syllables and pitches. Solfege twister with cutout laminated cards with the syllables written on them. Stick with the color schemes you have already created to represent these cards. Create Solfege cards to play Concentration so they can pick out the syllables by text and color. Then have them sing the note that corresponds to each syllable as they find a pair. How about The Floor Is Lava, where they must jump from card to card, but must first sing the note or say the syllable before being able to jump? There really are limitless possibilities for games here, and there are many other great suggestions on the internet as well.
Solfege is a Great Musical Start For Your Child
We hope your eyes didn’t glaze over with all this info! Determining where to begin your child’s musical education can be confusing, especially if you’re not musically trained yourself. The best thing about Solfege is that it’s a great way to interact with your child and teach them a valuable musical foundation while enjoying bonding activities like singing and playing games. And who knows…you may just end up with the next Mozart!
Hilda Baer
This is very clearly expressed and easy to follow.