Most common in Europe and Asia is “fixed do.” In fixed- do systems, every note has a solfege syllable associated with it all the time, regardless of the key or scale. This system is most common in the United States and Canada, although it can be found in conservatories in other countries as well. For example, if we were in D Major (instead of C major like before), D would be sung as do, with E being sung as re, F# being sung as mi, and so on. In a movable- do system, the note to which assign the syllable do is the main note, or “tonic,” of the key and scale that we’re in. There are two kinds of solfege systems: “fixed do” and “movable do”. That means that any C we sing is always sung on the syllable do – the same goes for the other notes and their syllables. In other octaves – for example, an octave above or below – the solfege syllables stay the same. The whole scale looks like this in solfege: If we were to sing this major scale on solfege, the C would always be sung as do, the D would always be sung as re, and so on. A C Major scale, for example, is made up of these seven notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, and B (often continuing on to a C an octave above the first one).

A major or a minor scale (the most common scales in Western classical music) has seven notes, and so the solfege system has seven basic syllables: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti. Solfege, also called “ solfeggio” or “ solfa,” is a system where every note of a scale is given its own unique syllable, which is used to sing that note every time it appears. Solfege is used in conservatories and schools all over the world to teach music students to sing and hear effectively. Many musicians use a system called “solfege” to make the task of singing and understanding melodic lines a little bit easier. Have you ever tried to sing a melody to which you didn’t know the words, or that had no words? You probably used a syllable like “la,” “da,” or “ma” for every pitch we call these “neutral syllables,” and while they can be useful, they can also make it pretty tricky to sing melodies correctly.

B flat major solfege