Solfege ear training system

dean111music

Hi

As my ear is not great, it needs a lot of work i have been reading and working on the the Solfege system. 
Do- Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La - Ti - Do

Training the ear question.

If i was singing Happy Birthday, to keep it simple, in the key of A Major. (A, B C" D E F" G" A)

Happy Birthday starts on the 5th of A which is E.

Would you think of this as Do or Sol.

It make sense in my head to start on Sol but would like to know the correct way.



Also if I'm singing a melody. Say the chords go A major to D major. Key Centre would be A again.

In both chords there is an A note. A in the R of A (Do) A is the 5th of D (Sol)

Again which would be correct.

Logically in my head when the chords change I would sing the interval name (Do Re Mi etc) of that particular chord. 

I'm hoping the end result is after doing that i will be able to hear a melody and really hear the sound of the interval against a chord.

viz

The E is Sol. Do-Re-Mi are related to the Key, not to the chords. When you change chord from I to IV, you're not actually changing key so the E is still Sol throughout happy birthday. It's only if the piece actually modulates to a new key that the do-re-mi are reset.

listen to Doe a Deer from the sound of music. The chords are constantly shifting but the key stays constant and the notes climb up the scale going through each do-re-mi, one by one. 

Grunfeld

Sol
"Happy Birthday" is a nasty little song designed to make the under-rehearsed look like idiots.  (Ask me how I know.)
What I mean is that if you're playing it in A, and you hit that A chord, your singer (well, my singer), will unerringly head for the note A to start his rendition and, as has been said, he should be going for a different note entirely.  I know that can be seen as a problem with the singer rather than the song but "Happy Birthday" is a bit unusual in starting on that note of the scale.
These days we just give a shout out over the mic to the birthday person rather than attempt to play it and embarrass ourselves.

viz

^ yes, you need the pianist to play a rousing arpeggiated dominant 7 chord with some elongated trills at the top, before letting the singer launch into it.

dean111music

Yes I think we all have experience of that. Our singer normally goes straight into the tune. Different key most times

i understand the concept. But when ear training do you not think singing Do on every chord change is a good thing? Or will it mix things up to much?

Grunfeld

dean111music said:

...But when ear training do you not think singing Do on every chord change is a good thing? Or will it mix things up to much?

@dean111music What are you aiming at?
If it's singing, then that's a different skill to being able to recognise intervals -- it's physical etc. whereas recognition can be done without uttering a note.
But if it's say, transcription, then recognising intervals is essential... but it gets much better the more you do.  And if it is transcription then get Transcribe! or something like it because the usefulness of being able to slow something down and listen to it on a loop just can't be over stated.

pickerg

dean111music said:

i understand the concept. But when ear training do you not think singing Do on every chord change is a good thing? Or will it mix things up to much?

I think this would confuse the matter too much for the reasons viz gave.  I would sing the correct sol fa notes to the key you are in.  Eg. Chord I is Do - Mi - So and chord V7 So - Ti - Re - Fa  etc. If you wanted to just sing the chord tones you'd be better either just singing the actual note names or the intervals.

I personally found the tonic sol-fa system really helped my own ear training, and ability to hold a tune.  It also helped to really hear the differences in the modes rather than thinking of them as guitar scale exercises.