Audio examples 1a, 1b, and 1c are taken from the recorded test with Group 2 (singers).
Audio Example 1a: ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ from stick notation with letter names. Page 76. (starting pitch Eb)
The first time they sang the melody they could not sing the intervals larger than a second. They just progressed stepwise in the scale. The pitch names of the notes did not lead them to sing the right notes.
Audio Example 1b: ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ from stick notation with relative solfa names. Page 75. (starting pitch Eb = do)
When singing the same melody with relative solfa syllables they could sing the melody and the intonation did not drop. They made one mistake: the octave jump do’-do became do’-sol,.
Audio Example 1c: ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ from stick notation with fixed-do names. Page 77. (starting pitch Mib)
After now having sung the melody for a few times already they sang the melody on fixed-do syllables. This time the intonation dropped half a tone. Even though the students commented that they knew the melody by ear now.
Students commented that in singing with letter names they tried to find out how big the intervals were they had to sing.[1] In singing with relative solfa names they did not think of the size of the intervals. The combination of letter names and fixed-do syllables with and without flats was confusing. Only the letter name notation triggered a visual image of a piano keyboard.
In the other groups (with the instrumentalists) the differences between singing the melody with different naming systems were not so big. In some groups the melody was sung with more or less confidence and in tune in both systems (fixed and relative note names) and in one group they could not sing the melody without dropping the pitch with any system. But the opposite effect – singing with pitch names in tune and singing with relative note names out of tune – was not heard in any one of the groups.
Purcell’s ‘Under this stone’ was also sung from different versions of stick notation (pages 72, 73 and 74 from the Music Scores for Research). This beautiful canon contains three phrases and students were asked to sing the phrases with different note naming systems.
Audio examples 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, and 3e are taken from the recorded test with Group 7 (instrumentalists).
Audio Example 3a: The 1st line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with fixed-do names. Page 74. (starting pitch Sol or G)
The students sang the first notes Sol-Fa#-Mi as Sol-Fa-Mib and ended up on pitch Bb. They seemed to use the sounds (Eb major scale) from the previous exercise. This can be interpreted as an example where the ear leads the singing: already existing sound images are connected to (in this case not corresponding) written symbols.[1]
Audio Example 3b: The 1st line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with fixed-do names. Page 74. (starting pitch Sol or G) – second attempt.
After correcting the first interval to a minor second (Sol-Fa#) they sang the beginning of the melody as: Sol-Fa#-Mi-Re (not really a leading note Re#). They seemed to have no clue of the tonal relations and the Fa# became Fa again at the end of the first phrase. They seemed to guess for the pitches. The notation did not seem to give them any information about the sounds to sing.
Audio Example 3c: The 1st line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with relative note names. Page 72. (starting pitch G = do)
The students could at first still not sing the melody and singing the minor scale was necessary. There was some confusion about the ‘si’ being a raised sol. When they tried again, they could sing to the end of the first line.
Audio Example 3d: The 2nd line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with fixed-do names Page 74. (starting pitch Mi or E)
They sang the first notes Mi-Fa#-Sol as Mi-Fa#-Sol#. The Fa# sounded ‘forced up’ (a ‘higher Fa’) and then the Sol became too high as well. There seemed to be no aural imagination of the key or the scale still. After a bit of help in singing the first four notes, they sang the rest of the 2nd line. Intonation dropped and understanding of tonal relations was not audible.
Audio Example 3e: The 3rd line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with relative solfa names. Page 72. (starting pitch B = Mi)
The students were able to sing the melody slowly with some help at the jumps to re and sol. They stayed in the key and the intonation did not drop.
Students commented that they found it difficult that the stick notation did not show any direction of the melody going up or down. They visualised their instrument only when reading from the fixed-do syllables. When the teacher asked if they felt or heard any tonal functions, such as tonic and dominant when they were singing the melody their answer was: “No, not really.”
[1]Gordon, Edwin. (2012), p. 66. (on immovable-do:) because the same syllable is used for unaltered and altered pitches bearing the same pitch letter-name, the same syllable must also be used for different sounding tonal patterns. As a result, sounds of pitches are commonly heard separate from their contextual significance, so there is little hope they are being audiated.
Analysis and critical discussion of the findings
In all groups ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ was sung from different versions of stick notation (pages 75, 76 and 77 from the Music Scores for Research). For some students this was their first encounter with solfa syllables and reading music from stick notation. The same melody was sung more than once. Students commented that by the third time they knew the melody and that the singing of the letter names or solfa syllables was experienced as just a new text to what they already knew they had to sing.
There were however some interesting results to be heard from this exercise, where singing with letter names, fixed-do solfa syllables or relative solfa syllables had an effect on the quality of singing the melody.
In the next examples students were asked to read from staff notation, with treble and bass clef, with C-clefs and with do-clefs. They were asked to use fixed-do or letter names (unique pitch names) and relative solfa syllables (unique sound of functional names).
Kodály’s 77 Two-part Exercises were chosen (pages 54-59 from the Music Scores for Research), because they are relatively short and they use the same rhythm and tone material in the different exercises. Most students were not familiar with the pentatonic tone set. They could not easily rely on certain expectations or familiar tonal melodic turns. Upper and lower parts were mostly sung separately. In some groups two-part singing was performed.
Also the other groups with singers and with instrumentalists showed different results in singing these exercises from staff notation. When instrumentalists used to fixed-do had to use the solfa syllables relatively in combination with reading from staff notation they could hardly do it. Thinking about the ‘new’ name of the note took too much time and seemed to block the hearing. Changing the notation by using a do-clef did not really improve this. Most of these students could not accept that a note in a certain position on the stave could have another name than that they had learned in treble or bass clef notation. They tried to adapt the visual information to the ‘transposed’ names they were ‘forced’ to sing. Most students also said that reading from the treble of bass clef in combination with pitch names (letter names or fixed-do names) triggered them to imagine or even feel positions on their instrument or the piano keyboard.
Some instrumentalists commented that the do-clef notation did not give any information about the key. This indicates that a ‘key’ for them is something visual and pitch-related: with certain sharps or flats related to certain pitches or positions on an instrument. A key (major or minor, do or la) did not appear to be a ‘sound image’ at first. Singers however indicated that a do-clef gives all the information you need to sing a melody. But they recognised that it would be necessary still to learn to read ‘real clef notation’ to be able to decide by yourself where the position of do is.
Although some students said that they preferred singing on la-la-la (neutral syllables), this was not leading to a better result in singing the exercise in any of the groups.
The last exercise was to sing from staff notation on different note naming systems, with pitch clefs or do-clefs: ‘If Ye Love Me’ (pages 10-15 from the Music Scores for Research). This piece in a major mode felt more familiar. However, two-part sight singing was too difficult for most of them. Only group was able to do it and these examples are included below.
These two groups showed a very different level of sight singing skills. The first group (Group 7) had a background in fixed-do training. These fixed-do names however seemed to recall no sounds in their ears, and no aural understanding of sound relations was audible when they sang with fixed-do names. When they were asked to use the solfa syllables relatively, the tuning improved and they could, although still very hesitantly, sing a melodic phrase. The second group (Group 4) had learned to use the letter name system and the relative solfa system at the same time from an early age. Relative solfa syllables and letter names both gave enough information for singing the right notes and for singing with understanding and in tune. They seemed to sing more fluently using the relative note names and they commented that singing on solfa names gave them more ‘understanding’ of the tone-relations.
In the other groups there were students with perfect pitch who were used to the fixed-do system. For them it was hardly, if not at all, possible to use the fixed-do syllables relatively (sing on a certain pitch and say a different name). Some other students used to fixed-do without perfect pitch indicated that using the fixed-do syllables relatively made the singing (and aural understanding) much easier. Others said it made no difference. Students with perfect pitch (using letter names or fixed-do names) commented more often than students without perfect pitch that all notes they had to sing were equal to them.
In these exercises using stick notation there was no ‘translation’ between the relative solfa syllables and the fixed note naming system. The name of the note that had to be sung was prescribed directly. The use of relative solfa syllables (or using fixed-do names relatively) seemed to provide more understanding of tonal relations between the notes that had to be read and sung from the paper. This could be heard in intonation, in singing with confidence and in moments were students were able to correct themselves when they heard and understood that they are not singing the right note. Students who had only learned letter names were most of the time not able to use the relative solfa syllables right away.[1]
Audio examples 5a, 5b, 5c and 5d are taken from the recorded test with Group 5 (instrumentalists).
Audio Example 5a: Lower part of Nr.7 from staff notation with fixed-do or letter names. Page 56. (starting pitch D or Re)
They sang the melody, and the intonation dropped immediately in the first four notes.
Audio Example 5b: Upper part of Nr. 7 from staff notation with relative solfa names. Page 56. (starting pitch A = mi)
They sang the melody and the pitch also dropped a little bit.
The students used to fixed-do note names explained that this was difficult for them, because they had to think what the note names were: “I see a ‘La’ which I have to call ‘Mi’.” But others said that singing with relative note names was easier: “I see it as a minor key (la-scale), I think and hear the notes in the key.”
Audio Example 5c: Lower part of Nr. 6 from staff notation with do-clef on relative solfa. Page 54. (starting pitch F = do)
Problems occurred with the octave jump down. They could not read this note fast enough, or they couldn’t analyse the interval and therefore could not sing the note right away. But when they knew the syllable they could sing the note. The pitch dropped almost a half tone again in the first 3 measures. One of the students explained that he tried to read the notes as if a treble clef was written. The tonality would then look like F major. And then he translated the note names (letter names) to the relative names.
Audio Example 5d: Two parts of Nr. 6 from staff notation with do-clef on relative solfa. Page 54. (starting pitch F = do)
They sang the two-part exercise without any real problems and the intonation did not drop this time.
For the students in this group fixed-do names and relative note names in combination with staff notation both seemed to give some information about what notes to sing, but in both systems the intonation was not good. This only improved by singing in two parts. Listening to the sound of another voice seemed to give more meaning to the melodies than the visual information and the note names. This can be understood as a verification of the Kodály quote: “Those who always sing in unison never learn to sing in correct pitch.”[1]
Audio examples 7a, 7b and 7c are taken from the recorded test with Group 1 (Instrumentalists).
Audio Example 7a: Lower part of Nr.6 from staff notation with letter names. Page 56. (starting pitch F)
The beginning of the melody F-G-A was not in tune. G was to low and A was Ab with one of them. It could be that this student was still in the ‘sound world’ of the previous exercise in the minor mode. Again this can be seen as an example of a ‘sound to symbol’ process going on in the mind of the student.
Audio Example 7b: Upper part of Nr.6 from staff notation with letter names or fixed-do syllables. Page 56. (starting pitch F or Fa)
They could sing the melody but the intonation was unstable and dropped a bit.
Audio Example 7c: Lower part of Nr.7 from staff notation with do-clef on relative solfa. Page 54. (starting pitch E = la)
Because of more than half of the students in this group having perfect, the pitch G’ was given for do. (Not F’ in treble clef). Although they first had to learn to understand this new notation they could sing the melody quite well. The intonation did not drop this time.
Audio examples 6a, 6b, 6c and 6d are taken from the recorded test with Group 3 (Singers).
Audio Example 6a: Lower part of Nr.6 from staff notation with letter names or fixed-do names. Page 56. (starting pitch F or Fa)
The students could sing the beginning of the melody, but the octave jump down was wrong and then they lost the key. They sang hesitantly and were waiting for each other. The intonation dropped.
There confused comments were: “Did we not sing an octave…?” “I did see a piano keyboard, I tried to ‘play’ the notes to help me sing them.’
Audio Example 6b: Upper part of Nr.6 from staff notation with relative solfa names. Page 56. (starting pitch A = mi)
Two of the students sang on noe-noe-noe, these were the students used to fixed-do names. One student that sang the melody with relative solfa sounded the most ‘secure’. Intonation dropped.
The students used to singing with relative solfa names commented that this was much easier, because they knew the distances in their head. Another student said she preferred to sing with a neutral syllable instead of note names: “I have the scale in my head and I read the intervals. I don’t think of the names of the notes. I have the positions in my head. Singing on names is an extra thing.”
Audio Example 6c: Lower part of Nr.7 from staff notation on noe-noe-noe. Page 56. (starting pitch D)
This time they could not sing the interval down from a to c. They could not sing the melody, also not the second time. They lost their starting note and intonation dropped. Comments were very outspoken: “You have absolutely no idea where you are”. But the other student persisted that when she sang on noe-noe-noe, she had the scale in mind. This was however not leading to the right sounds.
Audio Example 6d: Upper part of Nr.5 from staff notation with do-clef on solfa names. Page 54. (starting pitch G = re)
The students could sing the melody. They could also sing the interval from la, to sol. Sometimes they did not sing the note names or the names seemed to follow on the sounds they were already singing. They commented: “It is nice that you can see where do is. This is actually all you need. I was not thinking intervals, but had a feeling for the tonic note.” “I did not need to think of pitch names, I could see the distances of the notes to the do on the stave.”
Audio examples 2a, 2b, and 2c are taken from the recorded test with Group 3 (singers).
Audio Example 2a: ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ from stick notation with pitch names (letter names). Page 76. (starting pitch Eb)
They could sing the melody on letter names the second time (the first time they got stuck above the Bb), but the intonation was very unstable and dropped almost a half tone.
Audio Example 2b: ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ from stick notation with relative solfa names (starting pitch D = do). Page 75.
They did sing the melody more confidently and the pitch did not drop. They started however on the lower pitch of D instead of Eb.
Audio Example 2c: ‘The bird that soars on highest wing’ from stick notation with fixed-do names. Page 77. (starting pitch Mib)
They could sing the melody, but the intonation dropped.
Audio examples 8a and 8b are taken from the recorded test with Group 1 (Instrumentalists).
Audio Example 8a: Soprano and bass part of ‘If Ye Love Me’ from staff notation with do-clef on solfa names. Page 10. (starting pitch F = do)
They could sing this first half of the piece quite good, although this was the first time they sang music with relative solfa syllables. One student said she read the notation as if in the bass clef, to fit the visual information with the fixed-do names.
Audio Example 8b: Soprano part and bass part of ‘If Ye Love Me’ from staff notation with treble and bass clef on letter names. Page 13. (starting pitch F).
They could sing the second half on letter names also.
They thought reading and singing from the treble and bass clef notation was much easier. In the do-clef notation they were still reading and translating pitch names, and the solfa names were confusing. Indeed, the note names seemed to come to them faster when they sing on pitch names. But is there a difference in sound quality between the two versions?
Audio examples 4a, 4b, and 4c are taken from the recorded test with Group 4 (instrumentalists).
Audio Example 4a: The 1st line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with relative solfa names. Page 72. (starting pitch G = do)
Without any introduction the students sang the 1st line without any real problems. They needed some time to think about the jump down to fa, and the jump from re’ to ti.
Audio Example 4b: The 2nd line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with letter names. Page 73. (starting pitch E)
This sounded as if it was a bit more difficult for them; they needed more time to find the notes, especially with the larger intervals (up or down).
For singing the 3rd line they could choose their favourite system. 7 students preferred the relative solfa names and 3 students (the ones with perfect pitch) preferred the letter names.
Audio Example 4c: Sing the 3rd line of ‘Under this stone’ from stick notation with letter names or with relative note names. Page 72 or 73. (starting pitch B and B = mi)
They sang the 3rd line without problems on the names they had chosen.
In all three situations the students were able to sing the melody and the intonation did not drop. One student decided that singing on the relative solfa names was easier after all. Another student commented that he could place the notes in a key or scale with the relative solfa names. In singing from letter names it felt more like singing loose pitches. They only imagined their instrument when singing with letter names, not with the relative solfa names. “In the relative solfa notation I sort of know how it will sound, I don’t need to imagine the instrument.” A student with perfect pitch said that for her it felt easier to associate intervals with letter names, because she had never learned to think in a key.