Singalong Solfege #1

First in a new series of videos designed to teach solfege to absolute beginners by singing simple, familiar songs on solfege as a way of introducing and reinforcing the syllables. Later videos will build on these skills as they become more familiar.

If you are an absolute beginner and want to improve your musical literacy, this is the video series for you!

If you teach beginners, or have students who need to reinforce their skills, this ought to be a good resource to share with them.

This series will always use functional solfege, where do is the tonic. In this particular video, I sang both pieces in the key of C, so they work in “fixed do” solfege as well. However, future videos will vary the key.

As a singalong, I am relying on the listener to intuitively understand octave equivalency. I will try to keep things in a key that will be comfortable for most people. If a song seems too high or low for your comfort, try singing it in another octave.

Students who know Curwen/Kodaly hand signs may find it beneficial to sign along as well, for the added kinesthetic component. I will also be adding some hand sign resources as we go.

This series is also based on my strong belief in building useful frameworks, and that music theory is something that naturally springs out of our experience in listening and recreating. Thus, we should learn aurally first, and then proceed toward notation, in the same way that culture developed. Notation is a means of conveying musical ideas, and we should therefore initially learn it through those ideas.

[JessicaBrown-pith]

My toddler was gifted one of those large roll out piano's that you play by stepping on it and I figured it's time I use it, lol.
In all seriousness this was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a bunch.

[stefanielorimer]

thank you - these will be so great for my new adult community choir :D

[calvinsimonson]

These are exactly what I've been looking for! You rock