This bonus material is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BWH3LGQ9
with the purchase of the Kindle ebook.

Hey! Before You Start!

Get a timer right now! Set it to 5, 10, or 15 minutes. When it goes off, stop reading and/or stop doing the exercises. Write down where you left off. Come back tomorrow.

Carry on…

I would bet that you are familiar with the song “Do-Re-Mi” from the musical “The Sound of Music”. Even if you haven’t watched the movie, chances are you know the catchy tune: “Do, a deer, a female deer / Re, a drop of golden sun…”

While the lyrics may seem lighthearted and reminiscent of a nursery rhyme, they actually serve a significant purpose in teaching the fundamental musical skill known as solfège.

“Solfège” is heavily used in choir classes and private singing lessons. It is the tool that music teachers use to help the student develop their “musical ear”. However, many music students who go through a typical American education never learn how to develop their musical ear. Instead, their teachers require them to be very good note readers and performers. Of course there’s nothing wrong with performing written music from a page. But the most important aspect of becoming a musician is learning how to audiate. Audiation is the ability to produce the music on your instrument that you can imagine or “hear” in your head.

Solfège is one of the primary tools that you will use to learn how to audiate. I will provide you with some practical exercises that you can start incorporating into your daily routine.

Solfège is a naming system that assigns a unique name to each note in a scale. It utilizes a method called solmization, which assigns a single syllable (such as Do or Re) to each scale degree. These syllables differ from the actual note names (such as C or D).

The most commonly used solfège scale in music education is the major scale, which consists of the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do again. Because these syllables match the scale degree, they can be applied to any major scale, regardless of the key. For example, both the C major scale and the E major scale would use the same solfège syllables in the exact same order. In the key of C major, Do represents the note C, whereas in the key of E major, Do represents the note E. In C major, Re represents the note D. In E major it represents the note F♯ (“F-sharp”).

“Do” changes depending on the key you are in, hence the term “movable Do”. This concept is beneficial as it allows you to internalize the relative nature of every scale without having to sing every scale. 

How To Do The Exercises

Each exercise has a high part and a low part. The high part is for people who are sopranos or altos. The low part is for people who are tenors, baritones, or basses.

1. Play the guitar part that is appropriate for your voice—either the top line or the bottom line. Play those few notes and memorize the melody.
2. Then do your best to sing the notes without playing at all. At first, you will be off. That is okay. You must learn to sing without using a crutch. The more you exercise this “audiation” muscle, the better you will get at it.
3. However, for the “Do – Mi – Sol” exercises, I included the C Major chord for you to play to accompany yourself because you will be singing the chord tones of that chord. It’s important to learn how to sing one of the notes in a chord and get a sense of how that feels.
4. If you absolutely must, play the guitar and sing the notes at the same time (in unison). Try to avoid doing that but it’s understandable if you need to do that at first.
5. If you cannot match the pitch on the guitar, see if you can find a friend to sing the note. Then try to match their voice. Sometimes it can be easier to match the pitch from someone else’s voice than from an instrument.

Please head over to Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BWH3LGQ9
to get access to the ear training solfège exercises.