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4.1.10
Solfege (or Solfeggio) and Guido of Arezzo
Solfege, also called solfeggio, refers to the syllables that are assigned to scale notes (do-re-mi, etc.).
To play the chromatic scale, just start at any C, then play every note...C, C♯, D, etc., all the way up to the next C. When you do this, you play 13 notes, but only 12 intervals of one semitone each. (Remember, an interval is not a note. It’s the pitch distance between two notes.)
ABOUT solfegE AND FRIAR GUIDO OF AREZZO
More than a thousand years ago, a nerdy Italian friar and music theorist named Guido (Guido d'Arezzo, ca. 995-1040), with more time on his hands than he knew what to do with, invented the basics of sofege (“do re-mi”). Guido also invented the basics of modern music notation.
Everyone’s familiar with “do re mi fa so la ti do”. However, if you haven’t studied music in Europe, you may not know about the additional syllables for the chromatic notes, syllables such as li, te, le, fi, and so on. (Yikes!)
Not only do the chromatic notes have their own syllables, but the syllables are different for the same note, depending on whether you’re ascending the scale, or descending it. Here they are (see next page):