Can someone explain, about solfege relative

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Balthazar
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Can someone explain, about solfege relative

Post by Balthazar »

Hi

When tone naming is set to solfege relative, and chord identification is chosen, and a minor triad is played: Why is the second, and not the first tone in the triad Do? I don't know anything about this system, trying to learn it.
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Quentin
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Post by Quentin »

Solfege (Relative) is using the Movable-Do solfege system. Shortly, what happens is that the DO, instead of being a fixed tone (C), is the first tone of the scale in which the question is. Tone names refer here to scale degrees instead of pitches.
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Balthazar
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Post by Balthazar »

Thanks for the response. That's exactly what I thought it would do. But my question was why it doesn't do that when a minor chord is played. When the triad of a major chord is played, the tones get named Do-Mi-So in EarMaster, as expected. When the triad of a minor chord is played, the tones get named La-Do-Mi. In other words, Do is no longer the first tone of the scale. I think I found the answer to the question here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge

(don't know if the link worked)

The bottom table shows two systems for Movable-Do, for a minor key. The first one is called La-based minor, the other called Do-based minor. EarMaster clearly uses La-based minor, but I'd think it would be more appropriate for me with Do-based minor, so that the tones in a minor chord becomes: Do-Me-So. Can this be changed somewhere?

I chose the Movable-Do system to learn to recognise tones by function. The La-based minor might make it easier to say the minor scale, but I don't use standard scales much anyway.
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Post by Quentin »

The La-based minor solfege system is indeed used in EarMaster, as it is the most commonly employed. It is unfortunately not possible to change it to Do-based minor.
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Balthazar
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Post by Balthazar »

Yes, it makes sense to use the most widely used system. But the system itself, makes no sense to me. The whole point for me, of using Movable Do, is that each tone serves one specific function within the key, and it would be easier for me if i.e. the tone one fifth above the tonic had the same name in all examples. Also, I am a guitar player, and this way of naming the tones is very compatible with the fingering on the instrument. If for instance I am holding a barré E-style chord, I will easily now what placement the Sol is, and what function it plays in the chord and in any melody I might improvise. The La-based minor gets everything mixed up and is very confusing.

At first I was trying to figure out what on earth they meant by it--- I thought somehow if I played a triad of E-G-B, then G would in reality be the tonic?!? Now I realize that E is still the tonic, as I thought. I don't understand at all why someone might use the La-based minor, as it seems to contradict the whole prupose of Movable Do. The one thing that would be better than do-based movable do, is tone-naming that is a bit more consistent with chord notation, that is Do->1 Re->2 So->5 etc, and then the tone one half above the tonic could be b2, minor third would be b3, so the naming also is consistent with the names of the intervals.

Any chance for the option of Do-based minor, or numbers in the future?

This sums up what I think: http://andyvn.ath.cx/la-based-minor
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Post by Hans »

The numbers are planned for the next version of EarMaster and we will consider to implement the Do-based minor as an option too.

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Hans Jakobsen
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Balthazar
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Post by Balthazar »

That sounds great! :)

Would that be next minor release, or the 6.0 version?
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Hans
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Post by Hans »

It is for EarMaster 6.0, which will take some time before it is released.

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Balthazar
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Post by Balthazar »

OK

Anyway, there's one little thing I'd like to say. When you practise chord recognition and have chosen solfege relative, and a minor chord is played, the first note is marked and it will be named La. So, when trying to distinguish minor/major chords, the answer is given away. My solution to this is to just chose another naming, which is definately something I can live with. Just thought I'd say it, because if you have a simple solution to this problem you should probably implement it right away.
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Post by Quentin »

You could also simply unselect "Show first tone" under the Exercise Settings menu, so that EarMaster doesn't reveal too much of the answer :-)
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