Solfa

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A system used in music education for teaching pitch and sight-reading through syllables
2. A method involving the use of specific vowel sounds associated with musical notes
3. An educational practice facilitating vocal training and musical understanding by assigning fixed syllables to scale degrees

Etymology: Solfa is a system of singing syllables, and its name simply spells out two of them. "Sol" and "fa" are the fifth and fourth notes of the scale in the familiar do-re-mi sequence, and the system uses those sung syllables to name pitches rather than letters or numbers. The idea behind the syllables is older than the name. Singers learned to pitch melodies by reciting a fixed set of syllables tied to the notes of a scale, and the two syllables that give the term its form were simply two of the sung units in that set. The combined word was formed by joining them, so the name is a plain compound of the two syllables rather than a borrowed term. Because the syllables themselves were the teaching tool, the name points directly at the act of singing the scale: a learner who said "sol" and "fa" was practising the notes the words stood for.

Synonyms: do-re-mi, musical scale, sight singing, INVALID, INVALID