Music As A Language | Page 7

fah to lah, and so on. Thus in the majority of cases sight-singing in classes resolved itself into the musical children leading, and the others following. It is rare to find a large class in which there is not one musical child, and the only sure test of progress is to make the less musical children sing at sight alone from time to time.
Now, if those who have 'picked up' the knowledge of sight-singing without knowing how they did it be asked to explain how they arrive at their intervals, it will be found that tonality plays a large part in their consciousness. In other words, they are perfectly certain of their key-note, and at any moment could sing it, even after complicated passages.
This fact is the root of the Sol-fa system. The child is taught to think of all the notes of the scale in relation to the key-note. A very sensible objection is sometimes raised to this, i.e. that it must surely entail a great deal of detachment from the matter in hand if the mind has to grope for the key-note between every two consecutive notes of a melody. But this process becomes automatic very quickly. We are not conscious of references to the multiplication tables every time we do a sum, yet we could not do the sum without these. And it is the same with the Sol-fa system. The child need very rarely actually sing the key-note when considering another note, she refers the latter to it unconsciously.
There is one curious anomaly in the orthodox Sol-fa system, which has caused a good deal of amusement to its critics, and has ended by causing a cleavage on the part of many who are otherwise in cordial agreement with the broad lines of the method. This is concerned with the treatment of the minor key. The orthodox Sol-fa teacher relates the notes of the minor scale, not to the key-note, but to the third of the scale, i.e. to the key-note of the relative major. The confusion which this plan produces in the sense of tonality can readily be imagined. When singing in major keys the pupils are told to refer all notes to the key-note for 'mental effect', but in the minor key this is strictly forbidden. To take an instance. In the scale of C major the child has been trained to feel the sharp, bright effect of the note G, the fifth from the key-note C. It would naturally feel the same effect for the note E in the key of A minor, when related to the key-note A. But the orthodox Sol-fa teacher says: 'No. You must feel the calm, soothing effect of E in relation to C!' Can the child be really trained in this way? If it were merely a difference in detail of the treatment of the two modes this error could be forgiven, but it is a difference in fundamental principle.
One of the many difficulties caused occurs in transposition on the piano. When transposing from, say, C minor to F minor, the child must first think in E[b] major, so as to get the pivot of reference, then in A[b] major for the new pivot A[b]. Yet all the time its real sense of pivot, which, be it noted, has been admirably trained by the Sol-fa treatment of the major scale, is in favour of C and F respectively.
The method evolved for the minor key by those who wish to uphold the fundamental principle of the key-note being the pivot of reference for all keys, major and minor, is a very simple one. It consists in giving to the third and sixth of the harmonic form of the scale their logical names of maw and taw. The sixth of the ascending scale in the melodic form will of course be the same in the minor as in the major.
There are two other points in the orthodox Sol-fa system which are modified by those who wish to use it as a crutch to staff notation. The first of these concerns the rather complicated time notation of all but the first sets of exercises. Directly subdivisions of the beat are introduced the notation becomes difficult to read without putting a strain on the eyes. The little dots, dashes, commas, &c., worry children. Experience has proved that when a class is ready for anything beyond the very simplest time values it can leave the Sol-fa notation altogether, and keep entirely to the staff notation. This is, of course, an advantage, and is what is being aimed at.
The other point is connected with the use of what are called 'bridge-notes'. When a modulation is introduced which entails a fairly long reference to a new key, the note leading directly to it is of