Someone must know why the certain countries (France being one) use do, ré, mi, fa etc and England (and other countries) use A, B, C which is the oldest - and why are there two different names that exist for notes ?

QUOTE

can anyone explain (someone once did !) why France and I believe other countries use do, ré, mi, fa etc . Which is older A, B, C or do, ré, mi ? can someone explain ? thankyou

Err... seems like two slightly different questions to me

An 11th century monk (Guido d'Arrezzo) used a (then) familiar plainsong hymn

Ut Queant Laxis

to help teach sight-singing. Each line or phrase of the hymn began one note higher than the line before (C, D E etc). The syllables 9ut, re, mi, fa, so, la)
are the initial syllables of the first word of each line - although at some point ut became doh, and ti was added later (did not exist in the hymn).

Bet Guido never suspected his system would be adapted into a song in a 20th century film !!

Maggie

Thanks for that, Maggiemay, but do you know why the English did not use this 11th cen method ?
Trudi

Well some English did - solfa was and still is used in some places.
But I guess you mean why it wasn't adopted wholesale, and on that I have no idea.

When I was at school it was regarded as perhaps a little old-fashioned (how silly!) but things do go in cycles. Older song books that I remember using had sol-fa syllables printed above the stave.
Haven't added much really -sorry not be of more help.

Maggie

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dear davidmusic
please accept my sincere apologies.
sometimes life just doesn't go the way you plan it and small things become out of proportion.
I will endeavor (have I spelt that right ?) to remain civil and behave myself
Yours
Trudi

Thank You

... If you have a good knowledge and understanding on a subject then impart your knowledge in an informative way without being condescending.

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maggiemay perhaps you might know the answer to something that has puzzled me for ages. I understand doh re me etc but what do you call the note of the scale if you want to raise / lower by a semitone . ie if in key of c major what is f# called?
Thanking you in anticipation.

Mrs Beethoven
In France we use bémol for flat and dièse for sharp so Bb becomes si bémol
and G sharp becomes sol dièse, a G natural would be sol bécarre, the only problem is when the chef d'orchestre says"go back to the Si " and you automatically (when French is not your native language) think of C and not B, fortunately most of the chef d'orchestres I play with shout out one note for the orchestre and then " that's C sharp for you Trudi"!

I believe that in using moveable sol-fa one uses fi instead of fa for F Sharp instead of F. Cyrilla or Violinia will be able to give you more detailed advice though. I think that there was a post including it a while ago: try searching for fi in posts that may work.

Mrs Beethoven - F# in the key of C Major would be called 'fi'. When sharpening solfa you add 'i' and when flattening the vowel changes to 'ah' or 'aw'.

So an ascending chromatic scale would be:

do, di, re, ri, me, fa, fi, so, si, la, li, ti, do

And descending would be:

do, ti, taw, la, law,so, saw, fa,me, maw, re, raw, do.

(btw, F# in the key of C would imply a modulation to the dominant, in which case you would change from calling the note 'fi' and call it 'ti' instead!)

Hope this is useful. Do please ask again if I can be of any more help!

I'm lost completely now !!