Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/163

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TONIC SOL-FA.

147

worth observing that there is an essential difference between the sight-reader's and the player's use of any system of musical signs. The player has not to think of the sounds he makes before he makes them. When he sees, say, the symbol its meaning to him is not, in practice, 'imagine such and such a sound,' but 'do something on your instrument which will make the sound.' To the pianist it means 'touch a certain white key lying between two black keys'; to the violoncellist, 'put the middle finger down on the first string,' and so on. The player's mental judgment of the sound only comes in after it has been produced. By this he 'checks' the accuracy of the result. The singer, on the contrary, knows nothing of the mechanical action of his own throat: it would be useless to say to him, 'make your vocal chords perform 256 vibrations in a second.' He has to think of the sound first; when he has thought of it, he utters it spontaneously. The imagination of the sound is all in all. An indication of absolute pitch only is useless to him, because the melodic effect, the only effect the memory can recall, depends not on absolute but on relative pitch. Hence a 'tonic' notation, or a notation which can be used tonic-ally, can alone serve his purpose.

An exposition of the details of the method would be here out of place, but one or two points of special interest may be noticed.^[1] One is the treatment of the minor scale—a crux of all Sol-fa systems, if not of musical theory generally. Tonic Sol-faists are taught to regard a minor scale as a variant of the relative major, not of the tonic major, and to sol-fa the sounds accordingly. The learner is made to feel that the special 'minor' character results from the dominance of the lah, which he already knows as the plaintive sound of the scale. The 'sharpened sixth' (reckoning from the lah), when it occurs, is called ba (the only wholly new sound-name used (see the modulator, above), and the 'leading' tone is called se, by analogy with te (Italian si) of the major mode. Thus the air is written and sung as follows:—

${ \relative g' { \key bes \major \time 3/4 \override Score.Rest #'style = #'classical r4 r g | bes( a) g | d' d g | f4. g8 ees4 | d g, r | R2. | r4 r g | d'4. c8 bes4 | a g bes | f'4. ees8 d4 | c bes r } \addlyrics { If God be for us, who can be a -- gainst us? who can be a -- gainst us? who can be a -- gainst us? } }$

Key B♭. Lah is C.

l₁
If

d :t₁
God

:l₁
be

m
for

:m
us,

:l
who

s
can

:—

.l
be

:f
a-

m
gainst

:l₁
us?

:

:l₁
who

m
can

:—

.r
be

:d
a-

t₁
gainst

:l₁
us?

:d
who

s
can

:—

.f
be

:m
a-

r
gainst

:d
us?

:

Experience appears to show that, for sight-reading purposes, this is the simplest way of treating the minor mode. Some musicians object to it on the ground that, as in a minor scale the lowest (and highest) sound is essentially a tonic, in the sense that it plays a part analogous to that of the do in a major scale, calling it la seems an inconsistency. But this seems a shadowy objection. The only important question is, what sign, for oral and ocular use, will best help the singer to recognise, by association with mental effect, one sound as distinguished from another? Experience shows that the Tonic Sol-fa plan does this effectually. The method is also theoretically sound. It proceeds on the principle that similarity of name should accord with similarity of musical effect. Now as a fact the scale of A minor is far more closely allied to the scale of C major than it is to the scale of A major. The identity of 'signature' itself shows that the substantial identity of the two first-named scales has always been recognised. But a proof more effective than any inference from signs and names is that given by the practice of composers in the matter of modulation. The scales most nearly related must evidently be those between which modulation is most frequent; and changes between tonic major and relative minor (type, C major to and from A minor) are many times more frequent than the changes between tonic major and tonic minor (type, C major to and from C minor). In Handel's music, for instance, the proportion is some nine or ten to one.^[2] If therefore the Tonic Sol-faist, in passing from C major to A minor, changed his doh, he would be adopting a new set of names for what is, as near as may be, the same set of sounds.

The examples above given show the notation as applied to simple passages; the following will show how peculiar or difficult modulations may be rendered in it:—

↑ The best summary account of this system for the musician is given in 'Tonic Sol Fa,' one of the 'Music Primers' edited by Dr. Stainer (Novello).
↑ In 'Judas' the transitions from major to relative minor, and from minor to relative major, are, as reckoned by the writer, 67 in number; the transitions from major to tonic minor, and from minor to tonic major, being only 7. The practice of centuries in points of technical nomenclature cannot, of course, be reversed, but it is plain that the phrase 'relative' minor is deceptive. The scale called 'A minor' would be more reasonably called (as its signature in effect calls it) C minor. It has not been sufficiently noticed that the different kinds of change from minor to major are used by composers to produce strikingly different effects. The change to relative major (e.g. A minor to C major) is the ordinary means of passing, say, from the dim to the bright—from pathetic to cheerful. But the change to tonic major (A minor to A major) is a change to the intensely bright—to jubilation or triumph. A good instance Is the beginning of the great fugue in 'Judas,' 'We worship God'—a point of extraordinary force. Another is the well-known choral finale in 'Mosé in Egitto,' 'Dal tuo stellate soglio,' where, after the repetition in three successive verses of the change from G minor to B♭ major, giving an effect of reposeful serenity, the culminating effect, the great burst of triumph in the last verse, is given by the change from G minor to G major. Other instances are the passage in 'Elijah'—'His mercies on thousands fall'—and the long prepared change to the tonic major which begins the finale of Beethoven's C minor Symphony.

[1] The best summary account of this system for the musician is given in 'Tonic Sol Fa,' one of the 'Music Primers' edited by Dr. Stainer (Novello).

[2] In 'Judas' the transitions from major to relative minor, and from minor to relative major, are, as reckoned by the writer, 67 in number; the transitions from major to tonic minor, and from minor to tonic major, being only 7. The practice of centuries in points of technical nomenclature cannot, of course, be reversed, but it is plain that the phrase 'relative' minor is deceptive. The scale called 'A minor' would be more reasonably called (as its signature in effect calls it) C minor. It has not been sufficiently noticed that the different kinds of change from minor to major are used by composers to produce strikingly different effects. The change to relative major (e.g. A minor to C major) is the ordinary means of passing, say, from the dim to the bright—from pathetic to cheerful. But the change to tonic major (A minor to A major) is a change to the intensely bright—to jubilation or triumph. A good instance Is the beginning of the great fugue in 'Judas,' 'We worship God'—a point of extraordinary force. Another is the well-known choral finale in 'Mosé in Egitto,' 'Dal tuo stellate soglio,' where, after the repetition in three successive verses of the change from G minor to B♭ major, giving an effect of reposeful serenity, the culminating effect, the great burst of triumph in the last verse, is given by the change from G minor to G major. Other instances are the passage in 'Elijah'—'His mercies on thousands fall'—and the long prepared change to the tonic major which begins the finale of Beethoven's C minor Symphony.

[1]

[2]