One of the most common instruments played, especially when teaching music, is the piano. The piano is capable of producing 88 individual tones, representing nearly all of the playable tones used in music composition. However a piano may not always be available for reference to notes. This is especially true with vocalists, where your instrument is you voice itself and the tones must be voluntarily sung in order to be heard. How can one reference tones and notes in the absence of a piano?
Musical tones can be sung and represented via a method called Solfège, an essential singing exercise using sol-fa syllables (“Solfège – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary”, n.d .). Similar to the standard letter named convention of music, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, the sol-fa syllables are indicated as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti (returning to Do for the beginning of the next octave).
To listen to the musical piece below, click the play button [►] in the top left section of the window.
The reciting of Solfège can be further represented via hand signals. A Hungarian composer named Zoltán Kodály, helped to develop a method of using hand signals to represent the individual syllables (Choksy, 1999). Depending on the key of a specific piece of music, any note can be signed using hand signals, thus allowing a reference to music without producing a sound.
Kodály Hand Signs in Scale Order
The Kodály Method appeared in the popular science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977). The following clip gives an example of how the hand signals may be used when incorporated with individual tones. Pay particular attention the character on the left side of the screen at 0:15.
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The hand sign ‘Do’ is signaled twice in this case due to the fact that it represents a full drop down to the lower octave (F to F). The following represents how the five tones of Close Encounters would appear in sheet music.
To listen to the musical piece below, click the play button [►] in the top left section of the window.
Practice the hand signals using the Solfège Scale, from bottom to top and back to the bottom. See if you can sign out a simple song using just the hand signals. Refer back to Lesson 1 – Taking Note of Music, if needed.
