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Solfege is an important building block in elementary music, but if you’re not a specialist it may seem overwhelming. Luckily, solfege isn’t actually that hard to learn and it can make your music lesson plans more interactive and fun, as well as teaching important pitch concepts.
Solfege is a system that gives a unique syllable to each note of the scale. It was made famous in the song “Do Re Mi” from the musical “The Sound of Music”. For example, in the C major scale, C would be “do”, D would be “re”, E would be “mi”, and so on. Fixed “Do” – In the fixed do system, the note “C” is always do. Moveable “Do” – In the moveable do system, Do is whichever note of the scale is the tonic, or root note of the scale. Beginner’s Note: When teaching early elementary music, I typically stick to C major and fixed do up to grade 3. Moveable do becomes more of a discussion in grade 4, when they learn the absolute note names on the staff. So if moveable do gives you hives, don’t worry! It’s not totally necessary, especially at the beginning.
Solfege is useful because it helps teach students to recognize and identify the relationships between notes (also known as intervals). It is much easier to teach and learn concepts when we have a name for them – and solfege provides us with that. Solfege helps students to hear patterns in music and be able to reproduce them, and sets the stage for both sight singing and music dictation. It’s also referenced in many music curriculums, including the Ontario Music Curriculum.
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Kindergarten is a great time to start teaching the basics of solfege. Young primary students love learning the hand signs and it keeps their whole bodies engaged in the lesson. If you are teaching kindergarten music and don’t have a music background, the best resource I can recommend is Prodigies.com. The videos, starring Mr Rob, teach all your lessons for you – and the accompanying workbooks provide great activities for center play. I use the Prodigies program with my music classes as well as with my own kids at home, and they all love it. Best of all, you can get a 30 day free trial.
These solfege lesson plan packs are based on the Ontario Curriculum but will align with many other curriculums as well. They include complete teaching instructions as well as sound clips and visual aids. So easy a sub could use them – so high quality you’ll be proud to teach them yourself.
