Singing by Syllables
Sun., June 6, 12:34 PM
”Do re mi fa sol la ti do; do ti la sol fa me re do.” I don’t know if I’ve heard anyone do that since Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music.” And yet I’m still faintly surprised whenever I meet someone who doesn’t know how to read music.
When I was a child, every elementary classroom had a piano, and every elementary teacher was supposed to be able to play the piano, at least a little. How much she used the piano in her lesson plan varied with the teacher, of course, but the piano was necessary for when the Music Teacher came. (Children were not allowed to touch the piano.)
In addition to our readers, our arithmetic books, and spelling books, we all had song books. Singing from those books was part of our daily lessons. And we learned to read music.
We learned to recognize the staff with the G-clef at the beginning. (Some teachers had a gadget that held five pieces of chalk so that they could put a staff on the blackboard with just one stroke.) We knew the tricks to remember the names of the lines – Every Good Boy Deserves Fun – and the names of the spaces – F-A-C-E. We learned how to read the key signature, the sharps or flats at the beginning, so that we could find “do.” And then we learned to sing the songs by the syllables. (Sol do re mi do… Down in the valley… or do do sol sol la la so… Twinkle twinkle little star…)
The song books had traditional folk songs, patriotic songs, inspirational songs. It should have been easy to sing the songs we already knew, but I think it takes some sort of inborn talent. My dad could sing just about any song by the syllables; he also played piano by ear. I, on the other hand, never became a vocal sight-reader; however, I learned to read music well enough to play an instrument when the opportunity presented itself.
It was the song books that got me onto this track. Recalling things you memorized a long time ago is a way of relaxing your mind, and I thought I might bring back some obscure poetry. I was surprised at what turned up.
The fourth verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is scary: “Oh, thus be it ever when true men shall stand Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation…” How about this one? “Our fathers’ God to thee, author of liberty, to Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light, great God our King.” Not politically correct, is it? It’s the third or fourth verse of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” which we thought was a neutral patriotic song.
I recalled some of the other songs in our song books and realized that they were hymns. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time; they were so completely different from what I might have heard in synagogue that it never occurred to me that they were “church songs.” I liked a lot of them.
There was one song that I learned to sing in syllables, eight lines or so, typical song pattern. I don’t remember why I learned it that way, but the result is that I have absolutely no idea what it is. I know I have the notes right because I’ve reproduced it on a keyboard. “Do-o mi sol mi do fa re ti do me, do-do mi sol mi do fa re ti do.” Except for playing or singing it myself, I have never heard it anywhere. Maybe I should set some words to it and publish it; you know there’d be copyright lawyers coming out of the woodwork!
