Re: reading/dictating by ear

Berry Kercheval ( kerch@parc.xerox.com )
Sun, 18 May 1997 15:48:08 PDT

>>>Kevin Gallagher said:
> As I said, Kodaly solfege is
> better in many ways, but I'm not sure how it can be applied to jazz.

I spent three years in an acapella early-music chorus as one of the three
tenors, and we used Kodaly solfege extensively. Especially for singers, the
hand movements provide kinesthetic information (perhaps somewhat akin to an
instrumentalist linking *that* note on the staff to *this* finger on *that*
string or key). It worked very well for training our ears at which point our
reading was just a lot better. It got to where we could sight-read random
madrigals and do passably well after only a couple of passes. Not bad for a
bunch of amateurs with day jobs, I guess.

I can't really think of how it can NOT be applied to jazz, except that it's
pretty worthless for improvising. Unless you mean applying it to
transcribing; I've never tried using solfege for that.

--berry

Berry Kercheval :: kerch@parc.xerox.com :: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center