h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Solfege, funnily enough, is the French term. Gotta change that, guys!

Tetrachords are groups of four notes, as used by the Greeks. In practice the hexachord was gradualy reduced to a tetrachord, Mi Fa Sol and La being the only symbols used in most fifteenth- and sixteenth-century solmization. Ut and Re were only used in basic instruction: Thomas Morley's "Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke" of 1597 makes this clear and gives plenty of examples.

About asymmetry: wind instruments have a single key for each note, but asymmetry can be puzzling for string players . . . and you're not telling me you could do key-signatures on the piano by intuition, are you? Working by what sounds consonant suddenly stops being helpful when you get to Bach!

Key signatures on piano by intuition: most certainly! Memorize where the sharps and flats are going to be, since they always happen in a pattern, and a smart transcriber has chosen the key (of two available) that has the least accidentals, and whenever you're tempted to play the note you want to, slip over by one. Perhaps this is a cheat only available to me, though. My dad tells me that my grandad could play any tune he heard only once on the violin, and my grandma could do the same on the piano, so I may be a mutant.

I have only done the trumpet, piano, and voice, so I have no constructive commentary on string instruments. Only, Sol-Fa, as presented by everyone I have ever met, and these articles here, is much much harder for me to learn and understand than just playing the instrument itself is. If you can make the casual reader (me! me! me!) see the benefit, then you have increased the general interest to your article immensely. So, what do you guess that I am missing?

I don't suppose you're missing anything! Any door that gets you in to the world of music is fine, and once you're in you start to find your own way around.

The benefits I would recommend are to the absolute beginner, who can be (and often is) put off by a forest of symbols. As symbols go, sol-fa is easy to learn and apply, especially in classrooms and aurally (not on paper at all to begin with) and it gets you in the door quickly easily painlessly and faithfully (no gimmicks, no nasty surprises; and a secure connection to western music history).

I believe in the value of choral singing as a socially cohesive element in primary schools. Kids who do it have a happier image of school, and do better in general academically.

Your middle paragraph, just above, would be an excellent addition to your article.

Your middle paragraph, just above, would be an excellent addition to your article.

I am going back to this article several times as a result of our conversation on Sol-Fa (2), in order to pin down just what a hexachord is.

Why does the second hard hexachord not start on the Fa of the previous hexachord? What is being shown by doing the iteration of the sequence in an irregular fashion?

It would help if the diagram of hexachords in this section had four hexachords, like in Sol-Fa (2). I couldn't have puzzled out your Two B's section without it.

> a rounded b for B Fa or 'soft B' and initially a square b, or a square h5, or an inverted b (q), all later6 standardised to #, for B Mi or 'hard B'; whence our present flat sharp and natural signs.

This would be easier to understand if it were written:

The first kind is a rounded b for b Fa or 'soft B' because it came from the soft hexachord. The second kind for b Mi or 'hard B' was initially a square b, or a square h5, or an inverted b (q), all of these were later6 standardised to the symbol #. This is where our present flat sharp and natural signs come from. [and then omit or postpone the footnote about changing from old notation to new notation, because it doesn't seem to clarify anything and requires one to think about two complex systems at the same time]


This avoids the peculiarity of a semicolon after a colon in a very long complex sentence.

Thanks Sea Change and others -- been away, will get round to improvements tomorrow (perhaps) ~R

Are you still working on this?

Ah . . . yes. Will get back to it soon. Been away again. Actually I may be finished, haven't looked yet -- just bookmarking . . .

When I was at music college long long ago, our 'aural class' was given by an eminent prof who taught a mixture of solfa plus solfege plus his own (patented??) system. I've never been quite the same since. I inherited my mother's Scottish Psalms in solfa and find it impossible: I need the security of those lines and spaces. Julie Andrews has a lot to answer for...

Ah yes, we mustn't underestimate the ability of an imaginative teacher to render clarity obscure.

I have gone back and finished the editing of A1012230, if anyone wants to do anything with it, I'm done with it.

Hi Recumbentman!

"The Hexachord"

Move this title to before the preceding sentence.

Johannes --> Iohannes (there was no J in Latin alphabet).

Table of 3 hexachords:

Use instead of

Why do you have =      ?

Surely = on its own is enough?

BTW,

watch out for red-haired woman on Brompton folding bike in morning.

Hey there Gnomon! You're pretty communicative for one who's incommunicado!

And what are you doing up at this hour? What am I doing up at this hour?

Thanks for reminding me about Ioannes. But wasn't the I lengthened into a J as a capital? Maybe not.

I don't know the use of . Got to study GuideML a bit more. Ah is it a table-header? Yes that's more elegant. I hate using spaces for formatting, (    &nbsp but I don't know how to stretch the table boxes. Back to GuideML. When I just put = on its own the spacing of the table squashed together awkwardly.

Thanks for your input. Isn't that what editors are supposed to be good at? Taking my best meaning and tidying it up?

Unintentional smiley in the middle there -- " " was supposed to be followed by a ")" but the last ";" combined itself with the ")" to make

"watch out for red-haired woman on Brompton folding bike in morning."

Where? Who? Why?

So, is this one good to go, or are there still people who need to get their in?

My wife has a Brompton folding bicycle, which I thought you might be interested in, and she cycles through Trinity every morning.

The entry looks good to me.

I'd like a day or two to apply Gnomon's suggestions, and learn how to format tables better. Won't get it done today, it's our 34th wedding anniversary

Bromptons are brilliant