November 18, 2025:
Teachers: Happy Tuesday
Moveable Do Solfege
Our studio standard is to teach Moveable Do solfege. We do not normally teach Fixed Do solfege. (There may be rare exceptions, but this would occur only with my prior approval.) Moveable Do solfege provides a tool and strategy for teaching relative scale patterns. Students in the United States who learn Moveable Do solfege as children receive a benefit that will help them later if/when they participate in youth/school choirs, ensembles, and/or enter exams, AP, college, or university music programs.
We use the music alphabet to teach absolute pitches: A B C D E F G. We use Moveable Do to teach relative pitches, the equivalent of scale degrees (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 = Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti). Relative pitches facilitate ear training, sight singing, transposing, composing, functional harmony, and a variety of other musicianship skills.
Fixed Do is not an alternative to Moveable Do (though this is a common misconception). Fixed Do is an alternative to letter names. Both letter names and Fixed Do are absolute systems. An alternative to Moveable Do would be numbers (scale degrees), and students benefit from learning both Moveable Do solfege and scale degrees (singing on numbers).
There is much to be said, and learned, about this topic. Unfortunately, much of what you will read “out there” is incorrect. Either way, I encourage you to learn about solfege and the benefits of learning relative pitches. When you teach your students about Moveable Do, you are giving them a valuable gift. Students do not have to become experts; exposure and some practice may be enough. They should come away with some knowledge, understanding, and skill in Moveable Do solfege.
For piano and guitar teachers, when using our Presto! curriculum, each song in the book provides Moveable Do solfege. When teaching and learning new songs, do not skip the singing on lyrics and solfege steps! These steps have immediate rewards, because they help the student learn how the song goes! And they have long term rewards, because they are teaching students how solfege works, and this will help them improve their ears and their musicianship.
As with clapping the rhythms, don’t teach the song until the student knows how it goes! This is an important part of their music education. And for very young students, you are also helping them with language skills (e.g., the nursery rhymes). For all students, you are teaching them passed-down folk songs from their culture and other cultures.
Clapping, counting, and singing the songs, including singing on Moveable Do solfege, are part of our music studio teaching strategies, philosophy, and curriculum – they should not be considered optional, but mandatory steps in the teaching and learning process.
Remember, every page of the books should be read and/or taught and completed. This includes the clapping and singing pages and activities!
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Have a magical Tuesday, a musical week, and enjoy happy, healthy and tension-free teaching and learning with your students.
Thank you,
Dennis Frayne
"Dr. Dennis"
Laguna Niguel School of Music
Dennis Frayne Music Studios
30110 Crown Valley Pkwy, Suites 105/107/108
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
(949) 844-9051 (office cell)
(949) 468-8040 (personal cell)
www.lagunaniguelschoolofmusic.com
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