Solfege Actions Used in LMs (INPUT NEEDED!!!)

[KL]

In the "Teaching With Little Musician" booklet, you will see that we encourage you to also do some hand actions with your child to help remember the solfege syllables and the corresponding notes.

From the draft booket:

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Solfège Actions

Perhaps an even more powerful association you could use for remember notes and chords in solfège is through hand actions and corresponding parts of the body.  Unlike the Curwen solfège hand signs system used by some today which requires finer gross motor movement with the hand and fingers, the system used here is designed to be suitable for even infants and toddlers, and require only gross motor movements with the arms and hands.

In this system, each solfège syllable corresponds to an area of the body (or areas around the body in some cases), and the child simply puts her hands on those areas as each solfège syllable is sung out.  Please see the chart below for the different body areas:

[CHART - SEE ATTACHED]

These solfège Actions cover two octaves from a G (‘So’) to another G (‘So’) two octaves higher.  Most lessons in the curriculum cover the C octave, so the solfège actions start from the lap (‘Do’) to the crown of the head (‘Do’).

To use this system, encourage your child to gently tap on the appropriate body area whenever you hear or see a note in solfège.  For example, when 'Do' is played, help her use her two hands to pat her lap as you sing out 'Do'.  Similarly, when the chord 'Domiso' is played, help her use her hands to pat her lap, belly, and chin in sequence as you sign out 'Domiso'.

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OPEN THE ATTACHED PICTURE TO SEE AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE SOLFEGE ACTIONS.

Let me know if you have any comments.


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EDIT - PLEASE SEE MY POST BELOW AND REPLY TO VOTE WHETHER 'SO' SHOULD BE ON SHOULDERS OR CHIN. IMAGINE TEACHING IT TO YOUR CHILD AND LET ME KNOW WHICH WOULD WORK BETTER, THANKS!

[Mae_Jakob_Ka]

Thanks!! This will be another fun thing I can play with my son in the morning before he goes to school.
He loves watching LMs on a big screen TV.

[lzp11]

These are great thank you.  I only hope that I will be able to learn them too!   I have just printed the image out onto a coloured sheet of card, so we can practice with them.  I will need to be creative as to how we do this, since we currently tend to use LMs whilst sitting at the table.  I will need to come up with some games to practice learning the different signs. 
Does anyone know of any good solfege songs, where they sing in solfege?  I know of Do a Deer from the Sound of Music.  I think we could play this song from Youtube and do the signs.  It would be good to have some other songs for this game too.

[Skylark]

Excellent! And so much easier and fun to implement then Curven for little ones. We just tried some of the motions and solfege turns into a fun motion game --- definitely brings a whole new dimension to solfege! Thank you!

[lzp11]

So we have been playing with the solfege hand actions - so far just Middle to High Do and back down again.  Are you planning to animate these and have a section teaching them as part of the curriculum?  That would be amazing!   I found these signs mostly worked very well, the only thing I found was that Sol and La are quite close together, especially for young children signing, it seems quite a lot to have three signs on the face.  I found it slightly easier to do Sol on the shoulders, which then left La as lower face / cheeks and Ti as forehead.  Did anyone else find this?

To help me remember, I added a few actions and sang along with "Do on our leggies, Re wiggle our hips, Mi pat our tummy, Fa like a gorilla, Sol on our shoulders / flap our wings, La tap our cheeks, Ti on the forehead, Do on the head".  I also played this as a gentle tickling game, touching each part of her body, when DD was unenthused about joining in the signs (this is why it would be great to have animated versions!!)

To add some interest I tried to look for songs on Youtube to do the actions to.  I was horrified to find that what I had believed to be the ultimate solfege song: Do a Deer (from the Sound of Music) is not actually solfege, in that Do in the song is not actually a C - it is in the wrong key!     I am slightly devastated by this as it is one of my all time favourite old musicals (this may be a British thing?!).  So, my advice is be very careful when lookng for songs that contain Do Re Mi in the title as I have discovered, with the help of my keyboard, that most are entirely unsuitable for teaching perfect pitch because of being in the wrong key.

I did find one or two clips where Do does correspond to a C, for example:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ruj47yMbARM&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ruj47yMbARM&rel=1</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/IvrJKn-fCqQ&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/IvrJKn-fCqQ&rel=1</a>

I also found the following which is also a fun solfege song (but way too fast for my current hand action ability 
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/tH91ppPkAag&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/tH91ppPkAag&rel=1</a>

[KL]

Thanks for your input, all!

lzp11 - actually, I had been debating for some time whether to make use of the shoulders, and in particular, for SO.  It just didn't seem to be as comfortable or convenient when moving up from tummy to chest and up, but that might be just me!

CAN EVERYONE GIVE THEIR INPUT PLEASE??

SO = SHOULDER OR CHIN???

Please let me know your opinion, cos we can still change it easily before stuff goes to print!

Re Doe a Deer, I didn't realize it wasn't in the key of C either! hmm... I guess they must be using it as Moveable Do instead of Fixed Do.
BTW, all our songs (The Little Solfege Song, Little Waltz, Kid Who Likes To Sing, and The Little Learner) are all in C, though the first one has F and G variations. )

Thank

[TeachingMyToddlers]

BTW, all our songs (The Little Solfege Song, Little Waltz, Kid Who Likes To Sing, and The Little Learner) are all in C, though the first one has F and G variations. )

Today Lily wanted me to play "The Kid who Likes to Learn" so I scrolled through unsuccessfully until I figured out that she got a bit confused and crossed the two.  Save that title for the upgrade. 

[lzp11]

KL I agree it is quicker to go from chest to face - but I did wonder if having So Fa and Ti on the face might be more confusing and difficult to carry out for the younger kids. But would be very interested to hear what others think. I find using signing so helpful for teaching.

[KL]

I think maybe if we do it around the collar-bone area instead of wide out to the shoulders that would be a good compromise?

[Skylark]

I think maybe if we do it around the collar-bone area instead of wide out to the shoulders that would be a good compromise?

Tried that ( before you actually suggested it  ) and it worked really well. Makes the motion smooth and positioning pretty distinct. So I would vote for the collar bone 

[monika2001]

I would vote for collar bone as well :-)
I have tried to combine Solfege actions with Curwen hand signs and I like it. Do you do it this way as well? For me, it feels the best to place hands on the chest-neck border, just slightly higher than Fa, but with hands wide open. Hand opening will clearly diferenciate it from Fa.   

[KL]

We'll move it to the collar bone.

Anyone else with feedback? Agree/disagree?

[KimmyB]

Totally agree with collar bone. Also just a note reagrding the use of do re mi from the sound of music, the original stage version of the  "do re mi" song was written in the key of C major however it was transposed to B flat for the film version, so the original (if you were paritcularly keen on using that song & can find the original) is appropriate Solfege.

[lzp11]

We've tried the collar bone and it works really well. I liked the idea of open hands rather than closed fists.
Thanks for your suggestion KimmyB. I will look that out. It's just a real favourite song that I grew up with so would love to share with my kids too

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