YAY!  So excited!!!  Get ready for the stampede...

I think using colors also gives you the opportunity to add some tonal personality to the notes.  For example, Do and So are the strongest degrees, so they should be solid, sturdy colors.  Mi is bright, maybe yellow?  La is sad (it is the homebase for minor), maybe purple?  Re, Fa, Ti are all slippery, unstable.  Teaching these "personalities" of each scale degree is very important; it is the basis for understanding harmony and melodic movement.  One must have a good intuition for them to write one's own music.  (The traditional Curwin solfege hand signs accomplish this same thing.)

So strange - you've just described the rainbow scale! 

Wow, you're right!  I guess it's meant to be.  You'll loose the tonal definitions of the colors when you transpose to G and F keys though.  How early does that happen?

Hmm. I guess brighter colors for higher and darker for lower might be a better system for absolute pitch.  The funny thing is, though, in my experience people with perfect/absolute pitch aren't particularly visual people.  But if using colors is working for people (and not just advertised to work), then we should try it.  But if it is used exclusively, it will hinder students from reading standard music notation.  That can always be taught later, but one of the stated goals of LMs is to teach it from the start.

Someone on youtube came up with a wonderful idea for visualizing classical music.  I don't know if it's at all practical for LMs...


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/rRgXUFnfKIY&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/rRgXUFnfKIY&rel=1</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ATbMw6X3T40&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ATbMw6X3T40&rel=1</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/1QHzI5HmXl4&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/1QHzI5HmXl4&rel=1</a>


They really allow you to see the textures of the pieces.  Amazing tool for music education.

I suppose there would be problems if a child has synesthesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Sound_.E2.86.92_color_synesthesia), but in general I like the idea of using it at the beginning, as KL as suggested, but only in certain activities to avoid a dependence on it at the cost of reading the pitches on the staff.  (Similar to how a piano student would never learn to read pitches if all their songs used notes with the note names inside of the heads.)

I think using colors also gives you the opportunity to add some tonal personality to the notes.  For example, Do and So are the strongest degrees, so they should be solid, sturdy colors.  Mi is bright, maybe yellow?  La is sad (it is the homebase for minor), maybe purple?  Re, Fa, Ti are all slippery, unstable.  Teaching these "personalities" of each scale degree is very important; it is the basis for understanding harmony and melodic movement.  One must have a good intuition for them to write one's own music.  (The traditional Curwin solfege hand signs accomplish this same thing.)

Maybe only use the colors for ear-training activities and not for sight-reading ones?  Although, it may not be easy to separate them sometimes...

Well, I agree with you.  That's why I wanted to find out what the majority of people wanted, but I guess they don't have much of an opinion...    I would assume the the majority of people who buy these products live in the US and Hong Kong, although apparently there are a lot of people in India, Malaysia and Singapore.  The common thread here, I guess, is former British occupancy.      But seriously, that brings each of these places the English language and some cultural similarities.


Wikipedia says:

"Movable do is frequently employed in Australia, China and Japan (with 7th being si), Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong and English-speaking Canada (although a few American conservatories use French-style fixed do) ... movable do (used in Britain, Germany, Indian classical music, and the United States)."

"Fixed do is used in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Belgium, Romania, Latin American countries and in French-speaking Canada as well as countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Iran, Lebanon, and Israel where non-Romance languages are spoken. . . . fixed do (used in China, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Russia, South America and parts of North America, Japan, and Vietnam)"

Obviously there is some contradiction there...   

I'm not certain that it will be possible to introduce movable do later on for those kids that do develop perfect pitch.  You have to understand that for someone with perfect pitch who learned it on solfege, Do is C.  It becomes almost a moral issue to them.  What if I told you that whenever you write on this forum for now on, D is the new A and you must shift all your letters accordingly.  And then tomorrow, Q is the new A.  You would go crazy trying to do that! 

There is a chance, however, before we get too far into the training, introducing too many new keys, that if we wean the kids onto note names and then move do, they might be okay with that.  It all depends how strongly they have latched onto solfege as their mental labels for absolute pitch.  If we can get them to latch onto note names (which I think is much more useful anyways, unless you live in France where they don't use them), they might let go of solfege and allow us to use it as labels for the tonal relationships instead.  Imagine if I told you that you had to abandon the Western alphabet and start using a new one I invented instead! 

I don't know, I guess a lot of things are possible with kids this young.      Uncharted territory . . . isn't it great?   

I find that music educators tend to have very strong opinions on the Fixed vs. Movable Do debate.  Since this is one of the big questions we are facing in creating Little Musician, I think it is important to find out what current Brill parents think about it. 

If you could, also please reply your choice and what country you are from/currently in on this thread.

Thanks!!! 

I would love to be a part of your beta testing group.  I think I can offer some valuable insight.

I am a private piano and voice teacher that has worked with children as young as 3 and a half.  I have also published a singing and ear-training method for children about age 5-9.

Background: I hold a Bachelors and Masters in Music, and have nearly completed a K-12 Music Teaching Credential for California.  I am a certified "Harmony Road" instructor (total musicianship course/keyboard prep for 1 1/2 years and up, though the youngest I have taught is about 4.)   I began piano and violin lessons myself at about 4 years old using a combination of Suzuki and other methods (and I "sat in" on lessons from before I was born since my mom was a teacher).  Because of the early training I received, I and most of my other siblings have perfect pitch. 

I have a three-month-old that I have been trying to do early music stuff with, but I am very excited about what you may have to offer. I can approach it from an educationally-informed perspective, as well as from practical experience with my own students.  And I will definitely use it with my own daughter!

Here is a link to my CV if you are interested: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregoryblankenbehler