A form of musical notation and the system of teaching sight-singing which depends upon it, both devised by John Curwen in mid-19th-century England. One of the few alternative forms of notation to achieve international use in modern times, Tonic Sol-fa had its origin in Guidonian solmization, depending like that system upon aural perception of relative pitch (see Solmization, §I), but incorporating many features adopted empirically from other sources. First designed as an aid to beginners, Tonic Sol-fa was mistakenly regarded by its extreme exponents late in the 19th century as superior to standard notation in its own right. Consequently distrusted and misunderstood by many professional musicians, the system passed through a more recent period of disfavour and neglect. It is now seen to offer distinct advantages when employed purely as an ancillary device in the early stages of learning to read from notes; and, particularly following its adoption in modified form by Zoltán Kodály for use in Hungarian schools, it is employed for that purpose today in many parts of the world (see Schools).
2. The notation as originally used.
BERNARR RAINBOW
Tonic Sol-fa owes its existence to the drive to improve congregational singing which began in Britain during the third decade of the 19th century. At a conference of Sunday school teachers in Hull in 1841 the Rev. John Curwen, a young Congregationalist minister already noted for his remarkable skill as a teacher, was charged with the task of finding the most reliable method of teaching singing. Though without musical ability himself, Curwen took the charge seriously. He had already attempted unsuccessfully to teach his own schoolchildren to sing, but had found anything beyond teaching melodies by rote unattainable because of his ignorance of musical notation. Earlier attempts to teach himself to read music had failed because the technical information supplied by the instrumental primers of his day proved quite incomprehensible to him without the aid of a teacher; and later attendance at the popular singing classes organized by John Hullah only served to convince Curwen that a sol-fa system which linked doh permanently to the note C inevitably led to bafflement when other keys were introduced.
It was at this stage of his investigations that Curwen examined a treatise on the teaching of singing written by Sarah Anna Glover, a Norwich schoolmistress, entitled Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational (1835). The book set out the details of a method that Glover had used to train a remarkably proficient children's choir for the church at which her father was vicar. Depending basically upon a notation of sol-fa initials, her Scheme was designed to make the pupil familiar from the outset with the aural effect of note relationships – instead of introducing him first to a catalogue of musical facts and symbols. After studying Glover's book Curwen was delighted to find that he was soon able to read a psalm tune from her notation; and on teaching the first steps of her method to a child at his lodgings, he was convinced that he had found the system he was seeking.
Excited by his discovery, Curwen published early in 1842 a series of ‘Lessons on Singing’ in the Independent Magazine (a Congregationalist journal that he edited), making several amendments of his own to Glover's original method. She had anglicized the traditional sol-fa names to read Do, Ra, Me, Fah, Sole, Lah and Te; he preferred doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah and te as being less ambiguous. She employed capital letters for her notation of initials; he used small letters because they took up less room on the page and were available in greater quantity in the stock of any journeyman printer. She codified keys by reference to an elaborate chart; he preferred to state the key simply as ‘Doh is C’, or ‘Key C’. These and many other similar modifications, each marking an improvement on the original, reflect Curwen's practical mind and insight as a teacher. He gave the name ‘Tonic Sol-fa’ to his version to emphasize its key-centred nature – as opposed to the ‘fixed’ sol-fa which John Hullah had introduced from France and was then teaching.
Curwen was 25 when he published his first account of Tonic Sol-fa in the Independent Magazine, and he was to devote the rest of his life to the perfection and propagation of his method. Constantly examining the works of other teachers both at home and abroad, he eagerly incorporated into his own system any device which helped to make the pupil's task simpler. In every case where he adopted an idea in this way he readily acknowledged its source. Curwen is thus to be regarded as an agent of synthesis rather than as the inventor of an original method of teaching.
The progress of the Tonic Sol-fa movement was in itself remarkable. What had begun in 1841 as a private investigation into methods of teaching music eventually grew into a nationwide organization with an enrolled membership numbering tens of thousands. From a humble beginning in the Sunday Schools the movement first began to attract adult attention in philanthropic and temperance circles. Soon afterwards, in an age when ‘self-improvement’ represented an ideal for respectable and ambitious members of the working classes, Curwen's publications were being studied by a much wider circle. And with the appearance in 1852 of the series of articles that he was commissioned to write for Cassell's Popular Educator Curwen's readership increased astronomically. Some years earlier he had already found it necessary to set up a private printing press to supply Tonic Sol-fa publications; but by 1856 the demands made upon him by his musical activities led him to resign his ministry and devote his energies wholly to the movement. He founded the Tonic Sol-fa College in 1869. Not only was Tonic Sol-fa established in amateur choral organizations throughout Britain long before Curwen’s death in 1880, but it had been adopted as the recognized method of teaching music in the schools of the land.
It is important to take into account the fact that Curwen was motivated largely by social and religious aims. In his desire to bring music to the poor and to the service of the church he tended increasingly to be swayed by the fact that Tonic Sol-fa notation could be produced very much more cheaply than musical scores of the orthodox type. Thus, although his original intention was to employ sol-fa initials only as an approach device to help the beginner, as time went on he became less disposed to press his followers to undertake the complementary study of staff notation. As a result, armies of Tonic Sol-fa pupils became entirely dependent upon publications using their familiar notation. Confronted with staff notation, they were almost as ignorant of its meaning as they had been before their sol-fa training had begun.
Failure to integrate the learning of sol-fa with an understanding of staff notation led many of Curwen's followers into a musical cul-de-sac; it also incidentally brought Tonic Sol-fa itself into disrepute. Vividly aware of that hazard, but persuaded of the continuing value of sol-fa in the early stages of learning to read notation, teachers today employ a modified version of Curwen's original system.
The notes of the rising major scale are represented, whatever the key, by the symbols shown in ex.1a. When notes rise above that compass they are marked as in ex.1b; similarly, notes falling below standard pitch are marked as in ex.1c. Melodies having their lower tonic within the octave above middle C are treated as standard pitch (ex.2). Tenor and bass parts are written an octave higher than sung.
Chromatic degrees are noted by changing the vowel of the sol-fa name concerned (see ex.3). Sharpened notes use ‘e’ (pronounced ‘ee’), flattened notes use ‘a’ (pronounced ‘aw’).
Chromatic note names are always written in full. They are employed only for ornamental notes and transient modulation. When extended modulation occurs the new tonic is named ‘doh’, the transition being expressed by a ‘bridge note’ with a double name (ex.4). The upper name relates to the old key and the lower to the new key. The bridge note in ex.4 is sung as s'doh. Modulation to the subdominant is noted as in ex.5, in which the bridge note is sung as m'te. As this example shows, it is the practice to state the name of the key above the symbols at the beginning of a melody, and when modulation occurs to name the new key, adding the sol-fa name of the new ‘foreign’ note to be encountered – in this case fah. A bridge note is always introduced at the point which makes the transition easiest for the singer, whether this corresponds to the true harmonic situation or not.
Curwen's method of notating rhythm depends basically upon the bar-line and the colon. The bar-line performs the same function as in staff notation; the colon precedes every weak beat within a bar. Subsidiary accents within bars are indicated by shortened bar-lines. To help the eye, equal beats are represented on the page by equal lateral spacing – no matter how many notes share a beat (ex.6 – time signatures are not used: they are shown in this example only to clarify). A beat is divided into halves by placing a full stop in the middle of it; into quarters by placing a comma in the middle of each half (see ex.7). A note is continued through another beat or part of a beat by means of a dash. Slurs are represented by horizontal lines beneath the notes (as in ex.8). To economize on horizontal space, the common figure consisting of a dotted quaver followed by a semiquaver does not employ the dash. Instead, full stop and comma are brought close together – to show that the previous sound is continued (ex.9). Rests are not used. Silence is indicated by vacant space. Triplets are shown by using two inverted commas (ex.10).
Minor keys are regarded as derived from their relative majors, the tonic being called ‘lah’. The sharpened 6th of the melodic minor is named ‘ba’ (pronounced ‘bay’) to distinguish it from the sharpened 4th of the major scale (see ex.11). Theoretical considerations apart, this method saves great complication and the introduction of sundry chromatic note names.
Even a thorough knowledge of the notation of Tonic Sol-fa can leave a misleading impression of the manner in which Curwen intended it to be taught. Contrary to popular belief, the beginner was not first introduced to the sounds and sol-fa names of the degrees of the major scale and then required to practise pitching random diatonic intervals.
To begin with, Curwen taught without the aid of an instrument, patterning everything with his own voice. The aim was to make the learner independent, and to render progress easy and natural. But when sung, the major scale, with its succession of tones and semitones, appeared too complex for beginners. Moreover, ability to strike, say, a major 3rd from the tonic does not imply ability to strike the same interval elsewhere in the octave. The mental impression of a major 3rd based on the tonic is quite different from that of the same interval based upon the dominant.
Curwen argued that every note of the scale produced its own ‘mental effect’. He therefore insisted that the pupil must be given the opportunity to experience and attempt to describe the character of the different degrees for himself. He began by teaching the notes of the tonic chord – not the scale – emphasizing its bold character when the notes were sounded slowly in succession, then inviting the pupil to note for himself the firmness of soh and the calm of me. When, at a later stage, the remaining degrees of the scale were gradually introduced, an attempt was made to encourage the pupil to describe their individual qualities. The expectation was that he would find lah sad, te incisive, ray expectant and fah desolate. The precise terms employed were not important. The object was to fix the individual character of each degree in the pupil’s mind and thus equip him to recall that quality when the occasion arose – rather than to calculate the position of a note by counting through the scale.
Once the tonic chord had been made familiar Curwen went on to introduce the dominant chord (ex.12). When the pupil was able to sound its notes at will and recall their individual character, the subdominant chord followed. In that way the complete range of the scale was built up by means of concordant intervals easily imitated by a beginner. With the octave complete, a period was spent practising tunes and exercises within that compass.
In teaching and exercising the notes of the scale a diagram known as a Modulator was employed. Much of a pupil's early vocal experience was in singing melodies from the Modulator, following with his voice the teacher's pointer. The simplest form of Modulator displayed only the notes of the major scale. A more comprehensive version (seeex.13) showed a key with its dominant (to the left) and subdominant (to the right) and the chromatic degrees between.
Almost the last of the devices which Curwen introduced to his method was the series of ‘Manual Signs’ first brought into use in 1870 (see illustration). Curwen advocated their use because they enabled the teacher to work facing his class, instead of towards the Modulator. The commonest of the chromatic degrees could also be indicated by slight modifications: fe, by pointing the first finger horizontally to the left; ta, similarly to the right; and se, by pointing straight forward. (For a broader discussion of manual signs see Cheironomy.)
In general Curwen urged the teacher to begin his task without employing any symbols at all, gradually introducing them as they were needed to make the pupil recognize and recall what he already knew. A staunch disciple of Pestalozzi, Curwen presented his own paraphrase of the familiar Pestalozzian precepts: to let the easy come before the difficult; to introduce the real and concrete before the abstract; to teach the elemental before the compound; to do one thing at a time; to introduce the common before the uncommon; to teach the thing before the sign; to let each step arise out of what had gone before; and to call the understanding to assist the skill.
He thus separated the teaching of rhythm from the teaching of pitch. Once familiar with the scale, his pupils were introduced to rhythmic values by means of the Time Names (later known as Rhythm Names) devised by Aimé Paris and anglicized by Curwen to form part of his system. Ex.14 introduces the most common of these names in Curwen's version.
Before attempting to sing an unknown melody Curwen's elementary pupils were first required to chant its Time Names on a monotone. Once they had mastered the rhythmic element they went on to tackle the rise and fall of its pitch. Finally, the two elements were combined.
With the major scale and simple rhythmic notation mastered, Curwen next dealt with elementary modulation – to the dominant and subdominant. Then came the minor mode, chromatic notes and more distant modulations. With that total equipment supplemented by regular practice, Curwen's followers were able to sing with confidence in local choirs, or in those massed performances of oratorio which formed an essential part of the amateur musical life of Britain in the second half of the 19th century. In the great majority of cases, however, they were able to do so only because John Curwen had made available over the years a vast repertory of vocal scores printed in Tonic Sol-fa notation (see Notation, III, 5, fig.132a). A contemporary estimate claimed that by 1890 more than 39,000 copies of the Tonic Sol-fa edition of Handel's Messiah had been sold. That figure is an indication of the success of Curwen's movement to bring music to the people at large; it also reveals the high proportion of his followers who failed to come to grips with orthodox notation.
Failure to adapt Tonic Sol-fa to suit changing needs steadily reduced its use in Britain after the 1920s. Curwen's own policy of constantly revising his methods was forgotten after his death and, unlike such acknowledged continental adaptations of his work as Hundoegger's Tonika-Do or Kodály's rendering, Tonic Sol-fa was allowed to petrify.
A working party set up at the University of London Institute of Education in 1970–71 re-examined Tonic Sol-fa with the current needs of schools in mind. It found that the outmoded letter notation could be dispensed with, that sol-fa and staff notation could readily be integrated, and that sight-singing in schools should be treated as a means of sharpening aural awareness rather than an end in itself. These findings were forwarded to the Tonic Sol-fa College, and a collateral body, the Curwen Institute, was founded in 1974 to develop and promote a revised form of Tonic Sol-fa on the lines recommended. As a result W.H. Swinburne published The New Curwen Method (London, 1980–84), after two years' experimental use in schools. It follows Curwen's general principles and uses hand signs, but abandons the original letter notation. Instead, the hand signs are used as an introductory form of notation, the hand being moved up and down an empty blackboard staff to denote precise rise and fall of pitch. Partsinging is introduced at an early stage in conjunction with devices to develop the inner ear, the musical memory and the creative sense. Reading from staff notation takes place from the earliest stages.
W.G. McNaught: ‘The History and Uses of the Sol-Fa Syllables’, PMA, xix (1892–3), 35–51
J. Taylor: ‘The Evolution of the Movable Doh’, PMA, xxiii (1896–7), 17–35
W.G. McNaught: ‘The Psychology of Sight-Singing’, PMA, xxvi (1899–1900), 35–55
H.W. Shaw: ‘The Musical Teaching of John Curwen’, PRMA, lxxvii (1950–51), 17–26
B. Rainbow: The Land without Music: Musical Education in England, 1800–1860, and its Continental Antecedents (London, 1967)
B. Rainbow: John Curwen: a Short Critical Biography (Sevenoaks, 1980)