Category:Tonic Sol-fa notation

For music written in, or including, Tonic Sol-Fa notation. This system was devised (after the ancient Guidonian gamut) by Sarah Glover of Norwich, and adapted and popularized by John Curwen in the mid-nineteenth century.
Rather than using a stave, clefs and noteheads, Tonic Sol-Fa uses the initial letters of the solfege scale, thus d r m f s l t (for Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti), with various signs for changes in octave, length of note, modulation to a different key, etc. Because the system uses nothing more complex than normal text type, it had the advantage of being vastly cheaper to print than engraved or typeset music.
Often music was printed in standard notation with tonic sol-fa above or beneath.
Today, the system remains in use (mainly in the context of Protestant Christian music), in Scotland, Wales, South Africa, the Philippines and several other areas.

External Links

• Wikipedia article
• Wikichorus, the open sol-fa songbook
• sol2snd a tonic sol-fa notation program.
• Video of Treorchy Male Choir singing from tonic sol-fa notation, with explanation in Welsh (John Haydn Davies, 1975).