How do you derive the tonic solfa of a song when you hear it?
You might find yourself in a situation whereby you have to play the notes of a song as an interlude or intro or something. How do you now produce the solfa notation of the song.
For starters, I want you to understand that Rome was not built in a day. So you only get better musically every day. You cannot just be musically inclined in a day or a month. It takes time.
Let’s get started. If you follow these steps carefully constantly, you would see a great improvement in deriving musical notes on our own.
1. Start by getting the tonic solfa of some simple songs(solfa notation of 10 common nigerian praise and worship songs) that you know from people around you. It could be your music teacher, your friends, your choir master.
2. When you get the solfa of those songs, take them home and sing them over and over again, there is no limit to the number of times you should sing them.
3. You need to sing them out loud, so you can hear yourself very clearly. In other words I’m saying you should memorize the tonic solfas.
If you do this, you are consciously taking steps to train your ears to recognize musical notes individually.
4. Join the choir. Many of us want to learn to be musically inclined without having to be in the system of music. You need to immerse yourself into music generally. The church choir is a good place to really understand musical concepts.
Most of the popular musicians we know today, started from the church. If they didn’t start in the church, you can be sure that they spent some long period of time being the chorister in the church.
In the choir, you would be opportune to do a lot of musical exercises which includes ear training, voice training. You would sing a lot of solfas too. If you sing the notes wrong, you
would be corrected. You just need to be disciplined.
5. Buy yourself a musical instrument. Ask someone who knows how to play to some extent to show you how you can play the major scale on that musical instrument.
When you can now play the major scale(d r m f s l t d), now begin to play all those solfas you already know on your musical instrument. As you play them, sing along. Do it on a daily basis. No pain No gain.
6. Now, you need to start doing some trial and error. Pick a random song. A short one preferably.
Sing out the first syllable of the song and look for the corresponding sound amongst the notes of the major scale that you’ve learnt when you have gotten it, sing out the next syllable and look for the corresponding sound too.
Make sure you are writing them down. Continue like that till you reach the end of the song. You need to be sure that you are on the same key with your musical instrument as you are doing it.
7. When you are done, give our results to a musically inclined person to go through it and correct you.
8. Try it again the next day, and the next and the next. You would be getting better every day. Till you finally become a professional.
How to get the solfa notation ebook of over 200 Nigerian praise and worship songs
