Introduction
Harmony and Musicianship with Solfège is a result of nearly 50 years combined music theory teaching by the authors, Laszlo Cser and Daniel Wanner. The pedagogical concept of the textbook originated in 1988 with Laszlo Cser’s harmony supplement, The Essentials of Tonal Music. In 1997 this was expanded into Harmony and Musicianship with Solfège, which continues to be a fundamental component of the music theory program at Los Angeles City College.
College-level curriculum
The textbook adheres to the harmony and musicianship course requirements of California State University and California Community College music programs, presenting comprehensive harmony studies and assignments of the Common Practice Period (1600-1900), sight singing and ear training materials, and chapters introducing 20th century music techniques including jazz.
Movable-do solfège
The textbook employs the Kodály method’s movable-do solfège system, where the do–re–mi–fa–so–la–ti syllables represent scale degrees and harmonic functions rather than actual pitches. The concept behind movable-do is that any melody sounds the same on any starting pitch. Mastering the relative solfège system of movable-do opens the door for students to recognize, comprehend, and perform the melodic and harmonic elements of tonal music.
Interactive format
Four-part syllable diagrams are used to illustrate harmonic progressions. The arrows on the diagrams indicate the voice leading, allowing students to recognize the function of scale degrees within a progression. The parts should be sung and played at the keyboard. To avoid dependence on solfège syllables only, it is recommended to use syllables, absolute names, and nonsense syllables. Free online score libraries are to be used for analysis of excerpts and compositions corresponding to each chapter. As many of the music examples are in MuseScore, the student should consider downloading the free music notation software.
The authors wish to dedicate this textbook to all past and future music students.