Who Should Use Conversational Solfege Upper Levels (3 & 4), John Crever

John Crever Endorsed Feierabend Methodology Teacher Trainer John@music-ade.com

As children, we learn language not by studying letters and spelling, but by listening and imitating. Language acquisition in young children is an Ear First experience. Conversational Solfege™ (CS) takes a similar approach to music learning. The life’s work of Hartt School of Music Professor Emeritus, Dr. John Feierabend, CS is a music literacy curriculum intended for school music programs from early elementary through high school and college. CS simulates language acquisition by challenging learners to become conversational with music before making attempts at sight-reading notation. Using solfege and rhythmic syllables, students learn to be conversational with tones and rhythms, by ear, improvising conversationally before seeing the notation.

Conversational Solfege is a 12-step method divided into four processes (boxes) Readiness, Conversational, Reading and Writing. Within each process, learners are challenged to first use what they know in order to gain experience with thinking and then reading what they don’t know. Throughout the 12 steps, students regularly demonstrate proficiency decoding something familiar then move on to something unfamiliar, moving through ear-first improvisation, then sight-reading and culminating with composing original music by notating their improvisations. CS is broken down into four teaching levels and can be used as early as second grade all the way through college as a comprehensive music reading curriculum that easily plugs into an existing program. Levels 1 & 2 of Conversational Solfege focus on reading and writing with the first six tones of the major scale with a variety of rhythmic elements in duple and triple meters. Upper level CS (levels 3 & 4) build on levels 1 & 2 rhythmic and melodic development and moves students towards four-part modal improvisation.

In addition, “Teaching Harmony and Improvisation Using Conversational Solfege”5 can be implemented at the same time Conversational Solfege Levels 3 and 4 are presented.

While few elementary school music programs will actually have a chance to use CS3 & 4, even teachers in elementary schools will benefit from learning CS3 & 4 as well as Teaching Harmony and Improvisation. Comprehending the scope and sequence of this third and fourth volume answers questions many teachers already using CS with their groups wonder about. For instance, when and how to introduce pick-up notes, 16th notes and reading in a variety of meters and modes in both triple and duple meters. With some planning at the district level, years of music reading instruction done in the elementary vocal with Conversational Solfege can be continued and expanded upon in middle and high school performing ensembles.

For MS and HS music program teachers, CS 3 &4 is particularly helpful, even if the lower and upper elementary programs are not using an ear first approach. Upper Level CS helps Upper Elementary, Middle, and High School music programs introduce, develop and keep on track, a sightreading program that grows thinking musicians.

Example: The 12-Steps of Conversational Solfege. From Conversational Solfege Level 1, Teacher Manual, pp. 15.1

In a course that meets every day (e.g. band, orchestra and choir in middle and high school) students can progress very quickly through the units with daily instruction, doing 2-3 steps as a daily lesson that culminates as the week progresses into writing original compositions on the last day. Conversational Solfege can also be used successfully as a college level musicianship skills class. During a single dedicated sightsinging class, students would do all 12 steps of the unit. In a 15-week semester, students could complete CS levels 1 & 2, and in the second semester, complete CS Levels 3 & 4 while exploring harmony and improvisation from an informed earfirst approach along the way.

Example: Bassline Melody “I Have a Dog”, exercising the tonal syllable Sol. From Conversational Solfege Level 2, Unit 5, pp. 34. 2

In addition to introducing and practicing a variety of rhythms, meters and modes that musicians encounter daily, CS3/4 teaches students to think in parts, developing a harmonic understanding by singing Bassline Melodies. Bassline Melodies are simple melodies comprised of the chord roots of tonic and dominant harmonies. They can be applied to whatever repertoire the instructor chooses and are used to help teach rhythmic or tonal subjects ( i.e. quarter/ eights, DRM ). Many of the folksongs in the teacher manual CS2 for music reading instruction can be expanded into a harmony singing lesson. Bassline Melody examples can be seen throughout Levels 2 and above.

Bassline melodies provide a stepping-stone into singing in choral harmony. CS3 offers a vocal experience with tonic, dominant and sub-dominant chords. In his soon to be released book on vocal harmony and improvisation, Feierabend lays out a path to lead students in expanding beyond just a single bassline against a melody into improvising with fourpart chords.

With time and practice, once the students have experience singing bassline melodies in CS 2 & 3, a teacher can encourage students to discover the bassline melody of a given song. Exploring harmony with an ear-first approach, informed by just enough music theory to help the student make informed choices, can be empowering as students learn to use their own ears and judgment to compose and arrange music, free of an instrument.

Throughout the CS curriculum, students learn that tones have specific locations like a person who resides in a house. Each house on the street holds a single family of a larger extended family living on the same street, or apartment building. When students understand which tones live in each household, they are able to recognize the implied harmony of the notes that they’re singing at each part in the melody. With this working vocabulary and ability in tonic/dominant harmonic relationships, choosing movement between chord tones allows for even more musical independence, but keeps

The curriculum is available from GIA publications. There are many resources available online and in print. More than 40 live trainings events are happening across the country and around the world. To get the most out of the CS curriculum, the Feierabend Association of Music Education (F.A.M.E.) recommends attending a 20+-hour teacher curriculum training. Endorsed certification on CS is divided into two classes. Levels 1 & 2 comprise about as much music reading instruction as would be covered during elementary school years.

The CS Upper Levels 20-hour training includes CS 3 & 4 as well as Harmony and Improvisation. CS3 gives instruction on how to teach the new Level 3 teacher manual, culminating with the introduction of natural minor as the aeolian mode. Transitioning into Level 4 and harmonic and melodic minor introducing chromatic alterations fi and si, and the Mixolydian, Lydian, Dorian and Phrygian modes, first conversationally, then reading notation and lastly compositionally. As an added lagniappe, Dr. Feierabend will share his soon to be released book Teaching Harmony and Improvisation Using Conversational Solfege5 that lays out the pathway to teach functional diatonic harmony with an informed, earfirst approach.

“Conversational Solfege provides the tools for musicians to become musically literate,” say teacher trainers Andrew Himelick and Craig Knapp in their chapter on CS in the choral Setting4 “by improving a young musician’s confidence with intonation and sight-reading as they work through the units, as part of a regular music literacy mini lesson plugged in to the larger lesson or rehearsal. Teachers utilizing CS can be confident that rehearsals and classes are a time when students are not only working towards their performance goals but also increasing their musicality.” CS gives teachers a musically natural pathway, far-reaching curriculum and pedagogy by which to teach comprehensive music literacy in the music classroom.

John Feierabend will be teaching a condensed 3-Day format is his Conversational Solfege Upper Level teacher certification this summer in Princeton, NJ. Aug. 20-22, 2020. For more information go to www.music-ade.com/upcomingclasses-in-2020/

For information on CS 1 & 2 in the NE, go to www. Feierabendmusic.org

CS 1 & 2 courses in additional areas of the US can be found at www.music-ade.com/upcoming-classes-in-2020/ 1 Conversational Solfege Level 1 Teacher Manual: Feierabend, J.M. (2001) Book. Chicago, IL. GIA Publications, Inc. 2 Conversational Solfege Level 2 Teacher Manual: Feierabend, J.M. (2001) Book. Chicago, IL. GIA Publications, Inc. 3 Conversational Solfege Level 3 Teacher Manual, Feierabend, J.M. (2nd Edition 2018) Book. Chicago, IL. GIA Publications, Inc. 4 Feierabend Fundamentals, History, Philosophy, and Practice, Feierabend, J.M. & Strong, M. (2018) Book. Chicago, IL. GIA Publications, Inc. 5 Teaching Harmony and Improvisation Using Conversational Solfege, Feierabend, J.M. (2020) Book. Chicago, IL. GIA Publications, Inc.