The Grand Staff
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Musical notation describes the pitch (how high or low), temporal position (when to start) and duration (how long) of discrete elements, or sounds, we call notes. The notes are represented by graphical symbols, also called notes or note signs. A row of notes steadily rising in pitch is named successively using the first seven letters of the Roman alphabet, i.e. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Where the row needs to continue upwards beyond G, the sequence of note names begins again, starting with A.
The human ear tends to hear notes an octave apart as being essentially "the same". For this reason, such notes are given the same note name in the Western system of music notation and are said to be members of the same 'pitch class' — thus, the name of a note any number of octaves above or below A is therefore also named A. This is called octave equivalency, and is closely related to the concept of harmonics, a subject we consider later in lesson 27.
If the row moves downwards below A the next note would be G then F and so on.
The notes are placed on a grid of horizontal lines separated by spaces. The grid is called a staff or stave. The plural form of either word is staves. In the past staves were used with many different numbers of lines, but the most common staff format used today has five lines separated by four spaces. When numbering the lines it is a widely used convention to number them on each staff from the bottom (1) to the top (5). The spaces are numbered again from the bottom (1) to the top (4).
We illustrate below two formats used today.
Music is read from 'left' to 'right', in the same direction as you are reading this text.
Notes may lie on a line (where the line passes through the note-head), in the space between two lines (where the note-head lies between two adjacent lines), in the space above the top line or on the space below the bottom line.
Notes outside the range covered by the lines and spaces of the staff are placed on, above or below shorter lines, called leger (or ledger ) lines, which can be placed above or below the staff.
The higher the pitch of the note, the higher vertically the note will be placed on the staff. Such a notation is called diastematic or intervallic.
The Clef Sign
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To establish the pitch of any note on the staff we place a graphical symbol called a clef (from the Latin clavis meaning key) at the far left-hand side of the staff. The clef establishes the pitch of the note on one particular line of the staff and thereby fixes the pitch of all the other notes lying on, or related to, the same staff.
It is common practice to visualise each clef as a part of a much larger grid of eleven horizontal lines and ten spaces known variously as the Great Staff, Grand Staff, Great Stave or Grand Stave. Note the relationship between the Great Staff and most commonly used clefs, treble (top left in the picture below), bass (bottom left in the picture below) and alto (right in the picture below). It should be stressed that, historically, there never was a staff of eleven lines. It is solely a 'construct' or 'device' used by theorists to demonstrate the relationship between various staves and clefs.
The note we call middle C and which lies in the middle of the alto clef (for clarity, we have shown it in red), lies one line below the five lines of the treble clef and lies one line above the five lines of the bass clef.
The Treble Clef
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The four inner spaces of the treble clef read upwards spell the word FACE .
The five lines read upwards spell EGBDF which you can remember using the phrase ' E very G ood B oy D oes F ine '.
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The treble clef is also called the G clef because the inner curve of the clef symbol marks the horizontal line, marked in red in the diagram to the right, associated with the note G above middle C. The treble clef is actually a stylised letter G. |
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When drawing this symbol freehand it is easiest to start with the end of the curve about the G line in the middle of the symbol and end at the large dot at the bottom of the symbol.
The Bass Clef
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The bass clef is also called the F clef because the two dots in the clef symbol lie above and below the horizontal line, marked in red in the diagram to the right, associated with the note F below middle C. The bass clef symbol is actually a stylised letter F where the two horizontal lines of the letter have been reduced to two dots. |
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When drawing this symbol freehand it is easiest to start from the large dot and end with the tail at the bottom of the symbol - after which one adds the two dots on either side of the F line.
The names of the bass clef lines GBDFA can be remembered by the phrase G ood B oys D o F ine A lways .
The four inner spaces ACEG by the phrases A ll C ows E at G rass or A ll C ars E at G as .
The Alto Clef
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The alto clef is one of a number that use the C clef symbol, so named because the the clef symbol is centered on the horizontal line, marked in red in the diagram to the right, associated with the note middle C. |
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The alto clef is also known as the counter-tenor clef.
Other Clefs
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Soprano & Mezzo-Soprano Clefs :: Tenor Clef :: Baritone & Subbass Clefs :: French Violin Clef :: Octave Clefs :: Indefinite Pitch Clef
The Score
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We meet terms like 'letter', 'word', 'sentence', 'line', 'paragraph', 'page', 'chapter' and 'book' when examining the structure of a work of literature. Except in unusual circumstances, structure has nothing to do with content.
In music we have terms that serve a similar function; so, for example, ' note ', ' bar ', ' line ', ' section ', ' movement ' and ' score '. A composer creates a musical work, what we call a score, which has various structural elements. We will learn more about these terms as we progress through our lessons.
Why Middle C?
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Why is middle C so named?
This interesting question was posed by a teacher in the United States of America.
The naming of the notes and position of middle C arise from the way we set out our great staff. d'Arezzo called the first line on the lower staff by the Greek letter 'gamma'. The lowest note in the scale was called 'ut' and was placed on gamma. This first note was soon called 'gamma ut', which contracted to 'gamut'. At some point, French musicians began referring to the whole scale (by then an octave) as the 'gamut', a typical example of metonymy, the rhetorical or metaphorical substitution of a one thing for another based on their association or proximity. The term was next extended to refer to the musical range of an instrument or voice. By the seventeenth century 'gamut' was further generalized to mean an entire range of any kind.
Naming notes with syllables rather than letters is an example of solmization. The syllables Guido a'Arrezo chose to use in the system he developed in the eleventh century as an aid in the teaching of sight-singing, namely 'ut, re, me, fa, sol, la', are taken from the hymn Ut Queant Laxis Resonare Fibris. This is explained more fully in the entry for Ut Queant Laxis Resonare Fibris taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia to which we have added some extra detail.
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Ut Queant Laxis Resonare Fibris is the first line of a hymn in honour of St. John the Baptist. The Roman Breviary divides it into three parts and assigns the first, "Ut queant laxis", etc., to Vespers, the second, "Antra deserti teneris sub annis", to Matins, the third, "O nimis felix, meritique celsi", to Lauds, of the feast of the Nativity of St. John (24 June). With hymnologists generally, Dreves ascribes the authorship to Paulus Diaconus (c.774) and expresses surprise at the doubt of Duemmler, for which he can see no reason. The hymn is written in Sapphic stanzas, of which the first is famous in the history of music for the reason that the notes of the melody corresponding with the initial syllables of the six hemistichs are the first six notes of the diatonic scale of C. This fact led to the syllabic naming of the notes as Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, as may be shown by capitalizing the initial syllables of the hemistichs:
Guido of Arezzo (Paris, c.995 - Avellano, 1050), a Benedictine monk, showed his pupils an easier method of determining the sounds of the scale than by the use of the monochord. His method was that of comparison of a known melody with an unknown one which was to be learned, and for this purpose he frequently chose the well-known melody of the Ut queant laxis. Against a common view of musical writers, Dom Pothier contends that Guido did not actually give these syllabic names to the notes, did not invent the hexachordal system, etc., but that insensibly the comparison of the melodies led to the syllabic naming. When a new name for the seventh, or leading, note of our octave was desired, Erich van der Putten suggested, in 1599, the syllabic Bi of labii, but a vast majority of musical theorists supported the happier thought of the syllable Si, formed by the initial letters of the two words of the last line ( Si because J and I were then both written I ). Si was much later changed to Te by a Miss S. A. Glover and John Curwen so that each degree of the scale would have a unique single letter abreviation used for written notation. This was the start of the movable doh method of teaching which lasted in the UK for a hundred years (see Tonic Sol-fa ). In the 16th century Hubert Waelrant replaced the Ut by a Do as he judged the ut syllable difficult to pronounce. (The Latin u was pronounced differently by the French, Flemish, Germans, English and others). In some countries (particularly France and Belgium) the Do (and the other syllables) became fixed replacing the orginal note names. Others have suggested that Ut was replaced by Do, the first syllable of Dominus, in 1673, at the suggestion of Giovanni Maria Bonocini. Durandus says that the hymn was composed by Paul the Deacon on a certain Holy Saturday when, having to chant the Exsultet for the blessing of the paschal candle, he found himself suffering from an unwonted hoarseness. Perhaps bethinking himself of the restoration of voice to the father of the Baptist, he implored a similar help in the first stanza. The melody has been found in a manuscript of the tenth century, applied to the words of Horace's Ode to Phyllis, entitled Est mihi nonum superantis annum. |
The solmisation syllables were applied to sequences of six notes (e.g. C - D - E - F - G - A) called hexachords (Greek: hexa = six, chorde = string or note).
There are three hexachords starting on the notes 'g', 'c' and 'f'.
The note letter names of the upward scale from 'gamma ut' then read
gamma, A, B, c d, e, f, g, a, b, c'. d'. e', f', g', a', b', c''. d'', e''
Having chosen the name of the bottom note and defined the sequence from there upwards, all the others follow. With a five line per stave arrangement, the line between the staves in C, which, in medieval times, was called 'c sol fa ut', is today called 'middle C'. Notes are named from bottom to top - i.e. 'sol fa ut' rather than 'ut fa sol'. The extensions 'sol fa ut' describe the position of this particular c in the progression of hexachords, starting on 'gamma ut', then restarting a fourth higher ('c fa ut'), and finally starting a fourth above that ('f fa ut') after which the sequence begins again on the g one octave above 'gamma'.
In order to maintain the correct interval relationship within each hexachord, the hexachord starting on 'f' has a 'b flat' (b rotundum) for 'fa' while the hexachord starting on 'g' has a 'b natural' (b quadrum) for 'mi'. The hexachords on 'f', 'g' and 'c' were termed 'soft' (molle), 'hard' (durum) and 'natural' respectively. These mediaeval terms have persisted in German with the naming of keys, namely dur (for major) and moll (for minor), and the convention for naming the notes 'b flat' and 'b natural' which are called 'b' and 'h' respectively.
As it happens, middle C, lies just about in the middle of the standard piano keyboard and for this reason most pianists assume that the description 'middle' is a reference to this accident of piano manufacture. The term 'middle' is applied only to the note 'c' and not to the register wherein it lies.
Reference:
Note: solmization systems developed in other parts of the world. For example, in India the syllables, called sargam, are 'sa', 'ri', 'ga', 'ma', 'pa', 'dha', 'ni'.
Helmholtz Pitch Notation
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If you look at the note names below the stave in the example above, you will notice that the first two note names after gamma are shown capitalised (A and B), the next seven note names (from c to b) are in lower case, that the seven note names after that (from c' to b') have a single prime ' (other writers may use superscript i), and the final three note names (from c" to e") have a double prime '' (other writers may use superscript ii). Helmholtz notation describes an octave as a series of notes starting with the note name c (thus, c, d, e, f, g, a, b) with different octaves being distinguished by the use of upper and lower case and sometimes subscript or superscript prime (') or i.
| the key to Hemlholtz Pitch notation, using i rather than prime, is that: | |||
| the Helmholtz scale always starts on a c | |||
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| some authors write Cii as CCC and Ci as CC | |||
| the note c two ledger lines below the bass clef is C | |||
| the note 'middle c' is ci | |||
| the note 'gamma ut' (Γ ut) in Guido d'Arrezo's system (the bottom line of the bass clef) is G in Helmholtz' notation | |||
Helmholtz notation is widely used by scientists and doctors when discussing the scientific and medical aspects of sound in relation to the auditory system.
The Helmholtz notation is also used to distinguish octaves. The octave from lower case c to b is called the 'small octave' while that from c' to b' is called the 'one-line octave', 'one-line' referring to the single prime '. The next octave c'' to b'' is called the 'two-line octave' and so on upwards. The octave written with capital letters, C to B is the 'great octave'.
References:
Scientific Pitch Notation
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| an alternative naming convention called 'Scientific Pitch Notation' or 'Note-Octave Notation' is used in the United States: | |
| the lowest c on a grand piano is named C1 (alternatively C1, C(1), C[1] or C1) | |
| notes in the octave below C1 have their appropriate note name followed by the number 0 | |
| notes lying between C1 and the note one octave higher (written C2, C(2), C[2] or C2) have their appropriate note names followed by the number 1 | |
| each succeeding octave above that advances the number by one | |
| on a piano 'middle c' is C4, C(4), C[4] or C4 | |
| the note a whose pitch is set by international standard is A4, A(4), A[4] or A4 | |
| C4 is equivalent to ci in Helmholtz notation | |
| the note 'gamma ut' (Γ ut) in Guido d'Arrezo's system (the bottom line of the bass clef) is G2 in Scientific Pitch notation | |
Note that the symbol Cb4 means "the pitch one semitone (chromatic step) below the pitch C4" and not "the pitch-class Cb in octave 4." Thus, Cb4 is the same pitch as B3, not B4. The letter name is first combined with the Arabic numeral to determine a specific pitch, which is then altered by applying accidentals. For this reason, the notation C4b would be slightly more consistent, though significantly less legible.
Naming The Octaves
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The convention for naming octaves is fairly arbitrary but can be useful when considering how chords, that is groups of notes played together, sound. Keeping the notes well spread apart significantly strengthens the effect of a chord. We illustrate one naming convention below. Each note C is said to be in a different register.
| scientific pitch notation | Helmholtz pitch notation | frequency (where A4, ai = 440 Hz) | octave name |
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C0 - B0 C(0) - B(0) C[0] - B[0] C0 - B0 |
Cii - Bii CCC - BBB |
16.352 Hz - 30.868 Hz | sub-contra octave |
| C1 is called 'double pedal C' | |||
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C1 - B1 C(1) - B(1) C[1] - B[1] C1 - B1 |
Ci - Bi CC - BB |
32.703 Hz - 61.735 Hz | contra octave |
| C2 is called 'pedal C' | |||
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C2 - B2 C(2) - B(2) C[2] - B[2] C2 - B2 |
C - B | 65.404 Hz - 124.47 Hz | great octave |
| C3 is called 'bass C' | |||
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C3 - B3 C(3) - B(3) C[3] - B[3] C3 - B3 |
c - b | 130.81 Hz - 246.94 Hz | small octave |
| C4 is called 'middle C' | |||
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C4 - B4 C(4) - B(4) C[4] - B[4] C4 - B4 |
ci - bi | 261.63 Hz - 493.88 Hz |
one-line octave or one-accented octave or once-accented octave |
| C5 is called 'treble C' | |||
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C5 - B5 C(5) - B(5) C[5] - B[5] C5 - B5 |
cii - bii | 523.25 Hz - 987.77 Hz |
two-line octave or two-accented octave or twice-accented octave |
| C6 is called 'top C' | |||
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C6 - B6 C(6) - B(6) C[6] - B[6] C6 - B6 |
ciii - biii | 1046.5 Hz - 1975.5 Hz |
three-line octave or three-accented octave or thrice-accented octave |
| C7 is called 'double top C' | |||
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C7 - B7 C(7) - B(7) C[7] - B[7] C7 - B7 |
ciiii - biiii | 2093.0 Hz - 3951.1 Hz |
four-line octave or four-accented octave |
| C8 is called 'triple top C' | |||
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C8 - B8 C(8) - B(8) C[8] - B[8] C8 - B8 |
ciiiii - biiiii | 4186.0 Hz - 7902.2 Hz |
five-line octave or five-accented octave |
Scientific Pitch Notation has been used to name the notes in the MIDI chart below.
Many domestic pianos, electronic keyboards and the like have ranges smaller than that of a full concert grand. These small range keyboards are called 'short' keyboards. Counting the notes on a 'short' keyboard will not be an appropriate way of working out the Scientific Pitch names of notes; for this reason, we favour Helmholtz notation (described immediately above).
MIDI
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The MIDI protocol is a music description language in binary form. Each action of musical performance is assigned a specific standardised binary code or 'instruction'. Because MIDI was designed originally for keyboards many of the actions are percussion oriented. To sound a note in MIDI language you send a "Note On" message. Assigning that note a "velocity" determines how loud it plays. Other MIDI messages include selecting which instrument to play, mixing and panning sounds, and controlling various aspects of electronic musical instruments.
The MIDI standards do not designate octaves. The standard merely designates 'middle C' as being note number 60. Two octave designations have been devised. One version of the MIDI system uses C3 to designate 'middle C' (MIDI note 60, 261.626 Hz). That means that the octave designation for MIDI note "0" would be "-2" or notated as C-2. A second version uses the lowest note available to the MIDI system (MIDI note 1, 8.176 Hz) to designate Octave "0" with the notation of C0. In this system, 'middle C' (MIDI note 60, 261.626 Hz) is octave 5 with the notation of C5.
Reference:
Shape Note Notation
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This is an abridged version of the information on F. Ishmael J. M. Stefanov-Wagner's site.
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Solfege is a method of ear-training which uses the assignment of syllables to degrees of the scale to assist a singer's memory of pitch. In the European hexachord (six note) system of Ut - Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La, codified by Guido d'Arezzo (990 - 1055) and used for hundreds of years, the six notes have to be overlapped when naming a full octave. For a full description go to the section on middle C. There were rules to determine from which hexachord the syllable for a given note would be sung. The continental six-note Ut - Re - Mi was simplified in England to the four-note system which you can see above by following the scale from C to C as Fa - Sol - La - Fa - Sol - La - Mi - Fa. [This system was known as Lancashire or Old English Sol-fa]. This is what the English colonists brought with them when they set sail for the New World, and upon which the early New England singing masters based their lessons and developed their aids to reading. [It was then called Fasola]. The Sternhold & Hopkins Psalter was first printed in England in 1562 with melodies for 46 tunes. The printer John Windet thought that solmization was a useful enough aid in sight-singing that the tunes in his 1594 edition of the Sternhold & Hopkins Psalter had initials for the syllables ( U R M F S L ) printed beneath the notes. In the forward it was explained:
Across the ocean and a century later at Boston in 1698 the ninth edition of the Bay Psalme Book (printed since 1640 with texts only) featured the addition of 13 two-part tunes, with four-note syllables indicated by letters printed beneath the staff. This is thought to be the first music printed in the New World.
Cambridge Short tune from the Bay Psalme Book, 1698,
Rev. John Tufts An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm-Tunes in a Plain & Easy Method first appearing between 1714 and 1721 had the further innovation of printing the initial letters ( M-F-S-L ) on the staff in place of the note-heads. Durations are indicated by the extra dots to the right of the letter - each dot doubles the length of the note.
Westminster, in three parts with new notation by John Tufts.
The first book printed with shaped noteheads, using "patent notes" was the Easy Instructor, by Wm. Smith and Wm. Little in 1801. The shapes used then are still in use to this day: Fa: a triangle; Sol: an oval; La: a square; Mi: a diamond Andrew Law's The Musical Primer of 1803, used similar shaped notes but interchanged somewhat from the assignments of Smith & Little and without the customary five-line staff. [American notations where different note-head shapes were associated with different syllables is known as 'Patentnote' or 'Buckwheat' notation.]
By 1815 in Boston the fuguing tunes, shape-notes and the fa-sol-la solmization that facilitated them had become (so the reformers thought) obsolete and interest in them was maintained primarily to the far south and west. In these parts of the country though, the hymns and music were taken to heart and survive to this day. One such example is William Walker's Southern Harmony, first printed in New Haven in 1835, revised several times and there are those who still sing from a current printing of a facsimile editions of the version of 1854. Another is Benjamin Franklin White's Sacred Harp, first published in 1844, most recently revised in 1991. The Fasola tradition, which uses shape note notation, is one of unaccompanied singing, that is, without any assistance by instruments.Thus when singing shape-note hymns it is the practice first to "sing the notes", that is, to sing the fa-sol-la syllables corresponding to the shapes in the music before singing the text. This serves to set the tune in memory and enables persons to more easily sight-read previously unseen or unheard music. Tunes are sung in relative pitch, rather than at an absolute pitch derived from A=440Hz.; referred to as " Pitch of Convenience", a long standing tradition as can be seen from directions for setting the first Note from the Bay Psalm Book.
Further Information:
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Tonic Sol-fa
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In 1840s England, J. S. Curwen (1816-1880) introduced a system, earlier developed by Sarah Glover of Norwich (1785-1867) in her Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational (1835), which was designed to help in the sight-reading of music. The system was called the Tonic Sol-fa method. Curwen's method later incorporated French time names (derived from Aime Paris's Langue de durees ) and devised pitch hand signs which, in a modified form, are familiar to contemporary music teachers as part of the popular Kodály method.
John Curwen was an English congregational minister and he had taught himself to read music from a book by Sarah Glover that introduced to him the idea of Tonic Sol-fa. Religious and social ideals of equality motivated him to create and promulgate an entire method of teaching based on this idea, for he believed that music should be the inheritance of all classes and ages of people. At considerable expense to himself, he published his own writings, which included a journal entitled Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and Magazine of Vocal Music for the People. After 1864 he resigned his ministry to devote most of his time to what had become a true movement in mass music education. He and his son John Spencer Curwen incorporated a publishing firm, J. Curwen & Sons, eventually adding Tonic Sol-Fa Agency to its name. It became an important publisher of educational music. In 1869 John Curwen established the Tonic Sol-Fa College, which just over 100 years later established the Curwen Institute in London. Though Curwen did not truly invent Tonic Sol-fa, he developed a distinct method of applying it in music education, one that included both rhythm and pitch. William McNaught , a devoted student of the Tonic Sol-fa Method, is said by his son to have thought of it as "musicianship of the mind with the voice as its instrument."
You may remember that middle 'c' is named 'sol fa ut' in medieval music theory (see above) and that the 'c' one octave above 'middle c' is named 'sol fa'. It is from these two syllables 'sol' and 'fa' that the system derives its name and explains the presence of the hyphen between 'sol' and 'fa'. The essence of the Curwen system is that the key-note (or tonic) is called 'doh'. It is followed, in an ascending major scale, by the notes 'ray', 'me', 'fah', 'soh', 'lah', 'te' before returning to 'doh', one octave higher than the first 'doh'. 'doh' is moveable - in other words, it depends on the key in which the piece of music is set, which note will be 'doh'. In fact, 'doh' is always the key-note. This contrasts with the continental system where 'doh' is immoveable and represents the note 'c' whatever the key in which the piece is set.
Curwen's note names are actually no more than an anglicised form of Guido d'Arezzo's nomenclature with 'doh' replacing 'ut' and the addition of 'te' for the seventh note of the scale which is otherwise absent because d'Arezzo names only the six notes of the hexachord.
An apparent disadvantage is a lack of chromatic notes or any distinction between the same note but in different octaves. Here Curwen appears to have turned to the Galin-Paris-Chevé moveable do system named after Pierre Galin [Exposition d'une Nouvelle méthode (1818)] and Émile-Joseph Chevé (1804-1864), Chevé's wife Nanine Paris and Nanine's brother Aimé Paris (1798-1866) [E. Chevé (Mme Nanine Paris) Méthode élémentaire de musique vocale (1864); E. Chevé (M. & Mme) Méthode élémentaire d'harmonie (1846); E. Chevé (M. & Mme) Exercices élémentaires de lecture musicale à l'usage des écoles primaires (1860)]. This system named the notes of an ascending major scale, starting on the tonic, with the numerals 1-7. A 0 denotes a rest. The use of numerals harks back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's suggestion made in 1742 although Rousseau's idea was not new. Similar proposals had been made by in France by Jean Jacques Souhaitty (1667) and in England by William Braythwaite (1638). The Galin-Paris-Chevé system used dots placed above or below a numeral to identify the octave of that particular note. Other schemes included ticks, or different cases or print styles. Today, scale syllables have become more standardised and include chromatic notes.
| in 'fixed do' solfeggio, the notes of the chromatic scale are named using the solfeggio or Latin names which in French, English, Italian and German are: | ||||||||||||
| rising or ascending scale | ||||||||||||
| C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | c |
| do ut (French) | di | re ré (French) | ri | mi | fa | fi | sol so (English) | si | la | li | ti si (Continent) | do ut (French) |
| falling or descending scale | ||||||||||||
| c | B | Bb | A | Ab | G | Gb | F | E | Eb | D | Db | C |
| do ut (French) | ti si (Continent) | te | la | le | sol so (English) | se | fa | mi | me | re ré (French) | ra | do ut (French) |
Some writers call these solfeggio syllables 'Italian' when they are really derived from the 'Latin' names given to them originally by Guido d'Arrezo, but with a few additions (d'Arezzo only named the first six notes of the hexachord) or modifications as noted above (including replacing si with ti for B).
Using a 'moveable do' system, full chromaticism is not needed, because a tune is normally re-notated into each new key, by re-positioning the do (or ut in French), even if that key lasts only for a few bars. Some, however, hold to the view that using Tonic Sol-fa with full chromaticism loses the advantages of simplicity and readability. In this case no distinction is made between chromatic notes. So G flat, G natural and G sharp are all named sol under solmisation although the correct inflection is used when naming notes other than under solmisation, i.e. sol bemolle (G flat), sol (G natural) and sol diesis (G sharp). In Italy, as in other parts of Continental Europe, when chromatic names are not being used, many teachers use si not for G sharp but, as in the modified Latin system, for B natural.
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