Hexachordal Solfege & Theory Pedagogy Trends with Megan Long

Dr. Megan Kaes Long of Oberlin Conservatory joins us to talk about the earliest system of Western solfege, hexachordal solmization, and recent trends in music theory pedagogy.

Links:

Dr. Megan Kaes Long's Oberlin Faculty Page

Long, Megan Kaes. Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectations at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century

Early Music Sources: Solmization in the 16th Century 

Smith, Anne. The Performance of 16th Century Music

Orlando DiLasso's Novae aliquot et ante hac non ita usitatae cantiones suavissimae

Show Notes:

00:00:20 Introductions

00:01:45 What is hexachordal solmisation?

00:04:10 The pattern of the hexachord

00:05:35 Mutation -- linking hexachords together to melodies beyond a range of a hexachord

00:06:30 Singing a scale with hexachordal solmisation

00:08:15 Relationship between mutation and points of imitation in Rennaisance music

00:10:00 Solmisation in Renaissance musical pedagogy, and the connection to improvisation

00:11:05 The Gamut

00:12:00 Renaissance names of notes, like "C sol fa ut"

00:15:40 The relationship of letter names and hexachordal solfege, and the question of octave equivalence

00:16:30 The Guidonian Hand

00:18:53 The "Do a Deer" of the Renaissance

00:20:40 The interconnectedness of the history of solfege and of staff notation

00:21:30 How do we get the other accidentals, besides B-flat, that aren't in the gamut?

00:24:50 What is musica ficta?

00:28:25 How does thinking in hexachordal solmisation change how you hear Renaissance music?

00:30:15 Puns and jokes in hexachordal solmisation

00:35:30 The intersection of movable and fixed solfege in hexachordal solmisation

00:37:00 Teaching and learning hexachordal solmisation

00:41:50 If we want to learn the basics of hexachordal solmisation, where should we start?

00:42:45 How is the field of music theory adapting to the changing world of music, and a desire to broaden the music that students are able to understand and analyze?

00:46:45 Oberlin's reframing of the music theory curriculum: Rhythm, timbre, melody, harmony and bass.

00:51:15 How might we refocus the music theory teaching we're doing at the high school level?

00:53:17 Do we have to sacrifice part writing for this?

00:55:53 Transforming the first-year theory curriculum from being a weed-out course, to become an entry point and gateway into learning music.

00:57:30 Wrapping up -- plus several conferences to be aware of

Transcript:

[music]

0:00:03.9 Theme Song: These are the notes from the staff, where we talk about our point of view and we share the things we're gonna do and we're hope you're learning something new, 'cause the path to mastering theory begins with you.

0:00:21.1 David Newman: Welcome to Notes from the Staff, a podcast from the creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.

0:00:35.3 Greg Ristow: Hi, I'm Greg Ristow, founder of uTheory and Associate Professor of Conducting at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

0:00:42.2 DN: And I'm David Newman, I teach at James Madison University and I write code and create content for uTheory. We have two topics for today, hexachordal solmization and recent trends in music theory pedagogy and with us to talk about both is Dr. Megan Kaes Long.

0:01:00.1 GR: Dr. Long is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a scholar of vocal music in the 16th and 17th centuries. She's the recipient of the 2021 Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory, the top award for music theory book for her work Hearing Homophony: Tonal Expectations at the Turn of the 17th Century. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Music Theory and Music Theory Spectrum among others, and she's the editor of SMTV, the Society for Music Theory's video journal, we've put a link in the show notes. She's received numerous grants and fellowships including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. Megan, thanks so much for joining us.

0:01:42.3 ML: Thanks so much for having me. It's a delight to be here.

0:01:45.9 GR: I'm really excited for both of our topics today, hexachordal so