Editing Solfège (section)

==In Elizabethan England==

In the [[Elizabethan era]], England and its related territories used only four of the syllables: mi, fa, sol, and la. "Mi" stood for modern ti or si, "fa" for modern do or ut, "sol" for modern re, and "la" for modern mi. Then, fa, sol and la would be repeated to also stand for their modern counterparts, resulting in the scale being "fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa". The use of "fa", "sol" and "la" for two positions in the scale is a leftover from the Guidonian system of so-called "mutations" (i.e. changes of hexachord on a note, see [[Guidonian hand]]). This system was largely eliminated by the 19th century, but is still used in some [[shape note]] systems, which give each of the four syllables "fa", "sol", "la", and "mi" a different shape.

An example of this type of solmization occurs in Shakespeare's ''[[King Lear]]'', where in Act 1, Scene 2, [[Edmund (King Lear)|Edmund]] exclaims to himself right after Edgar's entrance so that Edgar can hear him: "O, these eclipses do portend these divisions". Then, in the 1623 [[First Folio]] (but not in the 1608 Quarto), he adds "Fa, so, la, mi". This Edmund probably sang to the tune of ''Fa'', ''So'', ''La'', ''Ti'' (e.g. F, G, A, B in C major), i.e. an ascending sequence of three whole tones with an ominous feel to it: see [[tritone#Historical uses|tritone (historical uses)]].{{cn|date=October 2022}}