The Movable Do Disc is a music learning and training tool that provides a visual overview of tone relations, based on an aural understanding of the diatonic scale.
The Movable Do Disc (MDD) allows us to aurally approach and consciously sing any concept in Western music. It allows us to playfully and independently investigate and to visualize, understand, and create music in all kinds of constellations, from tonal to modal to polytonal and polymodal.[1]In a major tonality, do is the tonic, and in minor the tonic is la. Although major and minor tonalities are most common in Western music, any other tone of the scale can assume the role of tonic. For … Continue reading
The Movable Do Disc, designed by Patricia Wisse, is the ideal tool to train tonal musicianship skills, for musicians of any level and in any genre of Western music: classical, jazz, early music, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and all other styles. It emphasizes the essential and lets you practice music in all different keys with ease. Use it for individual practice, study harmony with a group of friends, or use it to teach your students basic and advanced melodic and harmonic concepts.
The layout of the Movable Do Disc
The place of each diatonic scale tone is shown in a circle, dividing the octave in twelve semitones. The tones (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti) have each been given their own colour, suggesting the individual character of each tone in the scale, and clearly showing the shape of the scale and the position of the diatonic semitones between mi and fa, and ti and do, and of the tritone between fa and ti, the two leading tones in the scale. [2]The colours on the MDD have been drawn from The Teacher’s Handbook of the Tonic Sol-fa System by Alexander T. Cringan: “The object of a color-scale should be to convey, through the eye to the … Continue reading
The Absolute Pitch Attachment
The Absolute Pitch Attachment (APA) is an important feature: to play instrumental music and read musical staff notation, relative tones have to be found in the absolute pitch systems governing instrument and notation. However, the transparency of the APA shows it is not absolute pitch, but tone relation that gives context and meaning to tones.
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Footnotes
| ↑1 | In a major tonality, do is the tonic, and in minor the tonic is la. Although major and minor tonalities are most common in Western music, any other tone of the scale can assume the role of tonic. For rhythm studies, the Takadimi system developed by Richard Hoffman is highly recommended. |
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| ↑2 | The colours on the MDD have been drawn from The Teacher’s Handbook of the Tonic Sol-fa System by Alexander T. Cringan: “The object of a color-scale should be to convey, through the eye to the mind, a distinct impression of the effect of the tones represented.” The colours are intended to support and underline the mental effects of the tones in key as described in the works of John Curwen, like The Standard Course of the Tonic Sol-fa Method. |