Tetrachord Exercise 1 RE MI FA SO

Coming back to the chant project.  Here is an exercise to lead to mastery of the musical resources already given, the permutations of the tetrachord RE MI FA SO.

Play the first note on an instrument to check it, starting with a d then try to sing the entire four notes given on their solfege syllables, then to check that you've sung them correctly with the instrument.   The raised circles, ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘, indicate four counts.  To start with you should give each note one beat with four rests then repeat  that twice, or more if you feel you need to reinforce those you haven't gotten correctly on the first try.  After you have learned the pattern you can go through it with as many of the permutations as you feel you need to.  Take note of the ones you have more trouble with and give some extra practice to those,  the ones you can consistently get right, you should leave behind.  It's one of the worst things for a musician to do, to keep repeating what they can already do instead of concentrating on what they can't already do. 

RE MI FA SO    

RE ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘   RE MI FA SO  ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘  RE MI FA SO  ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘  RE MI FA SO ||

SO RE MI  FA  
SO ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘   SO RE MI FA  ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘  SO RE MI FA  ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘  SO RE MI FA ||

MI RE SO FA  
MI  ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘  MI RE SO FA  ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘  MI RE SO FA ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘   MI RE SO FA ||  


SO RE FA MI    RE FA MI SO    SO FA RE MI    MI  RE FA SO    RE SO FA MI    

FA MI SO RE    FA MI RE SO    SO MI RE FA    RE SO MI  FA    FA RE MI SO  

MI SO RE FA    SO FA MI RE    MI SO FA RE    RE MI  SO FA    FA RE SO MI    

SO MI FA RE    RE FA SO MI    FA SO RE MI    MI  FA RE SO    FA SO MI RE

I will be giving this exercise for every one of the diatonic tetrachords and for those which contain a Bb.   This exercise can start to give you an appreciation of how variable the feeling of these four notes can be depending on the order of the notes and the intervals.