17edo solfege

Expanding the "movable-do" solfege system for 17edo: an aid for microtonal singing; a way of wrapping your brain around a new sound system.

Ordinary solfege syllables work very well in 17:

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
C	Db	C#	D	Eb	D#	E	F	Gb	F#	G	Ab	G#	A	Bb	A#	B
do	ra	di	re	me	ri	mi	fa	se	fi	sol	le	si	la	te	li	do

Note that syllables usually treated as enharmonic equivalents become distinct pitches in 17 (eg. "ra" & "di"). Spelling matters here.

This system could work just fine on its own, but what if I want to respell the pitches to put them into another pitch class? For example, what if I want to treat D# as a kind of third (a neutral third) instead of a kind of second (an augmented second)? For pitches, we have up-down arrows (thank you Sagittal) that can allow us to respell like this:

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
C	Db	C#	D	Eb	D#	E	F	Gb	F#	G	Ab	G#	A	Bb	A#	B
C	C-up	D-down	D	D-up	E-down	E	F	F-up	G-down	G	G-up	A-down	A	A-up	B-down	B

So, for example, we can respell our augmented second, D#, as a neutral third, E-down, & get something more intuitive & useful for certain purposes.

But what if we want solfege syllables for these respellings?

ru, mu, lu & tu

I offer the suffix "-u" to indicate neutral 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, & 7ths.

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
C	Db	D-down	D	Eb	E-down	E	F	Gb	F#	G	Ab	A-down	A	Bb	B-down	B
do	ra	ru	re	me	mu	mi	fa	se	fi	sol	le	lu	la	te	tu	ti

So if we encounter a "ru," we know to take it as a neutral second (not an augmented unison); if we encounter "lu," we know to take it as a neutral sixth (not an augmented fifth) & so on.

fu & su

What about the two tritones? Perhaps you want to respell G-flat as F-up. For this, I offer "fu"; likewise, if you want G-down in place of F-up, I offer "su".

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
C	Db	D-down	D	Eb	E-down	E	F	F-up	G-down	G	Ab	A-down	A	Bb	B-down	B
do	ra	ru	re	me	mu	mi	fa	fu	su	sol	le	lu	la	te	tu	ti

other enharmonics

Some offers, to fill out the octave:

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
C	C-up	D-down	D	D-up	E-down	E	F	F-up	G-down	G	G-up	A-down	A	A-up	B-down	B
do	da	du	re	ro	mu	mi	fa	fu	su	sol	sa	lu	la	lo	tu	do

side-by-side

For comparison, the full system:

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
C	Db/C-up	C#/D-down	D	Eb/D-up	D#/E-down	E	F	Gb/F-up	F#/G-down	G	Ab/G-up	G#/A-down	A	Bb/A-up	A#/B-down	B
do	ra	di	re	me	ri	mi	fa	se	fi	sol	le	si	la	te	li	do
do	da	du	re	ro	mu	mi	fa	fu	su	sol	sa	lu	la	lo	tu	do

See also 22edo Solfege