Tonic sol-fa

It uses a system of musical notation based on movable do solfège, whereby every note is given a name according to its relationship with other notes in the key: the usual staff notation is replaced with anglicized solfège syllables (e.g. the syllable la for the submediant) or their abbreviations (l for la).

"Do" is chosen to be the tonic of whatever key is being used (thus the terminology moveable Do in contrast to the fixed Do system used by John Pyke Hullah).

Curwen also began publishing, and brought out a periodical called the Tonic Sol-fa Reporter and Magazine of Vocal Music for the People, and in his later life was occupied in directing the spreading organisation of his system.

Some of the roots of tonic sol-fa may be found in items such as: When John Windet printed the 1594 edition of the Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter, he added the initials of the six syllables of Guido (U, R, M, F, S, L) underneath the note.

B. C. Unseld and Theodore F. Seward, with Biglow and Main publishers, imported Curwen's tonic sol-fa to the United States, though the method was never widely received.

Before this, the 9th edition of the Bay Psalm Book (Boston, USA) had appeared with the initials of four-note syllables (fa, sol, la, me) underneath the staff.

Reverend John Tufts, in his An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes in a Plaine & Easy Method, moved the initials of the four-note syllables onto the staff in place of "regular notes", and indicated rhythm by punctuation marks to the right of the letters.

In Curwen's system, the notes of the major scale (of any key) are notated with the single letters d, r, m, f, s, l, and t when in the octave of middle C (or C4).

[2] Colons (:) are then used to separate the beats:[2] In compound meters, such as 6/8, a shorter vertical line is to divide the measure into the strong beats called medium accents:[2] Dashes in place of a letter means to hold out the note until either the next note appears, a rest appears, or the end of the piece comes, whichever may come first.

[2] To further divide the beat into quarters, commas (,) are used:[2] Dotted note values can be shown in a couple ways.