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solfege

Recently I was discussing The Sound Of Music with some Italian friends, and was surprised to learn that, instead of "ti", they use "si." Much research ensued to find out which was the "correct" way. Here is what we discovered.

First, this seems to be purely a language issue in movable-do. See a brief history of solfege

Francesca found out somewhere that the name of the notes came from a religious hymn to San Giovanni: # UTqueant laxis REsonare fibris MIra gestorum FAbi tuorum SOLve polluti LAbi reatum Sante Iohanneus.(SI)

Second, there are actually two main systems of solfege; fixed-do and movable-do. Which you prefer seems to be a religious issue. The main difference is that fixed-do has proper names for sharps and flats as well, and of course the pitches are absolutely fixed. To quote from a k5 poster:

Movable do is considered harmful because it is
chauvinistically biased toward tonal music; it is
not compatible with the fixed-do identification
system used in Europe; and it is useless for
solfeging instrumental music by pitch-names.

Fixed-do uses the following names for notes:

      [Di/Ra][Ri/Me]    [Fi/Se][Si/Le][Li/Te]
    [Do]   [Re]   [Mi][Fa]   [So]   [La]   [Ti][Do]

I haven't found an example of this system which uses "Si" in place of "Ti", for the obvious reason that then what would you call "So#"?

Movable-do, on the other hand, puts Do always at the base of the major chord. Some people like to use La for minors, others use the sharp and flat names above. For more info see the aural guide. In this system it's workable to use Si instead of Ti, if you're not doing any interesting keys.