Who is listed as the inventor of solfege?

• A. Locrian
• B. Guido of Arezzo
• C. Troubadour
• D. Ionian mode

Answer: (B)

Solfege originated as a teaching method for naming pitches to help singers learn intervals and sight-singing. The figure most closely associated with creating the early solmization system is Guido of Arezzo, a medieval monk and theorist. He devised a way to label the successive scale steps with syllables—Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La—using the opening lines of a Latin hymn as a mnemonic. This approach gave singers a practical tool to internalize pitch relationships, laying the groundwork for the modern solfege syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Ti. The other options don’t fit because they are modes or roles rather than inventors of the solfege system.