For all the do-re-mi people, the good news is that the Rodgers & Hammerstein song “Do-Re-Mi” from the Sound of Music works no matter what system of solfege you use (it’s in the key of C.) 
Well, it was Nava originally, and I won’t pretend to put words into her mouth, but the point is just that:
Musician A, with one set of nomenclature (do re mi fa sol representing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th notes of any major scale), will run into a communication challenge when communicating with Musician B, who has the same vocabulary but with different meaning (do re mi fa represent the absolute notes C, D, E, F, and G).
So, say we’re doing a song in the key of Bb. Musician B says "play ‘Fa’, expecting an ‘F’. Musician A instead plays an Eb, which is the 4th note of Bb.
Roman numeral (Nashville) numbering is great, but it’s also useless unless you know the equivalent alphabetic chords in the key you are playing. It’s not an either/or thing; you need both kinds of knowledge to understand.
I love that temporary major third in the GOT theme too. By the way, you have one extra whole step in your major scale.
I understand that, but in looking at that issue my impulse would be to say that these syllables are only obfuscating the process, and I’m not sure why they’re being used at all.
The thought experiment depends on something that’s extraneous to the process. So if you have a problem, I may just say “Don’t do that anymore”
And, of course, the Christmas classic “Deck the Halls” is sung with both movable-fa and movable-la.
rim shot
Hah!
Well, it’s not really a thought experiment, it is literally the musical vocabulary in many countries.
To quote WikipediaFor native speakers of these languages, solfège is simply singing the names of the notes.
So, fixed-do solfege is literally analogous to letter-naming the notes.
And, there’s always a need to communicate relative note relations, and so a moveable-do solfege system works there.
Now, there’s redundancy, of course. Depending on country/region/language, but that’s true of all languages (there are many ways in the world to refer to the thing called “sky”, just as there are different ways to refer to a specific pitch). Whether you use C/D/E or Do/Re/Mi for absolute note naming, or 1/2/3 or Do/Re/Mi for relative note naming, you need to have one system for absolute, and another system for relative.
The fact that there are some cultures that happen to use the same words for different (but adjacent) meanings is of course a funny accident that can lead to some confusion when cultures meet, but it’s easily overcome.
:rolleyes:
Fixed do:
Sol la ti sol la, sol fa mi fa
Moveable do:
Re mi fa re mi, re do ti do
Hey! It’s not often I see an opportunity for a bad music theory joke!
If you are in a dialogue where you are describing complex music and you are “fixed do” oriented, and using solfege terminology, how do you describe the other modes notes or keys which may be in the piece?
God, you are such a music nerd 
(And to be clear: you know how much I appreciate that in your posts. Your combo of theory knowledge and plainspokenness always helps.)
Wait, aren’t all music theory jokes bad?
Yeah, that. Someone who understands me! sob
As Saint Cecily is my witness, even the idea of a key being named with a b is anathema to me… whatever that key happens to be, I can tell you its name in Spanish is not Si bemol! (I’m just feeling too lazy to calculate which one it is)
By their names 
I’ve been in a room where someone asked “give me do” and got a 440 la, and I was confused to hell and back because that’s a la damnit, why is he asking for do? And if he is asking for do, why is the pianist giving him la? He was asking “give me the note I should use as the base for tuning”. Which yeah, it’s often that la.
And yeah, “false friend” means exactly what Eonwe and pulykamell said. Words which look like they would mean the same thing, in the case of the notes even words which according to dictionaries do mean the same thing, but which do not in fact and actual use mean the same thing. Another one I also learned here: in English alliterative refers to having words with the same initial (“Peter Parker”); in Spanish, to having the same or similar consonants in a row, their position within words being irrelevant (chancho is aliterativa in Spanish, not alliterative in English).
Beats me!
If you look here, you can see some different systems/adjustments for sharps and flats, so all 12 tones have unique names (the most simple and analogous to the lettering system being just to add the words/symbols ‘sharp’ or ‘flat’ to do/re/mi. So, you could say “fa sharp”. Just as clear as “F sharp”. Or, one of the other systems on that wiki page that I’m familiar with, where changing the vowels in the name changes the meaning; final ‘e’ (pronounced like the ‘ay’ in ‘day’) indicates a flat, final ‘i’ (pronounced like the ‘ee’ in ‘see’) indicates sharp. So, le/la/li is Ab, A, A#).
But, you’ve hit on something, which is that while fixed nomenclature is useful for a lot of things, it’s not that useful in describing relationships, whether they are scales, chords, or whatever.
I think there’s a use for both paradigms; I absolutely want and need to be able to describe notes out of context (most obvious example being: “start on this note”), but it also quickly becomes cumbersome and impractical to just memorize and recite absolute values for things every time you want to say “go up a third” or “play the 2 chord.”
So much of music (all of music?) is about relationships between pitches or rhythm, and so it makes sense that most of the meaningful communication about it is going to require language that illuminates those relationships.
Take note of when it happens.
That would be consonance in English (repetition of consonant sounds) as opposed to assonance (repetition of vowel sounds).
And, to continue the hijack:
Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds.
Alliteration is a type of consonance where the sound repetition happens on stressed syllables, not necessarily the first letter of a word.
groan Sorry, that fell a bit flat. It seems I’ve made a major mis-step and accidentally caused this thread to diminish into bad punnery.
Yes, and the prosodic terms will vary slightly in meaning from language to language. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the definition of “alliteration” in Spanish and English as false friends. They clearly refer to the same type of prosodic device, it’s just the rules are a little different in each language, and even within a language there can be stricter or looser interpretations of the word. Even the most basic idea of “rhyme” varies from language to language.