“Do-Re-Mi” is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. Each syllable of the musical solfège system appears in the song’s lyrics, sung on the pitch it names. Rodgers was helped in its creation by long-time arranger Trude Rittmann who devised the extended vocal sequence in the song. Within the story of The Sound of Music, it is used by the governess Maria to teach the solfège of the major musical scale to the Von Trapp children, who learn to sing for the first time. According to assistant conductor Peter Howard, the heart of the number—in which Maria assigns a musical tone to each child, like so many Swiss bell ringers—was devised in rehearsal by Rittmann (who was credited for choral arrangements) and choreographer Joe Layton. The fourteen note and tune lyric—’when you know the notes to sing…’—were provided by Rodgers and Hammerstein; the rest, apparently, came from Rittmann. According to Howard, “Rodgers allowed her to do whatever she liked. When we started doing the staging of it, Joe took over. He asked Trude for certain parts to be repeated, certain embellishments.” In the stage version, Maria sings the song in the living room of Captain von Trapp’s house shortly after she introduces herself to the children. However, when Ernest Lehman adapted the stage script into a screenplay for the 1965 film adaptation, he moved the song to later on in the story. In the film, Maria and the children sing this song over a montage as they wander and frolic over Salzburg.
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
