I understand tonic solfa notation has been traditionally (still?) used for teaching tin whistle in Irish schools.
I’ve seen materials using this notation as a teaching aid for singing, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything specifically for tin whistle. Are there any links someone can point me to? I’m curious about some things.
Example: if a tune is in E dorian, is E the “do” note, or is it “re”?
We did a thread about tonic solfa not long ago. I’ll look for it.
It’s also peerless on malaria.
IIRC, in tonic (or movable do) sol-fa, a tune’s tonic is designated “Do”, so for an E Dorian tune, “Do” would be E. In traditional fixed do sol-fa, E is always “Mi” no matter what, “Do” being always C.
Here’s the thread: https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/found-a-song-in-an-old-dusty-box-james-rielly/76576/1
The Conservatory (San Francisco) I attended taught fixed do solfege in solfege class and in musicianship classes we also sang movable do but used numbers (one, two, etc and sen for seven - easier to sing) not do re mi. Logic behind this was that if you learn a tune with fixed do solfege you also know what note it starts on and learn the note names, and for musicianship class moveable do helped with analysis, that is if we sang a tune which modulated we would change the numbers we sang for a particular note - the numbers correspond to the degree of the scale - so if you are singing a G in the key of C you would be singing ‘five’ and of course a G chord is the ‘V’ chord in the key of C, if the music modulated to G major then you would change your singing five to a one - what was a V chord becomes the new tonic, a I chord.
Slightly off topic I suppose - but maybe not.
Err… My background (which includes a paper on Sight singing methods in England) learned that “do” was the starting note of the major scale which has the given key signature. The Key Sig. for E dorian is 2 sharps, so my understanding is that “Do” in that circumstance is D and the starting note of the E dorian scale (as with all dorians) is “Re.”
Wikipedia, for what it is worth, seems to imply the same thing, though the article is rather incomplete.
http://www.australian-music-ed.info/Curwen/Ped&TchngTechs.html
also agrees with me, at least as far as the minor scale.
There are two schools of solfege (singing tunes with do re mi etc)
the fixed do: where do is always C and B is si not ti (at least the way I was taught)
and
movable do: where do is the tonic note of the major scale Edit: added major - see clarification below
As always both systems have their proponents and both are probably correct for their priorities/needs.
For now I’ll just suggest that for singing movable do makes sense, playing an instrument fixed do makes sense and leave it at that
Edit/addition - in light of a couple posts here I looked up solfege and to say that in movable do the tonic is is do is a simplification - it applies to major scales; can apply to minor scales; as to the modes well it would make sense to me to preserve the interval relationships so for example in E dorian the E would be re (and for A dorian A would be re). Personally I will stick with the fixed system, not because it is necessarily better, but because it is what I was taught and it works for me so I have no compelling reason to learn something else!
The question about E dorian throws up a distinction between THREE different options.
Using movable do, you have two choices.:
2a. You can treat the scale as a species of the D major scale, in which you use the names for uninflected pitches, but start on re.
2b. You can start on do and use the appropriate pitch names to describe how the scale differs from a major one, i.e use the names for flattened mi and ti.
(I can’t remember what the relevant names are at the moment).
Scottish Gaelic songbooks use alternative 2a, like every hymnbook I’ve seen. 2b seems the most natural to me but it isn’t common.
I had forgotten about those names for sharpened notes - the fixed do system I learned did not use them, so I suppose that makes FOUR options.
As I said for singing I think movable do makes sense - the pattern of note names remains the same for a tune no matter what your tonic pitch is. And this makes sense since transposing while singing is trivial, if you know a song and can sing it it is simple to start on a different pitch and sing the tune.
For playing an instrument (at least most instruments) starting a tune on a different pitch results in a very different physical memory of the tune* - and in so associating a note name with fingering makes sense (and many instrumentalists already tie a note name with a fingering). It also helps if you play with others and want to start together in the right key**.
*of course if you really know a tune, and really know your instrument it is possible to start the tune on any note and play it - well not so easy if you play a non-chromatic instrument such as a whistle, but on a whistle it should be easy to play an E dorian tune in A dorian for example.
**an example: my wife (a cellist) is quite capable of starting a tune in a different key than ‘normal’ and feel very comfortable playing it - of course when I try to join in on a whistle it is a bit difficult (Where is that G whistle? did I leave it in the car or …)
Thanks, cboody, JackCampin, any else I may have missed. I just got off the horn with my pet theoretician who explained my mistake to me, and all makes sense now. 
You have a pet theoretician? Is he house trained?
for a piper…
He used to play GHBs but at this time no uilleann pipes. He’s young yet, though, so we have reason to worry for the future…
Housetrained? I suppose that depends on whether you call logorrhea an offense of the type. I ask a simple question, and I always end up having to pull mightily at the reins to keep him on track. I keep telling him I can only absorb my theory in bite-size chunks at a time.