Beneath the Cross of Jesus Tonic Solfa: Learn It in 4 Lines
Beneath the Cross of Jesus tonic solfa in D flat major: find doh, pitch the soh pickup, tune the fe on 'cross' and teach the parts line by line.
Your choir is singing Beneath the Cross of Jesus this Sunday, and on the very first "cross" half the sopranos land on the wrong note while the altos wait to see what happens. It is a short phrase, but it decides how the whole hymn goes.
The Beneath the Cross of Jesus tonic solfa is written in D flat major, so doh is Db. The tune starts on soh (Ab) as a one-beat pickup, and the word "cross" falls on fe, a raised fah a semitone below soh. Get that fe in tune and the opening phrase falls into place.
Below I work from the site's D flat major page: where doh sits, how to start the opening cleanly, how to teach the hymn one lyric line at a time with the drill spots marked, and what to do if D flat is the wrong key for your singers.
Beneath the Cross of Jesus tonic solfa: the opening bars
Here are the first three bars as they appear on the Beneath the Cross of Jesus hymn page:
| sBe-- | sneath--sthefecross-lof- | sJe----msus-dI- |
Read it slowly and you can see three separate jobs packed into eight syllables:
- The pickup. The first bar holds a single beat of soh on "Be-". The choir does not start on beat one, so your downbeat must not be the moment they sing. If pickups catch your singers out, the post on what a pickup note is covers the conducting side.
- The dotted rhythm. "-neath" is a long soh worth a beat and a half, and "the" is a quick half-beat soh. Many choirs even it out into two equal notes. Keep it lilting: long, short.
- The fe on "cross". This is the one note in the opening that is not in the plain d r m f s l t scale. It leans up into lah on "of", and then the phrase settles on a long soh for "Je-", drops to me on "-sus" and down to doh on "I".
If the first two jobs go well and the third goes wrong, the hymn starts out of tune and rarely recovers. So that is where we spend the most time.
Got a recording? Get it in solfa →
Where is doh in Beneath the Cross of Jesus in D flat?
Doh is Db. D flat major has five flats (Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb), and the last flat in the key signature, Gb, is fah; count down four steps from fah and you land on doh, Db. The full walk-through, including how to read five flats without panicking, is in how to read a hymn in D flat major solfa.
For singers, the useful facts are these:
- Doh is Db. Soh, the starting note, is Ab.
- Fe in this key is G natural, a semitone below Ab. That is why the organist sees an accidental at "cross".
- Once doh is fixed, the solfa reads exactly as it would in any other major key. Nobody in the choir needs to think about flats at all.
When you give the note, play or hum the Db chord to set the key, then give Ab on its own and ask everyone to sing "soh" back to you. Starting from the doh chord alone tempts people to begin on doh, which puts the whole first phrase a fifth too low.
How do you sing the fe on "cross"?
Sing it as a note that belongs to soh, not to fah. Fe sits a semitone under soh and pulls upward; the ear should feel it as soh's lower neighbour. The most common mistake is to sing an ordinary fah, which is a whole tone below soh and sounds dull and flat against the organ.
Try this drill at your next rehearsal, before anyone sees the words:
- Have the whole choir sustain soh on Ab.
- Ask them to slide down as little as they can, just a semitone, and name the new note fe. Then return to soh. Repeat three times.
- Now go from fe up a whole tone to lah, and back to soh.
- Sing the opening three bars on solfa names, slowly, with the dotted rhythm.
- Only then add the words.
If a section keeps sinking to fah, sing the bare scale d r m f s l t and point out that fe is not on it; it lives in the gap between fah and soh. The broader picture of raised and lowered notes is in chromatic notes in tonic solfa.
How to teach Beneath the Cross of Jesus line by line
The hymn runs to 17 bars: the one-beat pickup and sixteen full bars, which fall naturally into four long lyric lines. Here is the whole melody so you can mark it up:
| sBe-- | sneath--sthefecross-lof- | sJe----msus-dI- |
| rfain--mwouldftake-fmy- | mstand,-----mThe- |
| d'sha---d'dowd'of-ta- | lmight--sy-frock-mwith-- |
| rin--rarewear--rey- | mland;-----mA- |
| mhome--rwith-din-rthe- | mwild--fer--sness,-sa- |
| lrest--lu-lpon-mthe- | fway,-----fFromfthe |
| tburn---lingsof-fthe- | mnoon--mtide-sheat,-fandfthe |
| mbur---ddenmof-rthe- | dday.----- |
Before rehearsal, take a pencil to your copy and do one thing: circle every syllable that sits outside the plain major scale. The fe on "cross" is the first. Every circle you draw is a drill spot. Then teach the lines in this order.
Line 1: "Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand"
Drill: the pickup, the dotted soh and the fe. Use the steps above. Do not move on until the choir can start cleanly three times in a row without you singing with them. Breathe after "stand".
Line 2: "The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land"
Drill: the start of the line. Choirs often come in late after the breath, because the first line ends on a held note. Count the held note aloud once so they feel where the next line begins. Check whether this line repeats the long-short rhythm of line 1; if it does, say so, because recognising a pattern halves the learning. Breathe after "land".
Line 3: "A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way"
Drill: any circled syllables. Sing the line on solfa names at half speed, stop just before each circle, give the note, then go on. When it is secure, sing it through at tempo. This line is a good place to check that the sopranos are not drifting sharp on the higher notes.
Line 4: "From the burning of the noonday heat, and the burden of the day"
Drill: the words. This line packs in more syllables than the earlier ones (count them against the solfa on your copy), so singers rush. Speak the words in rhythm first, then sing them. Make sure everyone lands on the final doh together and holds it for its full length.
If you only have twenty minutes, spend ten on line 1. A clean opening gives the choir confidence for the rest.
Beneath the Cross of Jesus choir parts: building the harmony
Once the melody is secure in solfa, add the parts one at a time against it rather than rehearsing each section in isolation for long.
- Sopranos and the whole choir learn the tune first. Everyone sings the melody in unison for line 1. Altos, tenors and basses learn where the tune goes, which helps them hold their own line later.
- Basses next. The bass line anchors the harmony. Have the basses sing their line for one lyric line while the sopranos sing the tune softly.
- Altos, then tenors. Inner parts are usually the hardest to hold because they sit between other lines. Pair each with the tune before putting all four together.
- Check the fe moment in every part. When the tune moves to fe on "cross", look at what each part does in your hymn book. If any part also has a note outside the plain scale at that point, drill it with the tune before anything else.
- Put two lines of the hymn together, then all four.
For singers who learn from recordings, send them the melody and their own part to practise at home, with the circled spots pointed out. A section that has heard its tricky bar ten times during the week arrives ready.
Should you transpose Beneath the Cross of Jesus out of D flat?
Only if your singers struggle with it. Look at the highest and lowest notes on the hymn page and compare them with your choir. If the sopranos strain at the top or the basses disappear at the bottom, change the key.
The gentlest change is down a semitone to C major. The solfa stays exactly the same; only doh moves, from Db to C:
| sBe-- | sneath--sthefecross-lof- | sJe----msus-dI- |
The starting soh is now G instead of Ab, and fe is F sharp instead of G. Your organist or keyboard player loses all five flats, which many find easier to read. Going up a semitone to D major is also possible if your choir sounds heavy and low.
The point to remember is that a choir reading solfa does not relearn anything when you transpose. They sing the same syllables from a new doh. The full method, including how to agree the key with your accompanist, is in how to transpose a song.
A rehearsal plan you can use tonight
- Two minutes: set doh on Db (or your chosen key), sing the bare scale up and down.
- Five minutes: the fe drill from the section above, without words.
- Eight minutes: line 1 on solfa, then words, until three clean starts in a row.
- Ten minutes: lines 2 to 4, stopping only at your circled syllables.
- Ten minutes: bass line, then inner parts, against the tune.
- Five minutes: sing one verse through, all four parts, and listen for the fe on "cross" in the opening.
If the choir needs to hear the tune before rehearsal, NoteFusion can play the melody on a piano, slower or looped, so a section can loop the opening phrase until the fe sits right. Its "Transpose for my choir" option moves the doh and shows whether each part sits comfortably, which is a quick way to decide between D flat and C.
You can open the hymn, hum a tune or paste a recording link in the NoteFusion app and get the melody in movable-doh Tonic Solfa with staff notation, ready to save and share with your choir.
Frequently asked questions
What key is Beneath the Cross of Jesus in for tonic solfa?
The NoteFusion hymn page has it in D flat major, so doh is Db. The tune starts on soh, which is Ab in this key.
What is the first note of Beneath the Cross of Jesus?
It begins on soh as a one-beat pickup on the first syllable of "Beneath". In D flat major that soh is Ab, so give the choir an Ab, not the Db chord on its own.
What does fe mean in Beneath the Cross of Jesus?
Fe is fah raised by a semitone, so it sits just below soh. In the opening phrase it falls on the word "cross", between two soh notes and before lah. Singers who read it as an ordinary fah will sound flat.
Can we sing Beneath the Cross of Jesus in C major instead of D flat?
Yes. Moving it down a semitone to C major changes nothing in the solfa, because doh simply moves from Db to C. Only the starting pitch and the organist's key signature change.
How do you teach Beneath the Cross of Jesus to a choir quickly?
Teach the melody in solfa first, one lyric line at a time, starting with the opening phrase and its fe. Circle every syllable outside the plain major scale and drill those spots before adding words or harmony parts.