Klarinet Archive - Posting 001185.txt from 1998/12

From: John Dablin <johnd@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] re:Intonation training
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 17:12:23 -0500

Teri Herel wrote:-
> And this is what I still do. Listen listen listen. Listen in to the center
> of the winds, listen out to the violins and low brass. I use any chamber
> setting as an excuse to work on intonation. It has become so that listening
> to intonation is a constant and underlying part of playing.
>
How much easier this is if the other players in the ensemble are good
enough to play reasonably in tune. Unfortunately the novice is usually
playing with other novices who may have even less control of their own
intonation, and in such circumstances I find it very difficult to
determine who is right and who is wrong. For example, the band I play
in sometimes plays quite well in tune. When it does playing is a
pleasure, I don't have much difficulty keeping in tune, and it is pretty
obvious if I need to adjust the barrel to stay that way. At other times
it seems as if there are three (or more!) different ideas of pitch and
playing is a misery, not least because I have no idea of whether I am
anywhere near right or wrong. Possessing the sort of personality which
believes I must be wrong until proved otherwise doesn't help either :-)

Given two out of tune notes I have little difficulty telling which one
is sharper than the other, it's sorting out which is correct in the
constantly changing sound of a piece of music which I find hard. I
would love to emulate those people who can confidently assert that "the
flutes are flat" or "the trumpets are sharp" and display the
corresponding self confidence in their own intonation.

To get to the point, how can you develop the ability to judge "absolute"
intonation, assuming you don't possess perfect pitch? And if the answer
is simply experience, how can you get that experience when playing in
groups whose intonation usually leaves something to be desired?
--
John Dablin
Aylesbury UK

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