Klarinet Archive - Posting 001188.txt from 1998/12

From: Neil Leupold <consult@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] re:Intonation training
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 17:40:56 -0500

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From: John Dablin [SMTP:johnd@-----.com]
Subject: Re: [kl] re:Intonation training

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.

> 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?

One route to the answer resides in your practice room. It is often said,
correctly, that being able to freeze the needle at zero on your tuner -- on
every pitch throughout your range -- does not automatically predispose
you to playing in tune with an ensemble. What it does accomplish,
however, is consistency of intonation, such that the player develops
sensitivity to physical sensations during playing which inform him/her
if she is rising or dropping in pitch. You not only learn to hear your
relative intonation, but also to sense it physically via signals from your
body (most prominently the embouchure). In other words, if you practice
playing in tune with your tuner when it is calibrated at, say A=440, you
will also acquire during that process the ability to discern your own pitch
relative to those around you. It becomes quickly evident where the pitch
center sits in your ensemble, and then you adjust your general pitch level
to match it.

Most commonly, ensembles gravitate toward A=441 or 442, or even a little
higher -- regardless of the initial tuning pitch from the oboe -- and you will
know where your ensemble sits on the tuning scale immediately upon tuning
with them, because you have conditioned yourself to match A@-----.
It's a small adjustment to recondition yourself to play in tune at A=442, because
you already possess an ingrained reflex to modify your body -- and thus modify
your intonation -- such that your instrument is in tune throughout its range, re-
gardless of which pitch standard is in operation.

Neil

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