Klarinet Archive - Posting 000468.txt from 2005/08

From: Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Tuning vs. Intonation
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 10:48:22 -0400

Again, I'm not a religious man but...

Amen!

If I had a quarter (inflation and all) for every conductor who said "Please
people, it is so out of tune, please listen" (and that's the polite
version) I really would be a rich man. Most students know that playing in
tune is a "good thing", so to speak. Ask them what it means to play in tune
and how they're supposed to know if they're in tune and you'll quite often
get the "uh... my band director told me to do it" blank stare. After all,
I've never met anyone who was deliberately *trying* to play out of tune
(well, some jazz saxophone players.. but...).

People rarely get fired for a "bad" tone (whatever that means), people
regularly get fired (or, rather, not re-hired in the freelance world) for
bad pitch. Pitch can be a dicey situation amongst professionals. I'm
reminded of the (perhaps apocryphal) story where I'm told Jean Morel
(conductor of the Juilliard Orchestra for quite a while) asked the double
bass section of the New York Philharmonic to sight sing their parts. As you
can imagine, this did not go over well with said double bass players.

Properly taught, sight singing is, in my experience, the easiest way to
solve intonation problems (thank Guido!). Usually not much of a solution in
professional situations, but the advantage there is you can always hope
they'll hire someone else. If they can't afford someone with better
intonation, well, you get what you pay for.

Sight singing trains the ear, electronic tuners train the eye. I only use
electronic tuners as a sanity check and even then I play the note and then
look at the tuner. I've been tempted a few times to maim players who
"solve" intonation problems by playing their concert A or Bb, dancing the
needle back and forth until seconds later they declare they are "in tune".
As if the only note they had to tune of their instrument is the tuning A or
Bb and as if playing in tune even on said note 4 seconds late was of any
use whatsoever.

And finally, I truly believe the difference between the good players and
great players is that the good players impress you with how hard they make
it look and the great players impress you with how easy they make it look.
The great players make you walk away feeling like anyone could do that, at
least until reality sets in at your next practice session!

-Adam

At 10:12 AM 8/27/2005, Steve wrote:
[...]

>It is not enough to tell a player to "listen". One must know what to listen
>for!

[...]

>After attending a rehearsal of Tchaik 6 with one of the top orchestras in
>the world, I spoke with the Principal Clarinetist. This person completely
>redefined my concept of what was possible on the instrument. When I said,
>"You make it sound so natural", his reply was "You think I was born this
>way? Hell, no! I had to fight to develop this skill just as much as any
>other".

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