Teaching this skill can occur having students analyze live performances or by using pre-existing technology such as apps, SmartMusic, or other online music theory programs. As a result, teachers must consistently set aside time to develop their students’ listening skills. Students must develop the ability to listen and understand what is in tune versus what is out of tune. I found that taking 2-3 minutes a few times during rehearsal to retune decreased the amount of time I had to spend addressing intonation issues. This taught me the importance of retuning as needed throughout rehearsal. open strings and fundamental notes) naturally evolved during the first half of class.
However, I noticed the ensemble’s base pitches (e.g. Like most directors, I carefully tuned my ensemble at the start of class.
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Re-Tune the EnsembleĪs someone who taught in warm weather climates during the first half of my career, I did not truly understand how much temperature changes can affect an instrument’s natural pitch until I experienced teaching string and full orchestra in Ohio during the winter.
Teaching students to tune their own instruments also develops their listening skills in a controlled situation before they apply the same skills to their concert repertoire during the rehearsal process. In these situations, I tune the ensemble during my clinic and this solves many of the easier intonation issues. As someone who frequently visits K-12 instrumental music programs, I find it odd when directors neglect to tune the ensemble at the beginning of rehearsal. To play with good and consistent intonation, it is vital to properly tune students’ instruments daily. Intonation issues are often caused by out-of-tune open strings or inadequately warmed-up woodwind and brass instruments. No matter where you are in your career, I am hopeful you will find these strategies useful on the never-ending pursuit to better intonation. It is also important to note that many of the strategies included below can be adapted for students at various performance levels. Others may already occur in your classroom or have slipped your mind over the last few years due to teaching during a pandemic. It was my students not knowing they were playing out of tune, and I needed to solve that.īelow are some of the preemptive and rehearsal strategies I found effective when teaching students develop their listening, assessment, and correction skills regarding intonation. To me, the consequential issue was not my students playing out of tune. They needed to develop the skills to assess, listen to, and fix their individual, section, and ensemble performances without my constant guidance. I knew my pedagogy needed to change, and I had to put the responsibility of fixing intonation issues on my students. I quickly learned this was an inefficient strategy because my students became reliant on me to solve their intonation issues.
Most days felt like a game of Intonation Whack-a-Mole where I constantly hunted pitch errors across the ensemble.
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As a young teacher, my daily rehearsals were filled with me telling my students what was out of tune and how to fix it. However, I admit my process for improving student intonation has developed throughout my career. In every situation, no matter if I was teaching a traditional school ensemble or an all-state orchestra, I have constantly worked to help the ensembles perform with good intonation. This quote was shared with me by a mentor when I was an undergraduate student over 20 years ago, and it has remained an integral part of my teaching philosophy.
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