OnLine Music Teacher

Tuner Tips for Woodwinds

2011-08-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Electronic tuners are a great tool. Once bulky and hard-to-use, they are now small and full of useful features. This Online Music Teacher blog will give ideas of ways to use a tuner and what to look for when you buy.

What kind of tuner should I buy?
For one thing, buy a chromatic tuner, not a guitar tuner. Guitar tuners typically tune only the guitar strings and not the full chromatic range of a wind instrument. A tuner with a gauge style display is easiest to read in detail. Just having lights as a display is OK, but it is not as detailed as needed to accomplish the tips given here. Many tuners also will play at different tuning standards like A442. For reasons I will explain later, it is good to have a plug-in for an outside sound source.

Tuning the tuning note...
To begin on a wind instrument, warm up by playing for 10 minutes. It does little good to work on tuning with a cold instrument. Make the appropriate adjustments to your instrument to get your regular tuning note to match the tuner while playing about mf. But don't stop there---tune various areas in your medium range. For the basics, you are sharp if the indicator is to the right of zero and flat if it is to the left of zero. Tuners are calibrated in cents, or 100th of a semitone. Most people can hear if a note is out of tune 4 or 5 cents or more, but you want your tuning note right on.

Note flexibility...
You should be able to play as many notes as you can by as much as 20 cents higher and 20 cents lower. Find a flexible note that you can move up and down easily and watch the tuner. This flexibility becomes necessary at times when playing with others, or with a group that gradually plays at a higher pitch. As you will see later, there are also times when a note must be played higher or lower than the indicated pitch on the tuner when you want to play pure-sounding intervals.

Loud and soft...
Different instruments respond differently when played loud or soft. For example, clarinets play flatter as they get louder and sharper as they get softer....but flutes do just the opposite. Play a long note beginning very softly and getting gradually louder up to ff and back while keeping the pitch level.

Full range...
Play the complete range of your instrument and watch where your notes are going sharp or flat. Make a chart of the pitch tendencies to refer to from time to time.

Use the sound mode of the tuner...
Using the tuner display to check notes is great, but really training your ear to hear good intonation is more important. By playing along with the pitches sounded on the tuner, you can hear the effects of playing a note higher or lower by listening for beats. These are pulses in the sound you hear when two notes are out of tune with each other. The slower the beats, the better in tune you are. The faster the beats, the less in tune you are. When there are no beats, you are exactly in tune. Hint: the human ear hears flatness better than sharpness, so start the note low and bring the pitch up to meet the tuner's note. You can also play intervals and scales against the tuner's note.

Spot checking notes while playing...
Have the tuner on while playing a piece or exercise and stop and hold a note randomly from time to time to take a look at the tuner to see where your intonation is.

Just Intonation...
No, it isn't "just intonation". It is Just Intonation. Let me explain. There are two systems on which we will work: Equal Temperament and Just Intonation.

• Equal Temperament - When composers began to write music in more keys long ago, they ran into trouble because the further they went from the basic keys, the more out of tune the music got. The solution for keyboard instruments was to divide the octave into twelve equally spaced intervals....this is called Equal Temperament. By doing this, all keys could be played in, although they were all equally slightly out of tune with the natural scales our ears settle upon. This is important: Electronic tuners are set to Equal Temperament. Wind instruments are made to approximate Equal Temperament, and it is the only reasonable standard for melodic playing. But it is not enough, the ear being the final authority.

We need......

• Just Intonation - This is what our ears hear to be correct beatless intervals when playing together with other players. Beats are the pulsations we hear when two notes are out of tune. To keep it simple, let's look at only two intervals: a major third (C and E) and a minor third (C and Eb). To be pure, the top note of a major third needs to be 14 cents LOWER than what the tuner registers as the correct pitch. And, the top note of a minor third needs to be 16 cents HIGHER than the tuner's correct pitch. Do you see why it is good to be able to play notes with flexibility?
Some tuners even have markings on the face where these higher or lower notes should be. The Korg CA-30 is one.

The tuner pick up
I have had good luck with the Arion ARC-80. It plugs into the input plug in the tuner. It has a device that clips gently to your instrument and picks up only the sound it is making without interference from outside sounds. This means you can listen to a sound like a keyboard, fellow player, or tuning CD while watching the tuner record your actual pitch. This allows you to tune the intervals to Just Intonation and see the effects of changing your pitch.

Try it. Play an E against an outside C pitch and adjust your pitch until it is about 14 cents lower. Can you hear the pureness of it? It is always better to train your ears to hear and not rely completely on an electronic tuner, but this visual reference to intonation is a great aid.

Tune it and forget it? No way!
Many players seem to think they can tune their tuning note and forget intonation after that. I hope by reading through what I have written here (or by watching the video) I have convinced you that intonation is an "always on" feature of being a good musician.

John Gibson, JB Linear Music, author of "Advanced Clarinet Technique" and "Advanced Intonation Technique for Clarinets" (available at www.music4woodwinds.com) and an online music coach for clarinet and saxophone.

Gillet's "Perfect Legato" scale book

2011-07-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

How I came about trying Gillet's scale book

A few years ago an internet friend suggested I sell the final copies of the manuscript version of Fernand Gillet's "Exercises for Scales, Intervals, and Staccato for Flute" through my woodwind sheet music publishing business, JB Linear Music. Gillet was a fine oboist and teacher who taught at the New England Conservatory and played in the Boston Symphony. He published his book of scales for oboe in 1929, but then turned around many years later to produce the same book for flute at the age of 94. I re-set the entire book into modern computerized music typesetting and I sell it at my web site, www.music4woodwinds.com

You're kidding....a clarinet player using a flute book?

Although I am a clarinet and saxophone player, I was curious about how the book worked and began using it. Now, just because it is intended for flute and goes a bit high doesn't mean that a clarinetist cannot use it. I usually do not play up to the double high C's while practicing, but I do it sometimes because it makes the normal "high notes" seem not so high. There were some pretty big claims made about this book, and I wanted to see for myself if it worked.

Big Claims

Here is a portion of Joe Armstrong's "A Flutist's Foreword" that is a part of the book:

One of the most fascinating aspects of the scale exercises is that they can bring you so fully into fluency with the key of a piece - especially a piece with many scale-wise passages - so that when you ultimately come to work on or play the piece itself, your fingers, breath, and embouchure feel like they've been all showered and scrubbed to play in that key far more cleanly and clearly than if you'd merely warmed up by playing some regular scales, arpeggios, and etudes in the key. The binary and ternary "positions" are designed - almost mathematically.......to achieve "perfect legato"

Showered and Scrubbed? Perfect legato? We'll see about that, I thought.

My trial of Exercises for Scales, Intervals, and Staccato for Flute

The first thing I noticed about Gillet's approach to scales was the beautiful logic of it all. His way of getting really into a key was to isolate each finger movement by leaving particular notes out (for example the 2nd note of each group of 4) and creating a pause in the rhythmic motion in the place of the note or notes being omitted. As I read Joe Armstrong's preface, I came to understand that this was a basic way Gillet approached difficult passages: play the music at tempo, but pause just before the hard part to give you a chance to think about what comes next. You see, leaving out notes of the scales generated particular rhythms. So, taking out the 2nd note of 4 creates an 8th and two 16th note rhythm.

The thing that amazed me was how the claim was true: if I play the scale and then carefully (and slowly!) go through each following exercise, when I go back to the original scale it is automatically better than before.....and in a short time!

Another surprise was how deep and wide all this was. By adding "positions" (starting the scale patterns on C, then D, then E, then F) Gillet creates new patterns to practice each time. At first that did not sound like much of a change, but it really does set up whole new groups of note relationships. And then.....play each position in all key signatures.

This is only for scales....I hadn't touched the interval and staccato studies yet.

Okay, how about those intervals? Not for wimps, for sure. Gillet takes you on a trip through all major scale-wise intervals and all chromatic intervals all the way to 17ths. That is a two octave plus a minor third jump.

As I said in a previous blog and video....scales are not music, but music IS scales. By playing through this book you can honestly say to most any piece of music, "been there, done that". What Gillet showed me is that the importance of playing scales is not just performing a particular series of notes from top to bottom, but perfecting each connection between the notes. A scale is a collection of finger movements from note to note that must be as perfect as possible for a transformed technique.

Better than expected results

For the last two years I used this book every time I practiced and I can plainly see the change in smoothness of technique in my playing. Try it....you can too!

Take a look yourself

Click on this link to see some PDF sample pages of Gillet's book.

Here is a video describing the book.

Buy the book (the download version)

Buy the book from Amazon.com (the original manuscript version)

A Guided Tour to Great Woodwind Technique

2011-06-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Would you like to know about a certain, sure fire way to have monster technique? How about a way to play all styles of music flawlessly and faster than a speeding bullet? Wouldn't you like to have such finger dexterity that you could escape the Earth's gravity just by playing your instrument? Well, who wouldn't?

Right about now you are thinking, "this has to be some sort of scam or this guy is just trying to sell me musical snake oil". Well, the selling part is true in a sense, but that is beside the point.

Here, for absolutely free, is the answer

Okay, I know.....you hate playing your scales! You have good reasons for that, since they can be boring, difficult and there is no music in them, period.

So why do it? Because it really is a sure fire way to great technique.

Scales allow you to isolate problem areas in your fingering
Playing scales builds quickness and smoothness
Knowing....really knowing.....all scales in all their forms allows you to "be in the key" of the music you play

More importantly

Scales are NOT music, but music IS scales.

Take this example from Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq D'or. It's pretty hard! But really it is just a series of short chromatic scales with some wrinkles thrown in. Even the wrinkles (the 2nd group of 4 notes in each 8 note section) contain something you might have practiced playing chromatic scales in thirds.

Now, when I speak of scales, I mean scales in all their forms, including scales of different intervals (like 3rds, 4ths and so on) and all of the varied arpeggios related to each key. So no matter how a composer jumps notes around, or writes something sounding strange, it is ALL SCALES.

Here is another example:

This is part of a transcription for bassoon of Bach's Cello Suite #5. This is clearly all scale passages in the key of e melodic minor with one b major arpeggio in the middle. If you have previously worked out your e minor scales in a thorough way, this passage would be easy at the fast tempo indicated.

Okay, so let's get to the basic essentials about scales. Did you notice in the paragraph just above that I said e minor scale(s).....in the plural? In most scale books isn't there just one of each scale? And then maybe there is an arpeggio thrown in. This is fine for starters, but as you get more advanced, so should the scales you practice.

In my next blog I will discuss Fernand Gillet's great scale book called "Exercises for Scales, Intervals, and Staccato for Flute". I use this flute book daily even though I am a clarinet and saxophone player. Followed carefully, this book does a wonderful job of getting the player completely into a key signature. But there is a lot you can do yourself.

Once you have mastered the basic scales, say, up to 5 sharps and 5 flats...major and minor keys, then begin adding to the scale patterns you practice. The more variations you use the more interesting it gets and the more you learn to "be in the key" of music you play. There are all kinds of scale books to use, but I teach my students that working out for example, a scale in thirds with no printed music helps you to really understand your instrument.

So try it. Play scales in thirds, fourths, fifths, etc. Don't forget the chromatic scale.....and play chromatic scales in major 2nds, major and minor thirds, perfect and augmented 4ths and so on.

Play in different rhythmic patterns, too. Try playing a 2 octave major scale in thirds by tonguing slur 2 - tongue 1. It takes 3 times through the scale to complete and it is different each time. Or, how about playing in 7/8 time, by tonguing groups of 2+2+3.

Also, be willing to begin and end on any note, not just the tonic. For example, play an F major scale beginning and ending on C, but maintaining the 1 flat key signature. Doing it that way, you are really playing in a mode (mixolydian in this case).

Here is a worksheet showing some of these suggestions...but there is no end to your own creativity! You may also download it in PDF format to print yourself. You may also be able to click on the picture below and get an enlarged version.
Watch a video demonstrating the guided tour to great woodwind technique.

Thanks, and enjoy playing!

John Gibson

Coaching clarinet and saxophone online.

Coaching Tip: How to Master those Difficult Musical Passages

2011-06-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

Everyone has them.....those knotty (or are they naughty?) difficult places in music that you just can't seem to master. Me, too! Let me think.....there was Daphnis and Chloe, Petrouchka, the little cat going up the tree thing in Peter and the Wolf....ah, yes, I remember them well.

I have a way of making that "impossible" part seem easy and I call it The Treatment. This way of practicing has been around for a long time and I have made it a part of my own way of quick and efficient practicing. I am always amazed at the difference in how hard that "impossible" part seemed to be when I began and how it magically becomes possible, even simple to play!

Here is what to do:

Take a short passage, no more than a few measures.
Turn on your metronome to a slow tempo, say 60 for a section that you want to go 120.
Play the passage at that slow tempo until it is perfect every time - but at least 5 times.
Then reset the metronome up ten to 70 and do the same thing.
Then go back 5 points to 65 and do the same thing.
Follow this pattern up to your goal tempo marking: up 10, back 5, up 10, back 5, etc
It will look like this: 60, 70, 65, 75, 70, 80, 75, 85, 80, 90, 85, 95, 90, 100, 95, 105, 100, 110, 105, 115, 110, 120, 115, 120

This takes a bit of time, but it is far more efficient than just plowing through at the same tempo and making the same mistakes. Be sure to concentrate about what fingerings to use and how to move your fingers correctly and cleanly while you play at the slower tempos. Why?, Because it is at the slow speeds where you get it right and form the basis for playing fast.

Seriously, folks, if you use The Treatment you can shave off hours of practice time on that pesky "impossible" part. Did you notice I always put "impossible" in quotes? That is because with the right preparation and skillful practice........nothing is impossible. You can do it!

Here is a link for a video demonstrating The Treatment.

Sincerely,

John Gibson (your friendly coach)

Coaching Tip - How to master hard musical passages - part 2

2011-06-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

In the previous blog post I gave coaching tips about using The Treatment to easily and efficiently master those "impossible" passages we all find in music no matter what our level of playing.

In this part 2, I want to tell you about two other ways of making difficult passages into something more managable. Beginners soon find out that just playing a piece of music over and over is not necessarily the best way to learn to play it. Yes, it is true you need to play straight through a piece enough to get the larger view of it, but it really is a waste of your precious time to practice what you can already play, is it not? That is why I stress with my students the need to practice the hard places so they can eventually play the whole thing.

There are plenty of good things that come from simply playing for the joy of it and playing through pieces. But, when it is time to cut to the chase, these practicing techniques will let you learn your music faster.

I normally reserve The Treatment from Coaching Tip #1 for the really hard-to-master parts. For sections that just need more smoothness, accurate fingerings, or better facility of awkward places, I use two related practice techniques that get results efficiently.

First, even before I tell you about the two tips...........make sure you can play scales in the key or keys the passage contains. This is critical. Seriously, mastering scales is the key to playing well.

Practice tip #1 - change the music to bring focus on different parts of the passage

It is simple. Play with varying articulations and varying rhythms. Some variations will make playing the section more difficult, but that is what you want. What happens while you do this is that various note connections become more obvious to you. It gives you the opportunity to dwell on those rough spots and will improve the overall performance of the passage. As always, slow practice is important since it allows you to perfect the note connections. Take a look at the examples below for some ideas.

Practice tip #2 - pause on various notes in the passage

This is really a variation of tip #1, but with a bigger emphasis on certain notes. I learned this technique from a book of scales by Fernand Gillet. (Exercises for Scales, Intervals, and Staccato for flute) In the forward Joe Armstrong relates his experience taking lessons from Gillet. Here is the idea:

Without slowing the tempo of the passage, pause on the note just before a problem area. This gives you a moment to consider what must come next. Gillet would say to "think well" of what fingers need to be doing in the next part of the passage. In other words you pause on the last easy note. Do you see how this is a variation of tip #1? There you are doing the same thing, but in a more regimented fashion. Here you are isolating the hard notes by pausing just before playing them. Take a look below for examples.

Here is a video link where I demonstrate the techniques.

Thanks, and have fun playing!

John Gibson