Barbara Gisler-Haase,

Article: “Practicing Intonation – Alone and in a Group”

As Wind Players, We Have a Particularly Hard Time with Intonation!

“That can’t be true,” all the string players will retort – “you have keys that fix the pitch, and we have to place our fingers 100% accurately to get the note right.”

Yes, on the one hand – but: the scale provided by the keys is only an approximation; quite a few notes fall outside (are too low or too high if we don’t correct them), we have no open strings to orient ourselves, each note fluctuates quite a bit when we want to play it loud or soft, and we are dependent on the room temperature and the temperature of the instrument. So, we have to tackle these problems and bring a system into our engagement with intonation. Before we start, check that the cork in the headjoint is in the right place!

Step 1

First, we should focus on bringing the scale of our instrument into tune at a consistent medium volume. Since our body is actually part of the instrument, we must dedicate ourselves to this task with great patience. We choose “mf” – without vibrato!!!

First, we should focus on bringing the scale of our instrument into tune at a consistent medium volume. Since our body is actually part of the instrument, we must dedicate ourselves to this task with great patience. We choose “mf” – without vibrato!!!

Where to start?

Ideally with those notes that exhibit the least flexibility and tend to be too low, so: E’, D’, e” and d”. You turn on your tuner, but don’t look at it – then you look for your most beautiful sound in the low register – just as you would like to sound in a piece. When you are satisfied with the sound of your low E and D, look at the tuner and see which frequency is displayed – don’t correct it! Now you pull the flute out or push it in until your beautiful-sounding E and D are at “0”. Most pianos today are tuned to 442 or 443, and the ensemble you play in certainly has a fixed tuning note.

So now we have a good-sounding E’ at “0” – Now you play e”, this octave should now be in tune. If it isn’t, you have to change something in your playing technique.

If e” is too low, check the following parameters:

  1. Maybe you turned inward when overblowing? Or moved your jaw too little? Or pushed your lips forward too much?
  2. If it is too high, maybe you are playing too turned out, or you are blowing too hard – octaves are not played by increasing air pressure, but by changing:
  1. the embouchure angle,
  2. the size and shape of the lip opening and
  3. the distance to the embouchure edge.
  4. the jaw position and the vowel shape of the mouth interior

So you have to practice playing clean, good-sounding octaves at a constant dynamic level. This is how you go through all the octave jumps from e’ – e” to c” – c”.

Attention c”, cis” d” are too high notes, you have to choose the embouchure angle steep enough so that these notes are in tune. If you succeed, they will also have a good sound! You have to remember this timbre, you can orient yourself by the timbre. Then you hold out straight tones: from c”’ chromatically upwards and looking at the tuner. Continue to stay in “mf” and try to embed all the notes in a tuned scale by making small corrections with the lower jaw and the looseness or tension of the lips.

Basically, a tone becomes lower if:

  1. we lower our head and cover more of the embouchure hole,
  2. if we open and pull back our jaw (slower air – steeper angle),
  3. if we reduce the lip tension.
  4. And with reverse movements – higher!

Since we are still playing in “mf“, the correction should be limited.

Now we go to step 2

A preparatory exercise:

We take our worked-out basic scale and try to “bend” each note “as low as possible” to “as high as possible” in a siren curve. Up and down, up and down.

This is how you develop the flexibility to make a note higher or lower. You work again with jaw position, head position and lip tension.

This influences coverage, embouchure angle and air velocity. Not all notes react to the same extent. Surprisingly, notes like a’ are particularly easy to bend! They are therefore particularly unsuitable for tuning with other instruments! It is easy to make them in tune, but what about the rest of the scale?

So it takes a lot of experience to tune meaningfully with an a’ or b’.

The Dynamics

Now it gets more difficult: you set the tuner to your desired frequency. First, you check your “mf“, then you play a “p” and then an “f“, all should now be on the same intonation. Then you try it with “pp” and “ff“. This is not easy at all and a long way to mastery! If the “pp” works well and the “ff” is terribly high, then you have lost your “mf” center and actually have to pull out and vice versa.

In the Group

In the group, it is now essential that each player is able to correct, whether in relation to the scale or in relation to the dynamics.

In the group, the basic rule is that the bass voice is the foundation on which the intervals in the phrase are built. If you practice this, you can proceed as follows.

  1. Hold out the bass note with a tuner
  2. Add octave notes
  3. Add fifths
  4. Add thirds – major third low – minor third high!
  5. Add non-harmonic tones, if any.

A great help for everyone is: Imagine that you are singing in a choir and hear every tone in advance that you will sing (play) next. This allows you to correct in the right direction in a flash. Intonation suddenly becomes a matter of course, provided we have developed our flexibility!

Good luck!