Teaching inexperienced wind players how to play in tune is not an easy task.
Every instrument has its own particular quirks and of course extreme temperatures can change all known pre-conceived ideas.
It is very easy for wind players to become totally used to hearing the wrong pitch of the out-of-tune notes on their instruments. Every instrument has these shocking notes that are inherent acoustic nightmares. For the clarinet, it is a very flat low F. For flutes it is an excruciatingly sharp middle C sharp. For saxophone players it is the middle D that can jar the nerves of a non-musician with its sharpness.
When clarinet players first start learning, they play very flat and this is a good thing as it means they are not playing with too much tension in their jaw. It is only a matter of time before their playing comes up to pitch. Enjoy the day that happens because the next day they will start playing sharp and stay that way for the rest of their playing lives! – except when they play the dreaded low F or try and play high notes. If clarinet players’ reeds are too soft the high notes might not come out and if they do speak then they will often be very flat.
I can see why when working with inexperienced wind players a lot of conductors don’t bother with anything more than a rudimentary tune-up as you can spend most of the rehearsal getting just one note in tune to find out that all the other notes of the scale belong to a new tonality not yet discovered by mankind.
I find the most effective way to tune wind players other than with a tuner is to get them to play a tuning note for the duration of a minim one after each other in quick succession. Most of them can hear the different pitches. I ask them to think about the shape of the notes like mountain ranges with peaks and valleys. There are very few players who can’t relate to the differing pitch in this way. Tuning becomes quite a game, in fact something to enjoy. If you bring the peaks down and then bring the valleys up you have instantly got rid of the distressing extremes. If you find that you have a student with a natural aptitude to hearing the different pitches you can give them the task of tuning the woodwind section at different times throughout the rehearsal as the pitch will keep changing as the instruments warm up.
To demonstrate the extremes you can ask one of your saxophone players to play with the mouthpiece pulled out a long way as this will produce a valley of huge magnitude and will be obvious to everyone. The saxophone has a huge variance in pitch just by pushing the mouthpiece in or out, so saxophone players should be able to play in tune with other wind instruments with comparative ease. With inexperienced saxophone players I sometimes use a biro to mark the underneath of the mouthpiece cork the place where their mouthpiece should go. I explain that if it is very hot they will need to pull the mouthpiece out a little and if it is cold they will need to push the mouthpiece on further. Because of the huge variance in pitch, many teachers have fallen into the distressing situation of tuning a saxophone player only to find they were in fact fingering a note a semitone different.
Try and encourage your flute players to experiment changing the pitch of the note by rotating the head joint of their flute in and out to correct the pitch whilst they blow a note
One must always stress to inexperienced players that a strong supply of air and a well formed embouchure are essential to play in tune but of course these skills take several years and above average dedication to develop.
Mark Walton
Music Director Christchurch School of Music New Zealand
Director of “Music Hub” supporting music in regional NSW
Music Director Mungindi Music Festival