By the way, many students only play with piano once or twice a year not nearly enough to be good at it, but this is the arrangement you are graded on for your jury in college (!) Practice with your accompanist regularly if you want to play in tune with piano.Ĩ. Again, if you are struggling with intonation, start by tuning with another trombone player and progress to playing with piano. It’s easier to play in tune with another trombonist than with a piano. This sounds file features me playing a Long Tone Duet with one of my students:ħ. This person does not have to be a trombone player. Your teacher or someone with more experience than you are good candidates. Play duets with someone who plays better in tune than you do. Don’t let yourself off the hook – don’t speed up until you are genuinely in tune.Ħ. If you are really struggling with intonation, start by tuning slow notes and progress to tuning faster ones. It’s harder to play fast notes in tune than slow ones. Figure out what your tendencies are and you are on your way to improving intonation.ĥ. The point is to acknowledge the idea that we have certain intonation tendencies which are key-related. Learning your tendencies can help you improve your intonation–use this contextual tuning process in your practicing regularly to refine your sensitivity to where to place the slide in any context, regardless of key, interval, range, or tempo. Hopefully every A is perfectly in tune (!) but if you are like most players you will have an intonation tendency that differs according to the context of the note in question. How each A is approached may change your intonation tendency: the first A is approached from first position B-flat the second is approached from third position C and the third is approached from fourth position G. Once you learn the notes, check several of the As in context with a tuner by stopping on each fermata one at a time, as in this example: Try playing this phrase at about quarter = 90. Here’s a great way to do this: Consider the following phrase: You may have bad habits you don’t even know about and to improve intonation, you must uncover them and fix them. If you are playing in the key of C major, for example, are you always flat when coming in to second position to play an E-natural? This is just one of literally hundreds of possible habitual movement patterns that define your intonation. To a trombonist, how a note is approached matters. Intonation is not a matter of opinion it’s either IN TUNE or it’s not!Ĥ. When you listen back to yourself, be brutally honest. Record yourself every day using a high quality digital recording device (see above for a recommendation).ģ. Lube up your slide so it’s always super smooth. You can cultivate slide sensitivity by following these suggestions:ġ. I call your ability to discern these tiny deviations your “Slide Sensitivity” and those with excellent slide sensitivity have a better chance of having exquisite intonation than those who don’t. Tiny deviations in where you place your slide matter to your intonation. Be brutally honest when you listen back to recordings of yourself – is it really in tune or just in the ball park? Recording yourself is an invaluable tool for improving intonation and I recommend a high quality digital recording device – here’s one that won’t break the bank but provides nice digital sound quality: Tascam digital recorder. So much of intonation is dependent upon your ability to hear discrete differences in your pitch as you play. Here is a video with help in tuning your instrument and slide sensitivity: Here’s a video about how to use a tuning app and an external speaker: Just scroll to the bottom of this page to find them. I have also created so drones on trombone that you can download to use if you like. I like hooking up to an external speaker so the drone is loud enough to hear as you play trombone. But just using your phone for the drone is not really loud enough for practicing with a trombone. The other tool I recommend using is a drone, which either of these apps will produce for you. Don’t worry – I’ll still be here when you get back! You can get a tuner as an app for your phone for very little money, considering its importance to your improvement. If you don’t own one, stop reading now and go buy one. You must own a tuner to improve intonation.
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