MaryAnn wrote:
From my point of view, it is simple ear training to learn to listen for beats and get rid of them...... It's not difficult; it's just not taught for some reason, my guess on the reason being that it "hasn't been" taught and so the vast majority of the teachers out there don't know it either. Why it isn't taught in college is beyond me. The problem comes when some players are able to adjust and the others are not; then you end up with the usual cacaphony.
MA
In my opinion, you are entirely correct about getting rid of beats. However, I think that at most colleges with decent music departments tuning strategies are taught. Students simply don't care enough to apply the concepts. Intonation is one of the most frustrating things to work with, and sometimes the most tedious and time consuming element of music to fix.
One can spend hours getting all the notes right with right rhythms individually, and still end up sounding like complete crap with an ensemble because of poor intonation. That is why it is so frustrating.
Almost every director that I have played under in my college career has had something to say about this issue. They may have approached it in a different fashion than others, but time is spent teaching this. However, most students just simply don't care enough to put in the time.
The average music student is an education major. There is this overwhelming feeling of "I don't have to do _____ because I am an ed major." Fill in the blank with whatever you choose, it usually involves not practicing as much as other people, or playing rep that is challenging. The bottom line is that most college musicians these days are LAZY. If something takes a great amount of effort (like playing in tune all the time) they just don't bother. This sentiment is not only limited to ed majors; it seems to be a plague infecting everyone in music departments.
The bottom line is that it is much easier to ignore poor intonation than fix it, and sometimes bad intonation has more serious underlying causes like poor breath support and weak embouchure.
