Chamber Music Intionation

[Phil Dawson]

Klaus,
I hope that you didn't understand that I was suggesting that a quintet should only play in a few keys. Yes it is important to play in tune in all keys and my daily practice routine includes playing all major, minor, scales and chords, 7th chords, and all traditional modes, and several chord progressions in all keys plus a few other exercises that promote good intonation in addition to other facets of playing . My suggestion was for a quick easy way to get a group playing TOGETHER in tune and I was assuming (hoping) that the individual players had a good foundation in the basics you talked about for playing in tune.
Phil

[imperialbari]

I kind of answered more to certain postings in the thread than in the context of your specific ensemble, about which I cannot have a any detailed opinion whatsoever.

To your last posting I might say something very biased by my education and playing, which has been versatile, but not always with very good ensembles.

The best intonation builder is vocal type music, more specifically the church chorale as known in the northern European continent since early baroque. There are strong responsibilities in all parts even if the alto line often comes out a bit bland, melodically that is. If intonation, balance, phrasing, and whatever ensemble aspect is not top notch, the music sounds like dirt. Some players refuse to play that type of music because they know it reveals their shortcomings. They much rather prefer music with extended chords where they can hide their bad tuning.

Bach chorales are often mentioned, but as a person, who can write plain chorales as well as chorales in Bach style, I will say that Bach’s harmonic progressions often are very complicated with extended suspense notes. They are good training, but only if the players can hear their functions in the settings. And then there is the problem of most chorales being 4 part. Many quintets let the trumpets and the horn play SAT and double the bass line in octaves between trombone and tuba. That is the option one should never choose, mostly because the horn is a bad tenor and it is plain silly to double the two loudest instruments on the same line. Let one trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba play SATB (The tuba in the 8' or the 16' octave depending on its size and pitch). The other trumpet takes the piccolo an octave above the melody in selected passages. Or double the melody in horn and trombone an octave apart. One trumpet plays the tenor line an octave up, the other plays the alto loco.

Play simple renaissance music like Susato in not too embellished settings. Polyphonic music like Dowland takes much more musicianship and hearing abilities. Still it is worthwhile, if you master it.

Some romantic choir music is very worthwhile, but also calls for good sense of harmony.

I am retired and don’t work for money any more. It is no coincidence, that much of the music, I make available for the free download fits what I speak about above here. I simply take up the challenge of making music available in the form I would have wanted available while I taught. My selections are very versatile, but I of course emphasize important elements from the music of my own country. All editions (almost) however have text in English. A few samples of stuff made for myself and friends may also be found. My project is Yahoo based, because that is what I can afford. Please present yourself with your full name, your instrument, your ensembles, and if applicable where you teach or study. Current projects are about a duo and a trio by Beethoven, but there also are 5 part settings. And most project have versions relevant for low brasses. There also are scale and interval study materials. The scales are adapted to every single pitch of low brasses.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yo ... 0%20Index/


Klaus

[imperialbari]

John, I didn’t say anything, that I didn’t mean, but I did a common TubeNet error and answered to the thread rather than to your original posting. I had forgotten the make-up of your ensemble being two trumpets, trombone, and euph.

My main thesis is still that any ensemble shall be able to play in tune despite different pitches of instruments (like D and C trumpets, Bb/F horn & trombone, and Eb playing quintet music in B minor or A major), but 4 Bb instruments in a group have some options of their own.

If you go to my scale practicing system, you will be able to match keys if the trumpets play from the Bb treble clef version and the trombone/euph from the bass clef euph version. Just playing around the circle of fifths in the midrange would do. Make sure to adjust the articulation in tongued as well as in legato.

You may want to start unisono with all playing Major. You may later on want to play in thirds/sixths between the trumpets and the low ones respectively. You may do so by pairing the following modes and finding the right place to start the cycle:

Major & Phrygian
Dorian & Lydian
Phrygian & Mixolydian
Lydian & Pure Minor
Mixolydian & Locrian
Pure Minor & Major
Locrian & Dorian

In my country many hymns are associated with church seasons, and they are hardly ever played out of their respective seasons. You benefit is that my Danish hymn settings may be chosen alone for their key and/or rhythm to practice certain ensemble aspects without hurting anybody’s sense of the Church year.

Klaus

[DelVento]

Thanks everyone so much for the kind tips and suggestions.

I found a free intonation practice tool online that I think we should all be familiar with. Tom Ball, jazz euphoniumist, puts this intonation trainer together...

http://www.dwerden.com/intonation-helper.cfm" target="_blank

[Philip J Fry]

I think that this is an issue that you should bring up with your chamber music coach. I am quite confident that he has more than enough knowledge and professional level experience to diagnose the problems present.

[DelVento]

Our coach is tubist Scott Mendoker (with the philadelphia brass, formerly NY phil, and studies with Arn Jacobs).

He does indeed "fix" problems but he can't be at every rehearsal we have, so I'm looking for some good techniques to check intonation during rehearsal.

[Brassworks 4]

I didn't read through every post in this thread (so someone may have suggested this already, my apologies if so)

When our quartet started all those years ago with 2 cornets, trombone & euph, we simply opened up hymnals and worked on tuning. If there were some consistent pitch issues, we'd drop the group down to two players, then adding another voice one at a time until finding the common "out of tune" denominator. Usually what we'd find is that pitch problems were simply due to the direction of the musical lines and that it wasn't one player in particular.

By following the rule of "keep it down when going up - keep it up when going down" we found that most tuning problems were solved.

Consistent personnel over time pretty much resolves problems too. Our original 4 were together for almost 10 years - it becomes pretty much auto-pilot.

Connie

[Brassworks 4]

I just had another thought in regard to quartet tuning/intonation.

MEMORIZE a tune or two. Keep it simple to start with. Possibly a hymn as I mentioned earlier. Once you can get away from the music stand, you will find that your ears start working with greater detail.