Tips for accuracy

[numbnutstubist]

One of the exercises that improved my accuracy was the "popping" exercise. Just play a major scale from your low register for as many octaves as desired. The trick is that you play each note as loud or as soft as you can and as short as you can. If you miss, too bad. Go onto the next note. If you use both soft and loud, then those notes will "pop" in all of the registers you worked. It will take a while to get your chops worked up, so don't get discouraged if you don't hear major results right away.


Best of luck,

numbnutstubist

[MaryAnn]

I use an exercise that I think is in the Farkas horn book....where "unrelated" notes have to be played accurately, with rests in between. If you just do scales then if you have an odd or enharmonic jump you won't be ready for it. But scales and arpeggios are a good place to start. It's all about setting the embouchure ahead of time and getting a proper attack.
MA

[tubapress]

Im working on my accuracy and intonation. I was just curious as to what excercises you guys/gals do in your practice rountines to address this. Thanks in advance!

My thought is that the best way to increase accuracy and intonation is to train your ears regularly. As Arnold Jacobs explained in his teachings, the brain controls our body's function. Therefore, if we feed the brain accurate pitches (notice we are focusing on music instead of what we physically do with our bodies) then the lips will do what they need to do to play the note or passage. In other words, the clearer the sense we have of the pitch(es) we wish to play, the more accurate we are apt to be.

One exercise that I've found to be helpful in this respect goes like this:

• Sit at an in-tune piano.

• Play a note on the piano.

• Sing the note attempting to find the pitch center (try not to scoop the note from below or bend it from above)

• Buzz the pitch in a comfotable range at a moderate to soft dynamic with the same goal in mind as when you sang it (trying not to scoop the note from below or bend it from above)

• Repeat this exercise on a variety of pitches for 5 minutes or so each day

Try it out for yourself. Results may not necessarily be instantaneous, but with daily practice I'd bet my money that you will see improvement over time.

Then when you are working on specific passages, try singing then buzzing those passages always striving to sing/buzz with as accurate pitch as possible. You'll find that your practice sessions become more efficient and your accuracy improves steadily.

When working on intonation a tuner can help a lot, but I think its very important to play with other musicians as well to improve your relative pitch.

Happy practicing!

[Tubaguyjoe]

a lot of times when we play things, we notice mistakes but we let them slide because they were very small mistakes or just a craked note or something. What you need to do is stop letting things slide...whenever a small mistake is made it needs to be fixed right then and there. Just think about the way we practice, we play something 10+ times and when you get it right once you move on...those odds arent very good, it should be the other way around. All you have to do is train yourself to not let litte mistakes slide.

[Tom]

Just think about the way we practice, we play something 10+ times and when you get it right once you move on...those odds arent very good, it should be the other way around. All you have to do is train yourself to not let litte mistakes slide.

There is the "coin game" that many instructors use to get their students to stop just "getting it right" and calling it quits. I got this from Dr. Bowman, for those of you that need to have a "seal of approval" from a high profile performer/teacher.

It's a really simple concept...all it takes is 10 cents (obviously you can adjust this). All the coins start on the left side of your stand and every time you play the passage correctly the coin gets moved over to the other side of the stand. However, as soon as you miss all the coins go back to the left side and the "game" starts over.

Think about it...

If we play a given passage 10 times and miss it 7 times, we've actually practiced it wrong and reinforced how to do it the wrong way, thus the 3 times we got it right were actually the times when we screwed up the way we had been practicing it...not good.

Other thoughts:

Ear training really is important...yes there are physical limits we all have (and can often overcome), but generally speaking, if you can hear it, you can play it. I highly recommend working with a piano. If you don't have basic piano skills, I highly suggest that you work on it (coming from someone that has learned this the hard way). There is also software and tons of books you can get. If you really want to know more about this, I suggest talking to a college theory/ear training prof and having them suggest books and materials for you.

As far as what you can do on the horn itself...play all kinds of strange intervals listening for sound and intonation. This would be a good place to employ the "coin game."

[Steve Marcus]

Use the tools that are talked about often on this forum:

metronome

tuner

recording device

This suggestion will be familiar to those who have studied with a teacher who uses this technique:

If your recording equipment is analog, such as a reel-to-reel tape recorder, listen to your performance at half speed. Although the pitch will be an octave lower than what you actually played, more details will be revealed than listening at the original speed. Depending upon the format, you can apply the same principle with digital recording equipment without changing the pitch/octave on playback.

Quoting AJ: "Playbacks are in order!"

[jlbreyer]

a lot of times when we play things, we notice mistakes but we let them slide because they were very small mistakes or just a craked note or something. What you need to do is stop letting things slide...whenever a small mistake is made it needs to be fixed right then and there. Just think about the way we practice, we play something 10+ times and when you get it right once you move on...those odds arent very good, it should be the other way around. All you have to do is train yourself to not let litte mistakes slide.

I have read that the difference between and amateur and a professional is that:
an amateur practices until it is played right
a pro practices until it can't be played wrong

Something along the lines you were writing about, I think.

[JB]

Use the tools that are talked about often on this forum:

metronome

tuner

recording device

Absolutely agreed; they are essentials for any serious player of the instruemnt (be it student or pro). (IMHO.)

If your recording equipment is analog, such as a reel-to-reel tape recorder, listen to your performance at half speed. Although the pitch will be an octave lower than what you actually played, more details will be revealed than listening at the original speed...

Another use with this same device and the half speed feature is to play etudes such as Rochut (one octave lower than printed in the trombone book), listen back at half speed -- thus sounding two octaves lower than written, and providing a wonderful, full resonnant tuba sound -- and then play two octaves lower than written while trying to match the qualities just heard on tape. (I believe it was Mr Pokorny who I heard first speak of this notion.)

[WoodSheddin]

Everytime you play through a tune play it perfectly. Keeping up enough mental focus to not allow yourself to play something wrong is challenging. This is especially true if you are tired or bored or burnt out. You really will perform like you practice, so running through something just to go through it will translate directly to the performance. Lots of slow metronome time helps out a ton with this also.

Intonation can be helped by incoorporating slow intervals into your long tone/tone quality practice. Play the intervals such as triads progressing chromatically up and down. This can also help with evening out the registers. Listen for quality of sound while progessing chromatically. If the sound quality is world class then the intonation should follow.

To tie both intonation and accuracy together try recording one part of a duet. Then playback the first recording while playing the other part along. You will be playing a duet with yourself. You'll be amazed at how much pickier you will get in a hurry. It is tough to play a duet with yourself if you keep playing out of tune, time, and miss a bunch of notes.

[Leland]

Ditto to all the above...

I use an exercise that I think is in the Farkas horn book....where "unrelated" notes have to be played accurately, with rests in between.

When I played an audition for the jazz band in college, it was one-on-one with the director. Among other things, he set down a sheet of music for me to sightread. It started out simple enough, staying within a certain key with easily read rhythms. After a couple staves, it started to get really weird, with completely nonharmonic jumps and skips that made absolutely no musical sense (at least in the traditional idea of tonality). It was designed to see how accurately I could play notes at sight, and it would have been brutal for someone who wasn't that accurate.


Practice Tip #347:
Another time, I gained a lot of accuracy by spending some time buzzing the part on the mouthpiece. The saying goes, "Garbage in, garbage out," and once I began to produce less garbage from my lips, the instrument didn't have to correct for my mistakes nearly as much, and I sounded tons better.

[Dylan King]

I like to buzz in my mouthpiece along with Frank Zappa albums. Miles Davis works well too.

[MartyNeilan]

I was taught the following scale exercises years ago and they can help both intonation and accuracy. In both major and minor scales, one or two different keys everyday, play the following patterns: 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 1-6, 1-7, 1-8; 8-7, 8-6, 8-5, 8-4, 8-3, 8-2, 8-1. LISTEN closely when you play them, hit the notes dead on, a pocket tuner on the stand can initially help you get "dialed in" the first couple of times you play them. These can also be useful for rangebuilding when played on the extreme ends of the horn.

P.S. Be able to SING the exercise in tune, too!