I think that generally, more people learn the violin and piano, and this makes it so much more competitive as you have to be one of the best to get anywhere, and if you're not, you get very little recognition.



Violinia, i dont think the insults were called for. I believe you have a point about the violin being technically harder when you FIRST begin, but -not implying you are- it just sounded as if you thought the violin was so much harder than any other instrument. Perhaps this is what is commonly misunderstood. For EVERY instrument, you need good technique, but for the violin, you need to get it right from the start, otherwise, it just falls apart, where as for other instruments, you can fluff around at the start, and still manage to hang on. I have lost count of the number of pianists i've seen who just dont have the technique, and somehow, manage to play advanced pieces such as Beethoven Sonata Pathetique(badly of course). However, sooner or later, you have to fix it up, which is a much more tedious process than just learning it properly from the start.

[quote name='YetAnotherPianist' date='Oct 12 2006, 11:52 AM' post='406308']
It's not really surprising that as an experienced violin teacher, you can pick faults in violinists that you wouldn't notice in pianists. I'm sure you can recognise bad violin technique a lot better than you can recognise bad piano technique....
[quote]

I second that. Im not quite sure, i think it was Violinia, who said that you need not worry about intonation with the piano, and that is true, but need you worry about intonation on the violin after learning and practising the notes properly? It isnt about intonation, it's about quality of sound, and thats where you're wrong. Pianists dont just hit a key, and make a sound, they have to worry about every single touch, just like all other instruments. If it were that easy as to just hit a key, everybody would be playing the piano brilliantly.

It's true that there's no worry about intonation on the piano but the music one has to play is so much harder to make up for it: I think even the best violinists would struggle massively with a grade 3 piano piece. The difficulties involved are just different.

I think the key difference is that on the violin bad technique is a lot more noticeable to the untrained ear and does cause the player more problems at an earlier stage than on piano; however that doesn't mean that the playing of a pianist with poor technique at the early stages isn't bad, just that fewer people are able to notice it. Ultimately both instrumentalists will meet technical challenges if they are to become good at playing.

You're all making excellent points about the differences between violin and piano technique and I see now I should have made it clearer that I meant in the early stages. I am as impressed as the next person by really good pianists - in fact I take my hat off to them because for a start they have to play 10 notes at once whereas we only play one or two!

But I'm glad some of you have made the point that at the early stages it's easier to approximate a good tune on the piano than on the violin!

Alias said this:



Yes it's true that pianists have to create a good sound - I do appreciate that - but you're wrong to say that you needn't worry about intonation after learning and practising the notes properly. If only it were that simple! No violinist hits every note bang on every time - you're continually using your ear to make micro-adjustments. A complex sound test on a David Oistrakh recording demonstrated that he was making micro-adjustments at great speed giving the illusion of perfect intonation - and that's what we basically do. You do need an excellent ear for this, and believe me I spend a lot of my time as a violin teacher correcting poor intonation, especially in the earlier stages. It doesn't help that most kids these days, especially teenagers. hate singing in front of everyone; if you can sing in tune that's half the battle. With piano none of this matters in the early stages because the places for your fingers are designated and you automatically play in tune.

I'll have to come back to this later as my son is desperate to use the computer!

Violinia

Grade 1 on the piano is about my limit , but then I've never really been a "piano" person. It's not an instrument that does much for me, emotionally or soundwise. For that very reason I think learning to play even to a reasonable competence would be a struggle for me. My ultra-small hands (combined with short little finger) would be a distinct disadvantage too

I'll just stick to strings and woodwind please......

Violinia, do you know if this has been tried on other instruments, or even on singers? I'm painfully aware that some clarinet notes are far more likely to be out of tune than others, especially when playing altissimo.

Referring to Violinnia's post above. (Problems quoting at present!)

You mentioned about violinists needing a good ear - which is inarguably the case. However I fail to see why they also need to be able to sing! I "played" the violin for three years (not well, I hasten to add, as I hardly ever practised, favouring the piano, so I never made it past about Grade 2 standard) and had no problem pitching the notes - but I can't always guarantee pitching them with my voice! There are those who will have no problem pitching their voice, but whose ear may not tune in in the direction of hearing what quality of sound is actually being produced. Is it fair to exclude non-singers from the pool of potential violinists, whilst being happy to take on anyone who can sing in tune? Surely it is more important to test their pitch in relation to the instrument - can they hear when it's flat, for instance - and also to test for potential musicality in some way...?

and this applies surely to any wind instrument?
The soprano sax is notoriously difficult to play well - its intonation is the very devil to get right, so a good player is ALWAYS listening and adjusting.
All good musicians are always listening...

It's not so easy to retune a piano as you go!

Bach was being sarcastic when he remarked 'All one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself'....

Granted, to play an note, one presses the appropriate key. The issues arise when trying to play two notes at the same time, not slightly apart; or playing one hand louder or softer than the other; or playing sequences of notes evenly; etc. All of this I had to do at grade 1, so even in the early stages there's a heck of a lot more to it than just pressing keys.

Surely the Trombone is a *lot* more difficult than the violin?

The intonation problems are fundementally worse with the trombone and you have all the difficulties of actually making a note in the first place that goes any wind instrument.

There is also a requiremt for physical strength (a trombone is heavy) and stamina (takes a lot of wind to get a full size trombone going).

Probably why there are so few good trombone players when you think about it.

I'm afraid I disagree with you - one of the major problems early on in the piano is the discipline of using the correct and most sensible/least harmful fingering - the places for your fingers may well be 'designated' for someone who has the basics of good fingering in place, but you have to teach it to the majority - it is very rare that a beginner can instinctively use a sensible and correct fingering.....I have seen all sorts of weird and wonderful contortions....... Even a basic 5-finger hand position can still come up with some strange fingerings.......

Violinia,

I have a formal degree in music, took voice as my first study with piano and oboe as my second studies. I'm afraid your arguements condemn any of us who are not violinists are musical second class citizens.

We are not.

I have received formal lessons in all three of my instruments, attended masterclasses, performance workshops and continue to learn.

I too believe that technique is important, and as a matter of personal interest am very interested in the ergonomics of playing musical instruments in general.

But the violin is not specifally harder than any other instrument, and from comments around here there are many forum members who feel offended by your comments.

As a singer I find the typical "bath-tub soprano" trying to compare what they merrily chirp in the bathroom with the type of thing I do; there is no comparison.

Back to your 14 year old pupil. Is there anyway you can adapt your teaching technique to his musical objectives. I am not saying you should compromise your standards, merely think of giving a more pupil-focussed lesson.

This is something I know I've had to do many times, and I hope im not appearing to arrogant when I sepak for others who have done the same thing and also contribute to this forum.

There is a pedagogy in teaching circles where the teacher is the senior learner. I like this approach. I am always learning from my pupils, and they frequently make me learn new things so I can help them better.

I have good relative pitch - essential for what I do as a living - but I do not have perfect pitch and I'm someone who can, at times, struggle to control my vocal chords enough to sing a particular note perfectly in tune. I cannot sight sing and while there are many things I can sing in tune, there's also a number of tunes that I can't! Control of the vocal chords is the fundamental skill in singing, so while it's possible, given enough time and practice to develop the control required, there will always be a few who, for whatever reason, never gain that sort of skill. It doesn't however, bar them from having excellent musicality or indeed the ability to distinguish whether a note is in tune, sharp or flat.

I can't sight sing at all, but I can definitely tell when something is sharp or flat. (Just need to work on which instrument is which now!). I think that saying 'If you pass a singing test you can learn the violin' is like saying you have to be able to play another instrument reasonably well to learn/do well on another, which is rather unfair.

I am self taught on piano, and I agree, I should get lessons, and a piano, but I simply do not have the time, money or space to do so, so in the meantime I do what I can with various books and my friends. But self teaching is not all bad. Just because self taught people will probably not be brilliant at that instrument does not mean to say one cannot have a bit of fun with it!

Well said.

Also, yes, it is true that as a teacher you never stop learning.

Ok, ill accept what you say about intonation because i havent yet learnt enough to say anything more about it. But that doesnt mean that other instrumentalists dont need to have good pitch, must i add that playing an instrument isnt just about the instrument itself, but it is also about the music. Afterall, what is it that connects all us musicians? It isnt only violin that requires singing. When i first started the piano, i had to sing to every piece i played (and even sometimes for the recorder) and that proves that the ability to pitch the right notes comes with time and exposure to music, not just natural talent. Its funny that you say most kids hate singing in front of people, i think that applies more for teenagers(like me), because as a kid i just sang, but now, i find my pitching going slightly downhill(is it because i dont sing to the piano anymore?), probably because teenagers worry about the quality of sound so much they dont focus on actually pitching the notes properly.

I have witnessed, on many occasions, a child playing violin or cello, who has been unable to play a phrase with the correct intonation. The child has then sung the phrase (usually in solfa) and then played it again - perfectly in tune. The son of a Kodály teacher friend of mine delighted him when, after his first cello lesson at the age of five, sang a song then announced 'I'm going to make my cello sing it now'.

I do think that singing something before playing it has immense benefits, whatever the instrument. Because YOU are making the music, it activates the inner hearing and you FEEL and understand the music inside you - then it is easier to produce the same phrase or even single sound on your instrument.

Alias is so right that the ability to pitch notes with your singing voice should not just be seen as a 'natural talent' that some people have and some don't. Do you think to yourself, 'This pupil has a natural talent for playing his/her instrument and that one doesn't so it's bad luck for the latter'? No! You find as many strategies as you can in order to enable this pupil to learn and to succeed. Singing is no different. Many good instrumentalists can hear the sound in their head but not be able to reproduce this vocally. It is a skill which can be taught - never despair!

I have said this on this forum many times before, but I find it immensely sad that so many people have such a negative perception of their own singing voice. People who are quite happy being good players without feeling depressed that they are never going to be Ashkenazy et al feel depressed about their singing and (consciously or unconsciously) compare themselves negatively to top-flight singers.

Singing is a natural form of human expression and I think we are the poorer without it. If young children had good quality music education which involved singing and which contained elements that were always achievable, they become confident about their singing voices and this then carries into teenage years when, as Alias says, you are much more shy and critical of the sound you make.

I teach a couple of delightful groups of teenagers whom I first taught when they were 4/5 and they tell me that one of the greatest benefits of the work I've done with them has been their confidence in singing on their own.

Sorry if I've digressed from the original point.

I'm sure you will find a way to develop your pupil's technique while combining it with the music he wants to play, Violinia. There were some very good, helpful posts before some unpleasantness started...

The Kodaly method is one that I tend to favour, but it is not a blueprint for the perfect musician. Pupils are different.

It is interesting that Kodaly was Hungarian, and maybe using some of his methods may be useful with this pupil.

However, teachers need to be flexible, and whilst they subscribe to one particular pedagogy or another, need to adapt.

I'm sure many a Suzuki teacher may have a different opinion over the best approach (BTW I'm not a Suzuki Fan), but please there is no magic formula that produces perfect musicians, if there was I'd patent it and retire on the royalties!

Jod, I don't think anywhere I have referred to a 'magic formula that produces perfect musicians'.

I was reiterating my thoughts on the benefits of singing. I have been teaching for nearly 30 years (eep!) and am very aware of the need to adapt to students of all ages and learning styles. In my experience the Kodály principles (it really isn't a 'method') are hugely adaptable and encompass many different ways of learning.

I've noticed that the vast majority of violinists who have good intonation are also able toding in tune. It's because they can hear in their head how the notes are supposed to sound, and it's usually only a short distance from hearing the notes in your head to singing them with your voice. I've not found a person yet who can't hold a heard note in their head for up to a minute and then sing it back perfectly. Even my partner who can't normally sing in tune to save his life! Cyrilla knows very well that the ability to sing in tune is there at birth, lost only because of not being sung to as a baby, or because somebody once made a cruel remark about our singing.

Singing is a universal skill and has been around for as long as there have been human beings. The current denigration and/devaluation of singing in our culture is a terrible thing and I find it very sad when pupils find it hard to sing.

Perhaps there are a few people who for some reason can play in tune on the violin but can't pitch their singing voice but I've rarely encountered it. The two nearly always go together - something has got muddled up in the person's head and they've lost the connection with the way the notes should sound; no wonder they keep playing out of tune. However, if you really, really focus their attention, sing to them the way the notes are supposed to sound and ask them to sing the notes back, they nearly always can, however shyly at first. The you ask them to play exactly what they just sang, and - ureka! - they can do it! The look of joy and amazment on their faces as they realised what they just did is always a tonic. This is because their focus shifts from where the fingers are supposed to be to how the notes are supposed to sound. In other words, they can only know how the notes are supposed to sound if they can hear them in their head, and singing them back is the very best way to internalise the sound.

The voice is our very first musical instrument, the one we were born with, and if we lose touch with it we lose touch with our musical centre. I'd even go to far as to say it's a very deep, spiritual thing, as is the art of dance. Both go back to the very beginning of the human race. Speaking personally, I lost the ability to dance at a very young age (about 7) because a horrible teacher criticised my dancing at a public event. It took me years to get back in touch with my 'inner dancer' again and the same thing can happen, and does happen to so many, with singing. I've lost count of the number of people who've told me they stopped singing because someone told them they sounded awful, and they never regained their confidence.

I've also heard of not a few singing teachers who can help the most damaged, frightened singers rediscover that lost singing voice - Cyrilla may be one of those so please listen to her - she has something very valuable to say on the subject!

Violinia

Interesting - I didn't read it that way exactly.

Pupil update for those still interested

I took the advice of some of you here in the earlier part of this thread and was a bit firmer with him today, after warning him that we needed to have a serious talk about his technique. I asked him what he wanted to achieve with his playing and he told me that in the near future he would like to form a gypsy-style band with a double bass player and a couple of guitarists - yay! So I told him I was delighted but that if he was going to be good enough to go out and do live gigs he needed to knuckle down and do some serious work on his technique. I told him this meant ditching his frying pan hand and putting some serious work into scales and arpeggios but stressed that this was so he could do all the fast runs he was aiming to do. I also told him the gypsy violinists he so admires must have listened to or at the very least closely watched their teachers and done what was asked of them.

To my surprise he took it all on board so I gave him a couple of scales and arpeggios to learn for next week (making sure they were relevant the gypsy piece he wants to be able to play). I also told him I'm only going to help him in future with all this gypsy stuff if he does the technical groundwork. He agreed with good grace.

So a big thanks to all of you here for your advice and I'll let you know how he gets on - he's one very special pupil for sure. But in the end aren't they all?

Violinia

They are all special, V

Great news about your pupil... I hope that he starts to knuckle down

Wow! what a debate - best I've read so far!!

Glad to hear that you're pupil has taken on board what you've said about learning scales - it must be quite a weight off your mind.

I don't think you realise until you are a lot older exactly how important technique is. I did a BA in music and did fairly well getting a 2.1 but did the minimum amount of technical work and am paying for it now. I've always found music quite easy and tended to regard myself as being naturally talented. So I convinced myself that having bad technique isn't that bad because technique can be learned, but I think musicality is something you're born with and so I thought that the musicality would make up for bad technique. Maybe this is what your pupil is thinking. Now at the age of 26 I'm only just realising that the musicality doesn't mean anything unless you've got the technique to be able to communicate what you can hear in your head. So what I'm saying is I wish someone had explained this to me when I was younger. Then again maybe I wouldn't have listened either. Maybe it is a lesson that only comes with experience.

One new suggestion for your pupil. I assume that he already listens to a lot of the Gypsy music that he's wanting to play, if not then obviously he must do this. Then get him to record his own playing (perhaps with an MP3 player) and listen back to it. He might be surprised at the difference. The next step is to explain to him that if you are self taught you have to be extremely critical of yourself and not let a single mistake go incorrected. It's all about listening acutely to the playing of other people and to your own playing and working out what you need to do to get to where you want to be.

I play the flute and it seems a lot of tecnique can be developed by experimenting with throat position, lip positions, tongue position and careful listening so I can imagine that if you've got a good ear and a lot of determination you could be a good player without having many lessons. I've never played more than three blind mice on the violin but I wonder whether it would be possible to come up with your own fingering technique using careful experimentation and being extremely aware of the physical process involved in playing - for example if you were really into Alexander technique. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Also does anyone know if self taught musicians teach themselves scales? I would be surprised if Jazz musicians in particular didn't know some kind of scales - how else would they have a sense of key?

Keep us updated Violiona.

I am self taught on flute and started teaching myself scales - I have a teacher now

It's good to know I'm not the only one on here this late at night!

Hope you don't mind me asking but, what does your teacher think of your technique?

I can ding in tune too..........

He sounds just like me!

What a wise post! This is so true and definitely true of my pupil. He knows how bright he is so thinks he doesn't really need to do all that boring stuff but can go straight to the nitty gritty so to speak.

Reminds me of the other day when I was talking to a fellow parent about his teenage daughter; I remarked that he needn't worry too much about her because she was very bright. He said, yes she's very bright for sure but that's not enough! And that if she doesn't put the work in, she'll end up being completely overtaken by others who may not be anything like as bright as her but put the effort in...

I remember a similar discussion here before where somebody said 'surely if someone is that bright they'll be bright enough to know they need to put the effort in' but thjis just isn't always the case. The brightness may come with arrogance, or lack of confidence, or a preference for socialising, or a fatal procrastination habit (for whatever reason).

Also the idea about recording him is a great one; I've just bought an MP3 player and used it with an amp to great effect yesterday but am now interested in buying an MP3 recorder - does anybody know a really good user-friendly one that records music with good sound quality and can easily shift recordings onto CD?

Violinia




LOL indeed!

I am self taught on sax - and I have always learnt scales. [working on Gr 6 when I am not on here ] Is that because I learnt piano for some time, though I didn't take any exams, but scales are 'expected' aren't they?
In fact, I LIKE scales!

I think jazz musicians have some sort of 'feel' for the key based quite a lot on aural training/experience - but they also know lots about scales, modes, chords...
I was told that often a jazz player, given a lead sheet will play through all the scales and modes, and all chord possibilies associated with the sheet so that they have the music available in their heads before they play.
And I think it may have been Louis Armstrong who is supposed to have said, about improvisation that is it planned, but planned half a second in advance (to that effect anyway!)

Let's hear it for scales!

2 points:
1) is this a nice tone by your (non sax playing) standards, or by a saxophonists?
2) Ask him to play a piano and then forte top F# and get a tuner out.... IT is incredibly difficult to get the high notes in tune, it might sound good to you, as a string player, but to another sax plyer it will sound a lot different.

I think this is an extremely good idea - it would certainly clarify my mind if ever I aspired to be a performing musician!

Violinia -

I've watched this thread for a while - fascinating!
It did go a bit 'off course' for a time, which actually I thought raised interesting discussions about difficulties of playing different instruments etc etc.

I am glad it has gone back to your 'wayward' pupil. In my view you needed to be firm with him and it seems that you have. Probably life will be easier for you with him, and he will see even more progress in his playing. Something to do with learning the rules before you can try breaking them!

Just briefly and speaking generally, there seem to be too many occasions nowadays when we allow pupils to question the old tried and tested methods of learning (not just music) and we bend over backwards to oblige so as not to offend in the slightest, afraid to appear 'non-pc'!!
We dare not/are not allowed to say "teacher knows best" even if teacher has had success with those methods over years of experience.

This could lead me into word games like the difference in meaning between "fail" and "below pass/working towards" etc but I will restrain myself



Quite. The ones who really really succeed, get to the top are those with talent AND who put in the work.

Then there's the rest of us!!

I'm the opposite - I started out self-taught on the flute and have spent years playing catch up. So I reckon you guys are very wise!


As a string player, Violinia is likely to have a highly developed sense of pitch: I ain't a very good violinist, but I can still tell if a sax is in tune or not - I very much doubt V would have any problems doing so!

There was a very intersting point made somewhere above above it not being enough to be very bright. In some ways I actually think it can be a positive hindrance to be very bright! Unless a bright student has an excellent teacher who can tune in to what he's good at, whilst subtly seeing to what he neglects, he will fall by the wayside. I'm glad to hear, Violinnia, that things may be looking up! The same thing, incidentally, hold true for those who are exceptional memorisers. I recently lost a Grade 5 pupil who was a super player (piano) but who systematically refused to read the music and "fell by the wayside" because there were just too many notes there to memorise at that level. There seemed to be nothing I could do to make her do any sight-reading practice.

He makes a nice sound in the view of several saxophonists we know; also they mentioned the excellent quality of his tone in the comments sheet when he did his Grade 5. I do know about the difficulties of playing the highest notes in tune but he's not helped by the quality of his sax - we do need to get him a better one. For the record, his teacher, who is a pro jazz sax player, once described him as the best younger student they'd ever had.

- saxfan

It wasn't really that, just that every time I told him he needed to work on his technique (every lesson basically) he'd get really grumpy about it! I wanted to find a specific way of getting the message through more effectively and without sending him into a negative tailspin. We actually needed to have a fairly long, serious talk about it, which is what we did yesterday - in fact it took about a third of the lesson but I think it was worth it.

Violinia

Same in academic life as well as in music - speaking as someone who was always "very bright" and never had to work too hard at school, having modules I found difficult and exams I had to actually revise for at uni was a bit of a shock to the system, to be perfectly honest! I suddenly had to learn to revise!

Most (not all) of the people I know who come out with exceptional results right through to uni level are those who are bright _and hard workers_. Sometimes (not always) it's those who are a fraction less "bright" but who work hard who actually come out on top, as their work ethic outweighs the edge of natural ability.

I now need to bring similar focus in on another pupil, this time a 13-year-old boy, quite similar in some ways to the other one. This boy is also cavalier about technique and fell out with his piano teacher completely over his refusal to knuckle down and do serious work on his technique. Unlike the other boy, this one developed a tendency a while ago to fly into a silent rage if told he was playing something wrong! I assumed it was something hormonal - his mother certainly thought it was. I had to learn to be very careful how I couched criticism, getting the message across without sending him into one of these rages - it could be quite tricky. It probably helps that unlike his piano teacher (who wasn't a mother) I have a teenage son at home. He seems to have grown out of it now thank god.

However, the difference in this case is that I have contact with the parents (he's a home-based pupil) and they keep an eye on his practice and at least make sure he does what's in the notebook. The similarity is that he's also a super-bright boy who tends to rush at things and finds groundwork frustrating and boring. The difference is that he's a good sight-reader and has always practised his scales albeit a bit grumpily.

At risk of annoying the males here I'm going to allow myself a sigh: boys!

Violinia

PS Actually they're not all like that at all - amongst my male pupils it's just these two - super-bright with hugely active minds but with a disdain of groundwork. I'm just about to give the first jazz violin lesson to a new pupil - yet another teenage boy, this time aged 15. He left his last teacher because he didn't want to play classical any more, and wants to be a jazzer. Hope this one's happy with scales and not going through a silent rage phase!

I often find being bright more of a hindrance than anything else. In school I was (am) basically ignoring the teacher because I found no challenge in the lesson. It is possible he sees the technique as nothing challenging, and simply refuses to do it for that reason. Perhaps you could try dressing up technique as a challenge?

It's not that any of these kids find technique physically unchallenging - they just think it's too routine therefore not really necessary for people like them - ie boring old scales (however difficult) are for dullards.

The new 15-old boy just had his first lesson - he's a good player already but was bored with classical repertoire, loves jazz and wants to try playing it on the violin. He told me when his classical teacher wanted him to practise scales he'd glaze over at the very idea but that he now can't wait to get stuck into these new jazz scales I've just given him because he can see the purpose of them. Interesting. He seems to be yet another very individualistic, bright boy.

Revealingly, my school-based pupil seemed quite keen to work on the scale and arpeggio I gave him yesterday because I explained in great detail how they would help him 1) play his new gypsy piece more fluently 2) improvise.

Seems one needs to be very painstaking in giving explanations to these particularly bright kids as to why they need to learn these scales - otherwise they think you're pitching things below the level where they need (want) to be. Their impulse is to run and not bother with boring old walking, and anyone who tells them to walk is really just trying to hold them back (or 'lump them in with the others') however they dress it up.

And funnily enough an old friend has just phoned me from Germany and during the course of the conversation told me her piano-playing 18-year-old (very bright) son has just (finally)agreed to go back to his old classical teacher for help with technique as he has been 'running before walking' - trying to play advanced jazz with a less than adequate technique...

Certainly seems like the subject of the moment!

Violinia

That is an excellent suggestion. I have a teenage pupil(piano) who is very bright (way above average) and is a challenge to teach as he memorises everything quickly, is always in a rush and I'm forever reigning him him.
He loves the challenge of chromatics...boy, have we had fun with that and it has really helped his technique too!

How do you do that sarah? You might think the sax is in tune but how do you really know? Your sense of pitch may be incorrect. Just wondering.

Also, I was chatting to my violinist friend ( plays regularly at Bridgewater Hall M/cr with BBC Phil) about this thread as I do think it has raised many important points that some musicians should be aware of.

Interesting as she said she marvels at the natural talent of many a folk fiddle player who have never had a lesson in their life. She would never critisise their technique of music playing. As she said...how dare she!

Yes but there's more to technique than intonation. And anyone who thinks woodwind and brass instruments are intrinsically easier has never tried to play the Oboe or French Horn.

As for singing, there is singing and singing. Whilst the voice is the bodies own instrument, porper singing technique is very difficult to teach not in the least because nearly every pupil you get already has bad habits that need training out. You also have to talk in metaphors all the time because asking people to perform the physiological function using science speak normally bamboozles them beyond belief. There's no instrument repair shot save a surgeon, and people have this digusting habit of using their voices to speak too, which can also cause bad habits.

I have to apologise in advance, I've waffled somewhat - I'm really tired and I guess I'm not 100% sure what you mean, and also simply trying to explain how I know better than just saying "I just do" has me a bit stumped ... I HOPE this makes some kind of sense, but I am making no guarantees.

I have been training (I don't mean consciously sitting down and doing it, but in the context of lessons, practice, etc) my sense of pitch since I was 7...

I don't have perfect pitch, although I can pitch an A with reasonable reliability - depending on how tired I am, how much music I have been doing recently, whether I have a cold - it isn't perfect but I can usually tune an instrument to a "reliable enough" A without reference - I've been tuning to A for so long that it's automatic - for example, when YAP posted his dodgy A on the recording site, I didn't know what was wrong with it but I knew it was an A, and I knew it wasn't "right". On a good day, my internal A allows me to "fake" perfect pitch to a certain extent in terms of finding starting notes for a song or something, but I couldn't name a note out of nowhere or pick a note out of the air and be 100% certain I was right the way YAP or Cheeble or one of the other "perfect pitchers" could.

...BUT, I do have good relative pitch: it's not something I consciously "do", but yes, I can tell if an instrument goes out of tune, or if a note is a bit "off" in context, or if (when singing in a choir or similar) the pitch has slipped -though I would not necessarily be able to say by how much or to pick out the right pitch, I'd almost always know if it was drifting (the infinite flexibility of the human voice, the lack of fixed reference points, are I think what makes it the easiest to slip "out" on and the hardest to stay on the notch with - particularly in a group when many people will drift to a range that's most comfortable for them). I can tell when my piano starts to drift off tune, and which notes are affected, which more, which less - more so even than my piano teacher, interestingly enough, even though he is a fine pianist. (It sounds awful when I play my scales, at the moment... )

So I can't tell you "how I do it", I don't know - sorry, this probably sounds completely vague and doesn't make much sense, but I might as well ask you how you know blue is blue or how you know to say "he is" but "we are"; or ask me about more recent skills like how when I see a bottom G note written down my fingers move to the right keys on the flute without me having to consciously recognise "Oh, that's a G, that means those 3 have to go down, and that little finger, and....".

The more you play an instrument that requires a good sense of pitch, the more your sense of pitch sharpens and becomes more acute, and it's not something (at any rate, in my experience) that has to be thought about, as long as the player is listening to what's happening and not just assuming that they'll be OK if they're "in the right ballpark" - simply by listening, and reacting to what is heard, the skill gets practice and gets better. It's what enables any wind, string, and I presume brass player (I don't play any brass instruments, but I imagine they all need good aural skills to play in tune, and particularly for example French horn where the harmonic series are so close together I imagine a good sense of pitch is very necessary to play in tune), and indeed of course singer, to play/sing in tune... if they have the skills to match their ears of course.

- For example I have the frustrating problem on the violin that my sense of pitch is better than the skill of my fingers, I can hear that I'm not always as in tune as my ears want me to be, but my hands aren't skilled enough to make the microadjustments that an Oistrakh or a Vengerov makes to play on the ball all the time. On the flute my skills are closer to my sense of pitch, though still I can't always get what I want out of the instrument... I'm getting there! One day, maybe....... as a singer if I have a harmonic framework I will almost always sing in tune (almost ), and where I do go out it's usually down to my lack of skill...

...I have a friend whose musical life has been very similar to mine - learning violin from an early age etc - but whose skills vocally are far, far better, and she can take a choir full of people up and down 5 note runs over a good octave's worth of semitone rises with no accompaniment, and she'll still be bang on tune, because her vocal skills match her listening skills. It always impresses me, but if you ask her "how do you do that?" you'd get a blank expression - she just does, it's not something she has to think about. (She doesn't have perfect pitch, either).

In general I find it's a whole lot easier to hear what's happening with the pitch when it's someone else playing or singing, probably because I don't have the technical fluency on any of my instruments not to have to ever think about what my fingers/breath/whatever are doing, so there's only so much brainpower leftover in my addled head for fine tuning!

As to how do I know it's correct: well.... like I said, I don't have perfect pitch, and if you were to pluck a random Db out of the air and tell me it was a B natural, I might or might not be able to dispute, but with no great confidence unless I was having an exceptionally good day

BUT, in the context of a diatonic piece, I can pick out the duff notes on my piano even though they're not out enough for my teacher to "hear" it, I can tell if my low notes on my flute are drifting flat, I sing in tune almost all of the time; and I can hear the same things when listening to someone else's playing.

Play me something atonal and I'd be struggling, I got to be reasonably good at the "spotting mistakes in an atonal piece" bit of the aural paper at A level, but to me at least, it's far more difficult to spot out of tune or simply wrong notes without the harmonic and diatonic framework I am used to.

Yes, I am more acutely aware of tuning when I am listening to sounds I am more familiar with, but yes, also, if someone plays me a piece on, say, the sax and one note is "off", I'll almost certainly, 99 times out of 100, notice, even if it's too small to comment on, and will _usually_ also have an idea of whether it's sharp or flat, and possibly a good idea of by how much.

It's not unusual esp. in chapel for me to be tuning guitars for friends in the music group despite the fact I don't play, or to spot that someone's guitar is out even if it was only by a little and they didn't notice themselves (that's happened at least a few times I recall with a friend who is beyond comparison a better musician than me - he plays guitar in chapel but several other instruments and all of them far better than I do where we play the same ones - I just have a more honed/practised sense of pitch than he does - and I have always been right when I've thought one of his strings was "out", even though it hasn't always been by much). I'm often the one that someone who's trying to tune turns to to say "Am I in tune?"

Um. I'm waffling... (sorry, I'm really tired and also just finding this difficult to explain in a way that makes the slightest sense even to me )

How can I tell when something's not in tune? I just can, it's the product of learning how to consciously and unconsciously for 21 years. How can I be confident I'm right? Because if I check I habitually AM right, & because other people trust my sense of pitch... I'm not infaillable and don't claim to be, but I do have an accurate sense of relative pitch, and I rely on it because experience has taught me it's reliable.

My sense of pitch generally needs "context", by the way - ie if someone played me that F# on a sax totally out of the blue, no, unless I'd just been singing or playing or listening to a note I could relate it to, I probably wouldn't know if it was in tune or not - especially on a transposing instrument. But in context, no problems. That's what I mean when I say I'd be surprised if V didn't know when her son played out of tune: as far as I know, she doesn't have perfect pitch, but I do know she's a fine violinist (I've heard her play), and also a jazz musician who has sharp aural skills, and I am certain that if her son was playing a piece and his top F#s or whatever were out of tune, she'd know - not because I have somehow tested her sense of pitch, but because I know that to do what she can do, to play the fiddle the way she can, her sense of pitch _must_ be better than mine.

And I'm aware this could come across horribly "Oh I'm so clever, I have a good sense of pitch", but it ain't intended that way. I am lucky, I started learning music young, I started on an instrument that forced me to develop a good sense of pitch, and I started with a teacher who was interested in developing our aural skills. I'm not especially talented in the area of pitch, I wasn't born knowing intervals, I'm simply very, very fortunate. I Expect that it doesn't require playing the violin or similar to develop a good sense of relative pitch, but I don't know - I can only speak from my own experience, and the violin was the first instrument I ever tried, even before the ubiquitous recorders in primary school.

I REALLY hope this makes some sense, though I doubt very much it answers the question because I honestly don't know how to answer it properly beyond "it's just the way it is". I've read this through loads of times and I'm at a loss how to make it any clearer so I've done my best and hope it maybe answers the question a little.

I couldn't agree more, but the post was about intonation on sax, and I'd be surprised (for the reasons I've said above) if V couldn't tell when her son was or was not playing in tune.

Sarah_flute - hi

just read your lengthy post on this subject of 'knowing, just knowing'. [Sorry, I thought it not necessary to copy it all.]

I think that is most interesting - I am going to re-read it. You have so much there that is useful and relevant. Even without perfect pitch it is possible to train your ear so close to such accuracy that you can just about always know how good the intonation is that you are listening.
The more we practise, and the more we get immersed in something the better our skills become.

I was at a workshop recently with a very good clarinettist - I don't know if he has perfect pitch - and when we started the day he wanted us to tune. He had an electronic tuner and showed that, without looking at it, his first 'shot' at an A was absolutely spot on. Lesser mortal like me had to fumble around a bit and then see the tuner to get accurate!!

A lovely addition to this thread Sarah, thanks.

Oh good! I'm really glad. I was really struggling to get it down in a way that I thought might make sense... So it's great that it might be of use to you

It's definitely (IMO) something that just comes with time; our brains are amazing things and if we put in the practice and practise what we want them to be good at, they will get better.

And... well don't tell the perfect pitchers on me , but to be honest a good sense of relative pitch is very nearly as useful and has fewer drawbacks in some ways than perfect pitch (especially when you play a transposing instrument) so us lesser mortals can end up with an advantage, in a funny kind of way

I think/hope I made it clear anyway, but if anyone was wondering - I don't by any means think that a good sense of pitch is somehow the preserve of any particular group of instrumentalists - I don't see any reason why a saxophonist shouldn't be able to spot good or bad intonation in a violinist just as the other way round, or any combination of musicians for that matter if they're sufficiently aware and have developed their listening skills

I don't think I gave that impression, but on the offchance that I did inadvertantly....

I think there are very few instruments where it is not possible to make slight adjustments to tuning as you play, so theoretically, everyone who plays an instrument to the standard that that becomes important should have good relative pitch... Theoretically.

Yup. I think the only real different for strings is that unless your teacher plasters stickers all over the fiddle you probably need to start using it sooner. I imagine that'd be even more true for cello and bass where there's so much position changing right from the start. Of course there are still those who just hope to get their fingers in approximately the right places and don't listen too hard to what they're doing, I think maybe it's more obvious to a non-expert on a violin than on a flute or clarinet, as they give more help in being "about right" in the first place, whereas with a violin it's fairly easy to be wildly out.......

I can't think of any instrument where you cannot adjust tuning whilst playing - except that of keyboard instruments

I agree - if you are good, you almost automatically adjust to the 'right' pitch and the relative pitch of those around you in a group.


And Ben is right - though you could re-tune a piano in really really SLOW music!!
And with a sax you can change mouthpiece when someone else has a solo!