Teaching Intonation

Leah Sheldon shares tips for teaching intonation, even when working with beginning students.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Notes From the Staff
In this opening chapter, Leah Sheldon and Greg Ristow introduce the podcast and its focus on music theory, ear training, and music technology. They invite listeners to engage with the show by sending comments and episode suggestions.

01:06 Leah’s Background in Music Education
Leah shares her journey in music education, detailing her experience from teaching elementary general music to her current role in middle school instrumental music. She emphasizes the importance of teaching intonation at various educational levels.

02:01 Introducing Intonation
The discussion turns to the timing of introducing intonation when teaching beginners, with Leah explaining her approach to teaching it as early as possible. She highlights the need for students to produce a clear tone before focusing on intonation.

03:00 Tuner vs. Ear
Leah discusses the pros and cons of using tuners versus relying on the ear for intonation. She explains how both methods can be beneficial but emphasizes the importance of developing students’ listening skills.

04:57 The Importance of Ear Training
Leah outlines her sequence for teaching students to tune themselves in an ensemble, starting with ear training. She discusses the gradual progression from simple pitch recognition to more advanced tuning techniques.

06:47 Exercises for Intonation Practice
Leah shares specific exercises to help students practice intonation, including the classic ‘F around the room’ exercise. She explains how this exercise helps students develop listening skills and blend their sounds.

10:00 The Role of Tone in Tuning
The conversation shifts to the significance of tone quality in achieving good intonation. Leah explains how a clear tone is essential for blending sounds effectively within an ensemble.

12:25 Using Drones for Tuning
Leah introduces the concept of using drones in tuning exercises, emphasizing the importance of singing before playing. She explains how this technique helps students internalize pitch and improve their intonation.

16:56 Waterfall Tuning Technique
Leah describes the waterfall tuning exercise, where students join in one by one to create a blended sound. This method encourages students to listen closely to their neighbors and adjust their pitches accordingly.

18:55 Chaos to Calm Exercise
Leah shares the ‘chaos to calm’ exercise, where students start by playing any note and then transition to a designated pitch. This fun exercise helps students practice tuning while also fostering ensemble cohesion.

22:02 Engaging the Whole Group
Leah introduces the ‘Who’s in Tune’ exercise, which engages the entire group in assessing intonation. This interactive activity encourages students to listen and respond to their peers’ tuning.

25:04 Understanding Tuning Tendencies
Leah discusses the importance of recognizing individual tuning tendencies and how to address them. She suggests using tuning tendency charts to help students become aware of their specific intonation challenges.

30:41 Advanced Tuning Techniques
Leah shares advanced exercises for experienced players, including building chords during the ‘F around the room’ exercise. She emphasizes the importance of practicing intonation within a musical context.

Transcript

Theme Song
These are the notes from the staff where we talk about our point of view, and we share the things we're gonna do. And we hope you're learning something new, because the path to mastering theory begins with you.

Greg Ristow
Welcome to Notes From the Staff, a podcast from the creators of You uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.

Leah Sheldon
Hi. I'm Leah Sheldon, head of teacher engagement for uTheory.

Greg Ristow
And hi. I'm Greg Ristow, founder of uTheory and associate professor of conducting at the Oberlin Conservatory.

Leah Sheldon
Thank you, listeners, for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them, so send them our way by email at notes atutheory. com. And remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Greg Ristow
Today, our topic is teaching intonation and leading us through this is our very own Leah Sheldon who is quite an expert herself in teaching intonation. Leah, for our listeners who may mostly know you, from uTheory, tell us about the other part of your life.

Leah Sheldon
Sure. So I also teach middle school instrumental music. I started out over 10 years ago teaching elementary general music, kindergarten through 4th grade. I did that for 6 years before I moved into the world of instrumental music. And now my current position is 4th through 8th grade instrumental music, large and small group lessons and one ensemble.

Greg Ristow
Awesome. Can you teach intonation at such an early age and level?

Leah Sheldon
You can always teach or fix intonation. There can there's always something that can be done, but, yeah, it looks different at different levels. That kinda leads me into the first thing I wanted to talk about, you know, do you teach intonation right from the very beginning or do you wait and introduce it a little bit later? And how do you decide that? There's a case to be made for both sides. In my experience, I try to introduce it as early as I can. With instrumental music, your students do have to be able to produce a clear tone before you can really start working on intonation.
So there are some cases where maybe I wait a little bit longer to get into that. But as soon as the students are playing characteristic sounds, we start talking about it. We start addressing it right away.

Greg Ristow
That's great. You know, I think this will be a this is such a good follow-up to our last episode where we talked about, tuning systems and these subtle differences between, say, equal temperament and just intonation and various other tuning systems, and I'm really excited to hear, how you, lead your students to be able to hear these things and and I may pop in and share some of my thoughts from the choral world as well.

Leah Sheldon
Leah. That sounds great. The other piece that comes up early on in intonation is, do you use a tuner or do you teach your students to rely on their ear? And I think there's great cases to be made either way here. When you start out using tuners right off the bat, your students have a visual. They can see if they are sharp, if they are flat. They can see how sharp or how flat and that in some ways helps them develop their Leah.
But they may start to rely on the tuner and maybe not use their ear as much as they could be. Tuning by ear at first takes more time. The students need to practice it to develop that skill and get good at it. But in the long run, they'll have more independence and they will be more accurate at identifying whether they're sharp or flat and how to adjust their pitch.

Greg Ristow
So way back when I was in band, which, you know, is in the 19 nineties, at the time we had one big tuner in the front of the room and that was kind of how that worked. It doesn't really look like that anymore. No.

Leah Sheldon
It does not and I recommend if you are going to have your students use tuners, get a clip on tuner or like some sort of clip device that plugs into a tuner. I know Korg makes makes these or there's even like a a Peterson clip that can plug into a tuner and, Snark is another popular brand. But having the tuner clip right onto the instrument, will help the accuracy of what the tuner is hearing and showing the students.

Greg Ristow
And and then can they see even when they're playing at the same time how their own intonation is?

Leah Sheldon
Yes. Exactly. That's how that works. And then there's probably a case for, you know, unplugging then at certain times and to be able to hear the intonation of others. But, yeah, that that gives you a lot more flexibility if you're going to use tuners.

Greg Ristow
Mhmm. Oh, that's great.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. But before we even get to the the tuner piece of that, you have to start with ear training. So this is kind of my my sequence for how I I get to the point of students being able to tune themselves in an ensemble. You have to start with the ear training piece. And when you're teaching beginners, I'm talking 4th graders, sometimes that's just as simple as, is this higher, is it lower, and making it really obvious. Right? Playing on a piano, playing on an instrument, giving the students opportunities to to hear and answer out loud.
This is higher, this is lower. Right? Just same or different. Then you have to teach the students how to adjust their voice or their instrument or what it is they need to be able to do. They're not gonna be able to tune until they can bring the pitch up or bring the pitch down. Once they can do that, I move on to this is where I start really letting them gain their independence. So putting on a drone and letting them tune themselves to a drone.
Then from there, we we work on group tuning, and that's just like tuning with the people right around you, right next to you, tuning with your neighbors, then tuning with your section, and then finally tuning across the ensemble. So that's that's kind of my layout and that does not happen overnight. This is over the course of years.

Greg Ristow
No. I can I can imagine? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just the the control of of embouchure or I I or whatever the mechanism is on the instrument to, to make fine adjustments to to pitch that takes some time to learn.

Leah Sheldon
Absolutely. And I I'm not gonna go into the details of what that is for every instrument. There are lots of wonderful podcasts out there that do that just for the band directors who wanna hear that. But that that is essentially Leah students need to be able to adjust the pitch and know how they're doing it, not just, like, pushing more air and hoping on a whim that it's going the way they want it to go. So once they can really do that, then they could really start tuning on their own.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. There's a similar series of exercises in the vocal world that, comes from Robert Shaw, where, who is an American choral conductor of the 20th century. And, he would have his whole choir sing a note that's really comfortable in everyone's range, say, like, an easy f natural, kinda middle of the voice. And over the course of 4 beats, have the entire ensemble gradually slide up a half step. The idea being that, you know, on halfway through on the 3rd beat of those 4th of those 4 beats, you would have reached a quarter tone above. And you really it's a fun it's a challenging exercise. But you start to hear the really fine innards of the half step.
But more than that, you start to learn actually Leah do I have to do what am I doing physically that causes the pitch to go up or down when I sing. Singing is in some ways so, so natural that we don't necessarily think about the mechanics of it, but those kinds of exercises can help help, help us learn how to do that sort of thing.

Leah Sheldon
Right. And the the other thing is that the students need opportunities to do it. They need opportunities to practice. And so we, as the teachers, have to provide that. Intonation is not always something that they can do on their own at home when they're practicing.

Greg Ristow
They can if they have a tuner or an in tune

Leah Sheldon
piano, but the They can if they have a tuner or an in tune piano but but to really get good at it, they need opportunities to do it and we have to provide that in the rehearsal. So I kinda have a little list of my regular go to exercises. If maybe I could take you through some of those that, get at ways to let the students practice hearing intonation.

Greg Ristow
That sounds great.

Leah Sheldon
Alright. So for any band directors who are listening, you're gonna know this one. This is the classic f around the room. For someone who's not a band director, this is just an exercise where the students are passing a note around the ensemble. But the point is for it to sound like one continuous note. So you're gonna select a student to start and you want this to be a student who's going to play with clear tone, nice strong supported sound, really set a good model for the group. That student is gonna hold the note for 4 beats all the way to the downbeat of 1 of the next beat. Right? We're not cutting anything short.
We don't want any gaps in the sound. The next student then picks up that note and carries it. So if, for example, we're playing concert f, that's a great starting place for this exercise. So first student plays concert f, holds it for 4 beats. The next student comes in, plays it, hold it for 4 beats, and so on. And the point is to match to fit into the sound of the person before you. And you can do this one at a time or you can do this by sections.
But I generally start with low sounds. 1st, start with your tuba and work your way up. I find that that this when this it teaches the students to listen down. It also helps the the higher pitched instruments to fit into the sound, into the tone of a a lower pitched instrument versus the other way around.

Greg Ristow
Oh, that's great. And that would also work for singers as well.
I don't know. I've never thought to do that. How wonderful.

Leah Sheldon
And you you can do it like I said, you can do it with individuals. You can do it with sections. You can also do it with or without a tuner Ristow your 1st student off with a tuner and then everybody else by ear. So you can really make this work for wherever your ensemble is or whatever it is you wanna work on with them blending in the section or tuning without a tuner. This is that's a wonderful way to do it. It does take a little bit of time if you have a large ensemble, But every time a student plays, the rest of the students in that group get an opportunity to hear whether it is sharp, flat, or in tune.
So it's great for everyone.

Greg Ristow
That's great. You mentioned when you start this off, you mentioned, starting with a student who has a nice clear tone. Can you talk about the role of tone in tuning?

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. So, a student who plays with an airy sound or a fuzzy sound, even if their pitch is right on, it is going to be really hard to blend that sound even just with 2 students. You're not gonna achieve that that classic one blended sound if one sound is airy and fuzzy or buzzy or standing out in some way.
It's going to happen. We all have students that don't play with that clear tone especially with the beginners at first yet. So sometimes it's sort of a give or take. It's okay, we're we're gonna do this even though maybe these handful of kids aren't quite there yet but that also gives them an opportunity to hear, oh, that's what I should sound like or or oh, I don't sound that way, but if I, you know, firm my corners up, they're like like so and so always tells me to do and then, oh, I it works, you know. So, again, playing one at a time, it gives students opportunities to hear what they should or shouldn't do.

Greg Ristow
That's great. And and the physics behind that, maybe it's just worth mentioning that, you know, when we when we talk about a a fuzzy sound or an airy sound, what we're saying is that there's more there's more noise, there's more out of tune overtones to the sound, rather than than, just primarily the the tuned overtones of the instrument, which is what makes it harder to tune to.

Leah Sheldon
Exactly. Exactly. And if your students are ready for that, tell them that. Explain that to them. And and if they're beginners, maybe don't go there just yet, but

Greg Ristow
Right. Yeah. Excellent. F around the room.
I love it. What's next?

Leah Sheldon
Next, this is just the drone. I don't even say anything. I just put the drone on and the students know what's going to happen.

Greg Ristow
Do you tell them what note it's on?

Leah Sheldon
Oh, yes. Of course.
But, generally, we're always tuning to the almost always tuning to the same pitch in our ensemble, and I would imagine that, you know, in any other ensemble, you you kinda build your routines and your students know. Right?

Greg Ristow
Mhmm.

Leah Sheldon
So you turn the drone on, tell them remind them which pitch they're playing. And then I have them sing it before they play anything. You need to sing or for those instrumentalists who are really resistant to using their vocal chords. Sing it or it first and then play. Again, this can be done individually if you have the time for that. It can be done one section at a time. It can be done with the whole group.
It can be done with just your first chairs first and then the whole group. But, again, the point is giving the students opportunities to hear. If they're going one at a time or if you have a smaller group playing first, then the rest of those sitting in the ensemble can hear whether it's in tune or not and how they're adjusting it and bringing it into tune.

Greg Ristow
And what is what is the role of singing in that process? What does that do that if you skip singing, you miss?

Leah Sheldon
Singing centers the the pitch for the students. Honestly, it's just something that I do because it helps. When I don't do it, the students do not play as Intune at first. It helps them hear it. It helps them internalize it. And then when they play on their instrument, they can hear a lot faster if they are above or below the drone if they've just sung it and internalized it.

Greg Ristow
Mhmm.

Leah Sheldon
Remind the students that when they're playing with the drone, that their sound should disappear when they are playing the same pitch. That's okay. A lot of times, beginners at first, you know, the first time we do this or the first time they're really truly playing in tune with someone, they say, I can't hear myself or my instrument stopped working. And we say, no, it's working fine. That's what you want. We're looking for that. You're fitting into the sound.

Greg Ristow
We have the same thing that happens in singing a lot and, that when, you know, when you're singing with someone else, it's a very different experience from if you're singing by yourself. And there's a psychoacoustic effect that's called the Lombard effect. And this is this is, something that happens anytime you're in an environment where it's noisy or loud. We when it becomes harder for us to hear our own voice, we naturally speak louder and louder. So think about a restaurant, maybe you show up early for dinner, there aren't that many people there and gradually more people show up. You gradually speak more and more loudly. And it's a very natural thing that if we can't hear our own voice, we we work to compensate that.
And so when you're doing this kind of exercise with drones, which is equally great for singing, it's sometimes worth reminding singers exactly as you said that it's okay to to to let your sound disappear into this, to sing at a really comfortable dynamic. And one trick I like sometimes to use is to say, if you can't hear your own voice, just bring a hand up to your ear and sort of cup it forward, and then you'll suddenly just hear your own voice a little bit more in that mix.

Leah Sheldon
Oh, yeah. That's really great, to be able to use your ear. Of course, we can't do that with our hands as instrumentalists, but I never thought of that.

Greg Ristow
You've got you've got your hands busy.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. Yeah. And a lot and along with that, another great exercise to do with the drone is to to play Remington's, if you have a more intermediate or advanced ensemble, because if you start on the notes, say, were concert f, right, and then you play up or down a half step probably, you know, and then return.

Greg Ristow
Can you can you just demonstrate Remington really quickly so

Leah Sheldon
we can Yeah. So we're let's let's say we're starting on concert f. Right? And we're starting on Oh, then we're down a half step then back up. So so working down.

Greg Ristow
So you're basically going down a diatonic scale.

Leah Sheldon
Exactly. Or or chromatically, however your group is gonna do it. But every time you return to that starting pitch, your sound should should disappear into the sound of the drone. Mhmm.

Greg Ristow
It's sort

Leah Sheldon
of like a magical thing that happens every time you move notes, you hear, you know, the sound you've it feels different and then it disappears again. It's a very once your ensemble does it well, it's a really, cool effect.

Greg Ristow
Mhmm. Nice. Okay. So we've had we've got Efra in the room. We've got the drone. What's next?

Leah Sheldon
Okay. So I call this waterfall tuning.
I don't know why. It just started that way at a previous district where I taught. The students knew what it meant, but so this is what it is. You just have one student start first and you just add on right down the line. So one student plays, generally, that student is looking at a tuner. Once that student is in tune, they glance over at the student next to them and then that student joins in but the first student keeps playing. Once their sound is in tune or blended then the next one.
So all the way down the row. At first, I find I have to cue the students, like, when the next one should come in, when the first two are in tune or when the first three are in 3 and then cue the next one. Eventually, they'll be able to do that on their own. And, again, you can do this with individuals. You can do this with sections. You could do just first chairs first, then the, you know, then down the line for every Sheldon, however it works for your group.

Greg Ristow
Great. Great. Okay. Waterfall tuning. Yeah. Awesome.

Leah Sheldon
Okay. So then I this next one, I just call it in and out. It's just if we're if we've got something that's out of tune, we we're playing a chord, it's out of tune. Right? We fix it, we tune it. I have them play it in tune. I tell them purposely, let's go out of tune.
Let's all let's all go sharp or let's all go flat, right, on a cue. And then on my second cue, bring it back in tune. It gives them an opportunity to feel to, like, to learn to feel, oh, that's what was wrong with it.
That's when it was wrong. This is how we fix it when we get here.

Greg Ristow
That's great. What a wonderful what a wonderful experience too of of making it okay to do it wrong so that you so that you have that so that you know the difference in how they feel.

Leah Sheldon
Absolutely. And and that kinda goes along with when you're teaching the students how to raise and lower pitch on their instrument. You have to let them do it wrong too. Okay. Let's all do let's, you know, bring it up too high, bring it down too low. That's part of it. They have to be able to know what wrong is to identify it and fix it.

Greg Ristow
That's great. That's great.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. So that's just a simple quick one, right when you're in the middle of rehearsal, something's out of tune. Ristow, fix it, play it out of tune, bring it back in tune. Easy fix. Move on.

Greg Ristow
Excellent.

Leah Sheldon
Going along with that one, chaos to calm. Mhmm. This is this is what I usually generally do, like, at the beginning of a rehearsal after we've warmed up after we've tuned. We get you know, everybody's in tune, warmed up, playing with nice warm tone. I tell them they may pick any note, any note that they can play comfortably on their instrument and play with nice sounds, so no blasting trumpets. And then that's what they're gonna play and hold on the first note, and I just cue them and we hold it for a good little while, at least 4 beats. Then on the second cue, we all go to a given pitch.
Let's say concert b flat. We're all gonna go to a concert b flat. The first couple times you do this, that b flat is not going to be in tune and it's gonna take a little while to settle in. But the more you do it, the more quickly it will settle in. And then once once your students can go from this chaotic sound to Leah nice in tune concert b flat or concert f, then you can start working on balance. Right? Okay. Let's also balance this while we're here.
And then you can start tuning to chords as well instead of just all going to a concert b flat, like, let's go to this chord and tell each group what pitch they're gonna play and what they're gonna land on. But, it's an opportunity for them to listen and make adjustments as quickly as possible. And they think it's fun. They think it is so fun to play have the whole ensemble playing whatever note they choose. And just to be clear, everybody's playing a different note.

Greg Ristow
Right. Right. I love I love the name too, chaos to calm.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. As soon as you say chaos

Greg Ristow
That's great.

Leah Sheldon
They know it's coming. Right?

Greg Ristow
Yeah. Yep. I I've done this exercise a lot with choirs. Although typically, you know, we'll pick a note, we'll call it do. And I'll say, now pick any soul any other solfege and you you sing your own. And then on the second cue, we all come back to do. Typically, you know, a choir is gonna pick solfege within the major scale, so you wind up with sort of a pan diatonic thing, which is really beautiful.
But also but that's great. I'm gonna try this without even saying that. Just say, okay, let's all sing Lou. And then on a cue, pick any other note so it can be pure chaos because I think that must be great that the crazy chromaticism of what is that? And for singers, especially to do that, to pick any other note and also hold on to the sound of the note we started on in the context of all that chaos is a great exercise.

Leah Sheldon
Yes. I should have said that.
Generally, the chaos to the to calm the calm notes, the concert b flat is gonna be what we use to tune to. So if you tune to concert f, make concert f your resolution note.

Greg Ristow
Mhmm. Nice. Nice. Cool. What's next?

Leah Sheldon
Okay. So I just call this who's in tune, and this is a way to engage your whole group. Again, I have to think about the percussionists who are, you know, not necessarily tuning in the same way that the ensemble is, but they also need to develop that ear. They do have times where they need to be able to tune, such as tuning the timpani. So this is a great way to engage everybody in the group. You have one student or one section just play at a time, generally with a drone so that the group can hear whether the student is in tune or not. And then just simply have the rest of the group show whether they're in tune.
If they're sharp, they're pointing up. If they're flat, they're pointing down. And if they're in tune, they're just holding their hand out straight and flat to show that there are no waves. They are in tune.
Quick side story. When I first did this, I used to have them do thumbs up for sharp, thumbs down for flat, and we realized very quickly that was confusing because sometimes students interpreted the thumbs up as it's good. Move on. Oh, of course. So, of course, now I have them point up for Sheldon Town for Flat. But, yeah, the everybody in the group has to listen and answer.

Greg Ristow
That's great. And I love, you know, you you as you mentioned, do this with the drone. Right? That that these things keep tying back to having something to listen to, and and that relates so much constantly. Right? When we're actually making music with other with other people, we're making compromises to adjust to each other's sound. And so, you know, so with with that constant listening element, whether it's a drone or the person who's just played right before you, you're really building those ear skills throughout.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. And I think that's something that's harder to do if you are just simply using tuners. Again, your ensemble is gonna sound great, and your students are getting that visual reinforcement. But then they're not gonna be as independent in making those adjustments by ear. Another thing is sometimes students will say, oh, well, I I just tuned to a tuner, and it said I was good there, but now I don't sound good in the group. And, you know, that's where we bring up the conversation of tuning can be relative, like you were just mentioning that we have to adjust to what's going on around us. You also lose that with the tuners sometimes.
So, letting the students truly hear what's happening and may maybe for example, we're, playing something that's got a very prominent xylophone part, and maybe your xylophone is a little bit older and is just a bit flat. And you've gotta if if the xylophone is playing a part that matches the oboe and the flute, then the woodwinds have to tune to the xylophone in that case.

Greg Ristow
Mhmm. Yep. Which is not an easy instrument to tune to.

Leah Sheldon
No. Especially if it's been dropped out of flight of stairs and rebuilt a couple of times and held together by rubber bands. Yeah. Right.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. I mean, to begin with, the overtones on a woodblock instrument are all over the spectrum and then yeah. It's like my nightmare. Change to a xylophone as a singer. Right?

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. But it happens.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Leah Sheldon
The last thing that I that I can offer, if if you don't have time to be doing these tuning exercises in your ensemble all the time, which I beg you, please make time. But, something that you can do then to make up for that or you can do in addition to our tuning tendency charts. I do these twice a year. We do them at some point in the fall, pretty near the beginning of the year, and then again in the spring because students grow and change as players and their tuning tendencies may change. So basically, I I give students a chart that has all the acceptable notes in the range based on the level that they play at, and I tell them take this home or go in a practice room and play every note. It like a long tone, not short. Right? Hold it out and see where that note is on your instrument.
Does the tuner say that it's sharp, flat, or in tune? And mark that on the chart. It helps the students know before they even get to a note that what they Greg gonna need to do to help it be in tune immediately.

Greg Ristow
That's great. That's great. I I've never thought of doing this with singers, but, I mean, certainly I know, you know, in my own voice, the parts of my range where I tend to push sharp or sit a little bit flat and I just have to be aware of that. But what what a what a great, way of helping musicians to understand their own individual tuning challenges.

Leah Sheldon
Right. And sometimes it's also understanding the mechanics of the instrument. There are some notes on some instruments that are almost always gonna have a similar tendency. For example, when on the flute, once you start playing above c above the staff, those notes are gonna be really Leah. You know? High e, e flat, e natural, high f, high g. Those are almost always going to be very sharp.
And so just teaching the students that ahead of time knowing that they'll they're going to need to compensate for that. Same thing with the throat tones on the clarinet and, d on the saxophone and just knowing where those are ahead of time is really helpful.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. And it it raises also the I think the the related the related topic that, you know, sometimes a poor intonation is coming more from a technical issue than necessarily from an ear issue. And sometimes we we have to this goes back to where we started. We have to help students to know throughout their range how to adjust and correct intonation.

Leah Sheldon
Yes. And also as the teacher, keeping an eye out for that. I had a student just last week who is typically very in tune, plays in tune. She can adjust really well and almost always very accurately, and she was really out of tune. And then we put a tuner in front of her, and every note was different. It would start flat, sharp, flat all over the place. And she's never played like that before.
But I knew right away, okay, something is wrong with this instrument. Sure enough, the cork in the head joint was loose, and it was just sliding around in her head joint. So that had had come loose and had thrown everything off. So we have to always be looking out for those kinds of things too. And I'm sure that it's the same in the choral world.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. I've definitely had had the cork in my head joint come loose before. That's a great excuse. No. It's it is it is true that yeah. That we're always yes. We are always listening for whether there might be anything something wrong physiologically Leah but more commonly, just something wrong with how how a singer is approaching something technically.
Whether it's with the breathing or whether there's, you know, tongue tension that's just messing things up Ristow strap muscle tension. And there are all sorts of so many so many tuning things are are related to the wrong kind of tension at the wrong time.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. So these are some very basic level things that you can do even with beginning students. Free more experienced players, I have a couple of quick things here I'd like to mention. If we could revisit the f around the room exercise again. Yeah. Once your students do that well with one pitch, then you can try f around the room in building chords. I usually start with a 5th.
So your first student plays their concert f, holds it for 4 beats. The next student, just as before, pass it to the next student. Once the next student is playing concert f, that first student now drops to concert b flat.

Greg Ristow
Mhmm.

Leah Sheldon
And the second student then, once they're done, passes the f on, then they drop to concert b flat. So you've now got a 5th going around the ensemble. And then once your students do that well, then adding the 3rd in there so you can you can build chords once your group is ready to start tuning at that level.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. That's great. That's great.
And, you know, it's related if we go back a couple of episodes to the interval ear training episode, a similar game that works really well with singers is to, you know, have one person just like that singing, say, a drone, and another person doing a Remington exercise around what that first person is singing, or taking turns, or both of them doing a Remington in the opposite direction from each other, but yeah, there there you're really getting to building not only intonation for a specific note, but intonation for all the different, possible intervallic combinations that could happen. Mhmm.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. And another great way to address, tuning chords is play chorales. Do them with your group as a warm up as much as possible. It's a much more musical way of of hearing them, but then also they they have moving notes, there are moving parts, there are lots of other things that you can address but but chorales are great for intonation and giving them opportunities to hear it and practice it.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. And and and they have one of the things I love about chorales, right, is you get you get so many so many vertical moments that are major and minor triads that are really in different inversions, which are so good to practice tuning on. But you also get the wonderful dissonant passing tones and suspensions and sometimes appoggiaturas where you also can really learn to to practice and tune a note that's not part of the chord you're hearing.

Leah Sheldon
Mhmm. Yeah. And this is great for advanced groups. But if you wanna do this with with a beginning group or more intermediate group, I'm just gonna do a quick plug here for John McAllister on his website. If you just Google John McAllister, I don't remember the exact, web address at this moment, but

Greg Ristow
We can we can put it in the show notes also.

Leah Sheldon
Okay. That's a great idea.
He has tons of free resources. He's he's an educator and composer, and he writes great warm up and, like, basic building block exercises for ensembles. They are free, and then he composes very exciting backing tracks to them. So students, like, have fun playing long tones, but then they also have a context to play it within too if they're at home practicing. But he has I believe there's a set of 4 and then a set of 8 chorales for ensembles that it some of those are appropriate for a beginning level group, and they're free and they're on his website.

Greg Ristow
Oh, that's great.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. And then and then finally, specific to band students, teach your students alternate fingerings for notes that are really out of tune and, let them use that to their advantage. So, like, throat tones on the clarinet, putting your right hand fingers down on the flute, high e natural, taking the pinky off, make sure they're not using the thumb b flat, high f, adding your, ring finger, finger 6. Those little changes can make some of the biggest differences.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. I I often wish as a singer that we had an alternate fingering we could, we could turn to or that little pinky slide on the trumpet. Right?

Leah Sheldon
Right. Yes. Oh, yes.
This is a little bit off topic, but Leah, teachers, from the very beginning, teachers of trumpet students, Leah, teacher trumpets, to use their ring finger. The slide goes out on d right from the very beginning. Otherwise, it's always going to be very, very sharp.

Greg Ristow
Leah, these are just these are just great. Any others you wanna share with us?

Leah Sheldon
I I could go on for days. I won't do that to you, but I'm wondering if you have anything that you also wanna tie in, to your world of choral conducting.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. You know, what what I find delightful is how similar these things are, and and it doesn't really surprise me. And I I think, like you, I would say that, I have I've known teachers who actually do teach intonation, and I've known teachers who don't teach intonation, and, generally, you can tell pretty quickly from listening to just a few seconds of of their ensembles playing, whether or not someone is actually teaching intonation. So, yeah. So totally Leah of these exercises that you've mentioned are are great within within the choral world also. We were just talking about chorales. I I love to use chorales, but I even more love to use, Renaissance music, when working on intonation with a choir because it's even more consonant and continuously consonant as a as a thing.
And, one of the things you know, you you talked about tone and and listening to your neighbor in the rest of the section. There's a great book by, Pavel Chechnikoff, the the composer composer of probably his most famous piece is, The Salvation is Created. And, the book is called The Choir and How to Direct It. And in the first chapter, he talks about teaching he talks about a hierarchy of listening. He talks about, listening to yourself and then listening to your neighbors and the people around you, and then listening to your section, and then listening to the entire ensemble. And he also talks specifically about what to listen for. So to listen for the pitch.
Am I singing the same pitch as my neighbors, as my section? Am I singing the same vowel? How is the balance of my voice within the people next to me, within my section, within the ensemble? And so you're gradually listening for all of these things from the level of just your own your own voice, your own instrument, working outwards to gradually taking in the entire ensemble Leah and and and raising your awareness of it. And and with the with the advice that when things start to go wrong, always start from the base of that pyramid, which is listening to your own voice, listening to the voices of those right around you, listening to your section, and working your way, to listening through to the whole ensemble, which I find is just, you know, oftentimes, especially Leah lot of times the singers I work with who have sometimes more solo vocal training than choral vocal training are really experienced at listening to their own voice, but may not be familiar. And and of course, when we practice, that's that's all we can do is listen to ourselves. Right? But they may not be familiar with with building up those stages and listening to, people around them.
So it's I think it's good to have that sort of hierarchy of of listening needs.

Leah Sheldon
Yeah. That's wonderful. And that's a great point about that we're so used to listening to ourselves. When I have an ensemble that gets to a point where they're really listening well to their section but they're not listening across the group, even if we've talked about what to listen for sometimes then I mix them up. I literally have them stand up and move around the room and they are allowed to sit anywhere as long as it is not next to the same instrument as their own. And that forces them now to have new neighbors to listen to. That forces them to hear other things they haven't heard before and after playing like that for a few moments or even a whole rehearsal, when they come back to their sections, they're able to listen so much better across the group because now they've heard it and they know what to listen for.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. Totally. Totally. Well, this is just great. I I feel like I have learned so many things now today from the instrumental world that I can't wait to to try out with my choirs. This is, just wonderful stuff, you know.

Leah Sheldon
And if I could just end with one final plug here, when it comes to intonation, the worst thing that you can do is nothing. Don't do nothing. Do something. As the teacher, make time to address it in your group. Even if you have beginners. I I had a group yesterday of 4 beginners and right off the bat, they just did not have great sound together. It was very out of tune, and I just looked at 2 of them and I said pull your pull your head joint out half of an inch, pinky width, and we played it again.
And that was it. We went on. They there was no why. There was no what what do I have to do this far.
I was just just pull this out. They immediately, they heard it. They said, oh, that sounds better, and we moved on. It took 2 seconds. And then instead of letting them play in that out of tune sound and getting used to it, now they were playing in tune.
So don't do nothing. And tell it to your students too. If they're playing and they hear something is not right but they don't know what to do, just do something. Bring your pitch up. If it got worse

Speaker 1
Yes.

Leah Sheldon
Go the other way. Bring it down, but don't sit there and do nothing. Do not assume that it's someone else's responsibility to fix the sound.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. Oh, I love it.
I love it. It reminds me, actually, an an exercise one of my Dalcro's teachers did with us. We, had us stand in a circle and, gave us a note and said, you know, make a major chord off this. Now close your eyes. And then she would tap one of us on the Sheldon. And it was that person's job to go a little bit out of tune. And everyone else, when they heard someone go a little bit out of tune, was to readjust to tune the chord to that person.

Leah Sheldon
Oh, I love that.

Greg Ristow
Which was

Leah Sheldon
I'm stealing that. I'm using that this week. Yeah. That's great.

Greg Ristow
Yeah. Thank you, Anne Farber. Yeah. So great. Awesome. Well, I think that's definitely plenty for this, and and what a what a joy. Leah, thank you so much for sharing these great ideas with us.

Leah Sheldon
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.