The first steps to improving intonation

 

My students are doing so well with their concert music!  We have just over 2 weeks left of rehearsal and my final steps are cleaning up intonation in a few passages and adding emotion/dynamics.  I love hearing students fix intonation and hearing them sound better and better.  Even my classroom tech has been commenting about how amazing my students have been sounded. 

Here are my 'FIRST STEPS' to improving intonation.  There are so many strategies to work on intonation...there's no way I can share everything in one post.  But here's how I start and I feel these strategies make a huge difference!

I have purchased a class set of clip-on D'addario tuners (and a ton of extra batteries). There is one tuner clipped to every music stand and all of my students (even beginners) tune themselves.  If a student is struggling, they bring me their instrument and I help.  Let's face it...some instruments are much harder to tune than others.  

Since I teach full classes of beginners and year 2 students, I find myself reinforcing left hand placement a lot!  We all know how important this skill is for students to thrive on their instruments.  I was thinking the other day about how sloppy left hand placement actually make playing HARDER.  To help students understand this, I brought up my school district's 'DARE' program.   When students are in 5th grade, a police officer visits each classroom to talk about substance abuse and impairment.  Each student gets to try on 'Drunk Glasses' and attempt to complete basic skills.  There are some sample videos on YouTube you can use if you like.  

All of my students remember the experience of trying to walk with drunk glasses on...and they agreed that the glasses made it harder to complete basic tasks.  We then talked about habits in posture/hand placement that can make playing instruments more difficult.  As we went through warm-ups and concert music, students were very conscientious about playing with great position.

Sometimes I also use a tracker to help students remember to check their posture/hand placement throughout a rehearsal:

So often, students forget to listen to each other.  Give students a pitch to play in unison.  Ask them to balance the sound...if they can't hear their stand partner, play softer.  If they can't hear themselves, play louder.  Keep stretching their listening awareness by having them listen for other sections of the orchestra.  I am always amazed how quickly students can unify their pitch when they are asked to listen more.

Refining Intonation Rehearsal Activity

 

My students are to the point where they can play all of our concert music, but there are still a few spots which scary intonation.  We drill these areas almost every day, but sometimes students need the time/space to work through those areas more slowly and intentionally.  I like do make intonation activities to do in class.  I use google slides to make the worksheets (along with flat.io to add the notation).  I often change the rhythm from the concert music to mostly quarter notes for students to focus all of their attention on the fingering/intonation.

Here are some samples:

Piece:  Viking Ships of Old by Susan Day

Access a copy HERE!

Piece:  Furiant by Del Borgo

Access a copy HERE

Want to learn how to make your own intonation activities?  I can teach you!  Check it out!