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 embouc