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Nature vs nurture |
My views on natural ability for pitch are similar to those for
Rhythm
. To a large degree you have a good ear for pitch or you dont. There are degrees
of accuracy of the ear - from the tone deaf person who cannot sing anything
close to related pitch thro to a piano tuner. Those with pitch problems should
be encouraged to sing, as much as possible, in the bath, when practicing, in a
choir, anywhere, just do it. This will not make a tone deaf dude into a piano
tuner but it will help.
See the Singing section below.
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Perfect/relative pitch |
Wikipedia
reckons that perfect pitch and absolute pitch are the same thing. I think
relative pitch
is something similar but different, but I slightly disagree with the Wikipedia
definitions.
I can whistle an A at around 440 Hz, I can tell you the notes of a pedestrian
crossing or other external sounds. but there are some people who struggle to
play at baroque pitch, A = 415Hz. This certainly sounds flat to my ear, but I am
pretty happy tuning the bass down and playing at this pitch. I am also OK
playing on solo strings. Some players, with a more finely tuned ear than me,
struggle with both these things.
I once did Britten's Turn of the Screw and at one point the viola plays a high D
flat as the note for the soprano to take. The problem was that the singer had a
better ear than the viola player - no viola jokes please!!!
I would define the soprano in the above example as having perfect pitch, and me
with relative pitch.
There seems to be pressure for pitch to go sharper. Jim McLoed, a retired top
level London fiddle player had a wonderful phrase - "better sharp than out of
tune"!! And its true, we seem to accept being a little sharp more readily than
being a big flat. There is an excellent article at
A415
that discusses the change in pitch of A over the years. In Australia there were any numer
of pitches being played:-
1 Sydney Symphony played to A=442 but in my opinion often strayed brighter
2 Tasmanian SO (Barbara Gilby) and Orchestra Victoria (Jo Beaumont) went to
great lengths to tune to 440 and keep the pitch at that level
3 Australia Chamber Orchestra play at a range of pitches based on the repertoire
they are performing
And a principal bass player needs to make a decision on where to play in terms
of pitch. A good orchestra will tune to the bass end. If the basses "go with the
flow" and play brighter, it will push up the overall pitch and possibly lead to
an upward spiral. Players like Davin Holt at Orchestra Victoria make a conscious
effort to keep the pitch down at 440.
Tuning that bass is also an issue - see
tuning the bass
Hows does all this related to bass players? Well, we need to be aware of :-
1 our ear and its limitations. Do you have perfect, relative or some other type
of natural hearing ability. Maybe working on improving it via singing and Kodaly
methods
2 the band we play with - where do they play. And if you are a free lancer make
that bands plural!
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Singing |
It is really important for musicians to sing - I am not talking about the Queen
of the Night aria from Magic Flute, but to be able to communicate via singing.
Conductors do it. I once performed Tchiakovsky's 5th symphony with Yuri
Temirkanov and the Sydney Symphony, a memorable weeks work. When working on the
horn solo in the second movement with the wonderful Rob Johnson, Temirkanov sang
what he wanted, as his ability to sing wasnt a wonderful sound, but was a better
mode of communication that his English.
I had one student who refused to sing a phrase in a lesson involving the
Koussevitzky concerto, with some high leaps/shifts. I was taught by Duncan
McTier that stage one in any shift is not technical - you have to hear the note
you are moving to in your head. If you cannot do that you stand no chance of
getting the shift right. The process is:-
1 play note before shift
2 sing note after shift while playing note before shift
3 shift
4 work on the technical issues of the shift to ensure its in tune
I believe the
Kodaly
method can help with ear training.
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Left hand techniques |
scales |
The traditional method of getting the left hand in tune is to play scales. I
think this is a great idea, and I do it with... |
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slow practice with electronic tuner |
...an electronic tuner at first then without. I use the tuner to check certain
passages with notably tricky intonation or odd notes, a few example might be:-
quite a few of the notes in the
Otello solo
, for example the D# in bar 8, G flat in bar 9, C flat in bar 10, etc
in
Ein Heldenleben
I shift back for the B natural 3 before fig 10 and the F two bars later - these are both
tricky shifts and I use the tuner to help both the L hand and my ear
the tuning check exercise (fig 3) for
La Traviata
the latter part of the
4th Mozart 40
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3rds and 6ths |
Duncan McTier is pretty hot on this subject - when we play with the piano we
need to be tempered and not play what is necessarily good to the ear, so:-
with piano - maj 3rds and 6ths should be lowered slightly, min
intervals raised
without piano - its OK to play brighter maj intervals and darker minor
ones
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temperament & perfect intervals |
And the debate about 3rds and 6ths leads me onto tuning with an electronic
machine - it changes everything. "Perfect" intervals dont sound in tune - listen
carefully to a perfect 5th on a piano, its not quite as wide as our ear would
like it to be, and this is because the piano is tempered. For a complex
explanation check
Wikipedia
, but basically if we tuned a piano from middle C up to the top in perfect 5ths,
then down from middle C to the bottom, the extremeties would be wildly out of
tune to our tempered ear - the top and bottom notes would be something like a
minor third out.
Is this of academic or of any practical use? Well I think it is important to
know, and I will give two examples:-
1 occasionally we have to play a perfect 5th, and one example
is Bach solo suite no 1 in C (arr H Samuel Sterling) Menuetto no 1 bar 4 has two
double stopped notes, the second of which is an open G with the D above it. One
possible fingering is to play the open G with the harmonic D - if the strings
are tuned to a tempered tuner this 5th sounds shocking and the D string needs to
be tuned slightly sharp to make this 5th work. Or the more demanding LH option
of stopping both notes
2 be aware of tuning tendancies around you. If a cellist tunes in
perfect 5ths from the A down to D, then G then C the lower strings will
all be flat, compared with a piano or tempered electronic tuner, getting flatter
the lower you go. Good cellists will be aware of this and adjust thier tuning
depending on the ensemble they play in, and will therefore slightly sharpen
their G and C strings. In one Australian orchestra the basses tune thier low C
strings slightly flat, probably for this reason. Its important to come to a
compromise in a regular ensemble, otherwise we bass players can find ourselves
in the deep blue sea between flat cellos and sharp bassoons (it is my experience
that bassoons have a tendency to be sharp, but once again, good bassoonists will
adjust and play in tune. Experience tells me they are very sensitive to this! I
have been lucky in my recent professional career to work with spectacular
bassoonists, to whom this has not been an issue, but this has not always been
the case)
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