Be Intentional about Correcting Intonation

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Improving tone and intonation in a middle school band can be challenging but immensely rewarding. As we have all heard “A failure to plan is a plan to fail”  Start the school year off right on day one.  Here’s a 10-point action plan to guide your efforts:

  Teach students to take deep, controlled breaths. Incorporate breathing exercises into your warm-up routine to help students develop the breath support necessary for a stable, rich tone.

Do your students look the same?  This can be the easiest way to correct poor posture and hand position.   It's easy to overlook poor posture and hand position.  Be intentional about how your students look.   Don’t anchor yourself to the podium or the front of the classroom.  Move around and really see your students.

  Ensure students maintain correct posture and hand positions while playing. Good posture supports proper breathing and sound production. Regularly remind and adjust students' positions as needed.  Great hand position early in the teaching process helps relieve tension and facilitates technique later.  Students can help each to monitor great hand position.   Find your stars and get their help.

  Work on producing a characteristic tone for each instrument. Use long tones and encourage students to listen to professional recordings of their instruments to understand the desired sound. Consistent tone quality is foundational to good intonation.  Remember you can't tune a bad sound.  Use your warm up routine to check for quality sounds.   Try to hear each student as often as you can.   This is a great opportunity to have your students identify the great sounds in your group and help each other. 

  Equip students with personal tuners and pickup mics to ensure accurate tuning during practice and rehearsal. This helps students become more aware of their pitch and tuning tendencies. Using a Tuner Caddy to hold the tuners can keep them easily accessible and organized.   Do not assume that your students understand intonation.   Take the time to show the students how to use their tuners and metronomes.   Explain how the instrument can affect the intonation of their sound.  Our students now more than ever are visual learners.   Getting them started visually and transitioning to their ears can lead to a wonderful learning experience.

  Regularly conduct tuning drills using electronic tuners. Start with individual tuning, then move to section and full ensemble tuning. This helps students learn to adjust their pitch relative to others.  Avoid going down the row telling students to push in or pull out.   Take the time to explain tuning tendencies and get them to engage with each other and what they hear.  The F around the room exercise is a great place to start with the entire ensemble and then modified to put more emphasis on sections and individuals.   Engage the students with leading questions that require them to use their ears.

  Train students to actively listen to their own sound, their section, and the entire ensemble. Use activities such as droning, passing notes around the room, and tuning to a piano or recorded accompaniments to enhance their listening skills.   Students who start using their ears for intonation soon discover so many other facets of the music.   When they use their ears, start asking them what they hear about the balance and blend of the ensemble,  what the starts and finishes of the notes sound like and should we do them differently,  how can the phrases be shaped better and what part is important.  

  Encourage students to take personal responsibility for their tone and intonation. Teach them to regularly check their tuning and adjust as necessary. Foster an environment where they feel accountable for their contributions to the ensemble's sound.  A rehearsal with the students and director engaged in listening is a great way to really start getting away from notes and rhythms and start really making music.  Students using personal tuners can easily take a quick moment to check individual notes or themselves without taking a lot of time out of the rehearsal.

  As directors, consistently model good tone and intonation. Use a tuner yourself to demonstrate tuning adjustments. Reinforce correct techniques and provide constructive feedback during rehearsals.   Be sure that if you model for your students that your tone is great.   Never pick up an instrument that you learned in methods class and demonstrate unless you are confident about the tone you are going to produce.  Remember you are the expert and if you set the example of a bad tone you are giving permission to your students for that tone.

  Utilize apps like Tonal Energy or other tuning apps that provide drones and polyphonic tuning capabilities. These tools can help students develop a better ear for tuning and intonation.  Encourage your students to work cooperatively to tune each other and talk about what they hear.   Video recordings can help the students see and hear themselves and each other to improve their concepts of great sound.

  Incorporate singing and mouthpiece buzzing into your warm-ups. Singing helps internalize pitch, while buzzing on brass mouthpieces enhances embouchure strength and flexibility, leading to better intonation on their instruments.  Lead by example.   Sing your articulation exercises and make it normal to sing in class.   If you make it the norm from day one it will become easier and easier for your students.,   Use the phrase “this is what we do and it will make us better”.