About pedagogy and the videos in the other thread

[imsevimse]

I read this thread https://trombonechat.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21867
and had these thoughts.

What makes good pedagogy? What makes a good teacher? Can you really dismiss any of those videos as NOT important and to really be considered to be false, as information? What makes a good student?

About pedagogy (my opinion)

I think any instruction that helps a student to be better at what he tries to do is a good instruction, "better" can then be subject to endless discussions here but not the message of instruction, because it helped the student.

The teacher must adjust their teaching to mach the needs of each student and this makes any teaching in a group very challenging.The trombonechat collective is a group.

All videos in the thread I referenced are great source to the intelligent student.



I'm a type of person who both learn by analysis and by trial and error. I think that goes for anything I've learned. Juggling, programming, cycling, walking, speaking and so on. The things I learned in young years was probably a lot about analysis in my baby brain even though I do not remember anything about it. The process of analysis is good and helps, that's my belief and experience.

How to learn is still a balance that challenges me. Others may think they need to be more analytical and less "trial and error" and of course some just think they need to play and it is all about "trial and error". The ones that only analyse will not be successful because it is not only a mind-thing. I think everybody except the few that forgot how they learned agree there must be a mix of trial and errors and analysis.

What makes us pick up a message? It does not need to be absolutely scientifically correct information to be effective teaching. It can be about "how to deliver a message"? That can be what's most important and the real clue to become a good teacher. To hear and see Håkan Björkman nail those high f's and f#'s with that ease in the thread I referenced makes a point to me. That raw model is incredible important to me. It is what I need and therefore the better video if I compare them, but both are valuable, infact all videos in the thread are valuable to me, but Håkan is what I remember and what inspires.

How do I relate? My own experience is the only thing that I'm a real expert on. I was a brass teacher for 13 years but what I said to the students and what they picked up varies too much to be able to draw into conclusions what helped and what not helped. The expertise is only in MY own playing and not in my students playing. The ones that continued and practiced got better, that is my conclusion from 13 years of teaching.

Some problems I've had with my technique and how I solved them is what gives some confidence both as a teacher and student, but of course it ONLY helped one student; ME. I wonder how many who have taught young children that knows what really helped students and what didn't help in the end? I think to have a raw model is what is most important to any student. A teacher could be that raw model.

My point is pedagogy is a complex subject because there are too many variables going on, and to be able to interpret knowledge must be based on experience, it has to be learned, not taught.

The teacher is important as a raw model and to start students but then any student must learn how to be a student and this is THE question for life. It helps to learn who to ask, what to ask, what to look for, what to strive for; must investigate; must experiment; must seek knowledge from various sources and then spend time.

The best student is the one that knows how to study. We tend to focus much on details in the actual playing and forget a lot about the student. How do they progress? What are their results? We see problems and technical details but we see no progress? Where are those videos?

/Tom

[Savio]

I think pedagogy is a lot about inspiring people. And listening. We are lucky to have so much great music to listen to day. I feel we as teachers have a job to do in wake up the interest in music and playing an instrument. Analysis is needed for almost all aspects. And I'm glad there is so many who are good at doing it. We as teachers also have the opportunity to ask these people when we feel unsure.
Leif

[imsevimse]

I think pedagogy is a lot about inspiring people.

Absolutely. It is the single most important aspect of beeing a teacher (my opinion and also experience as a student).

The video Håkan made is what is most inspiring (to me). I understand it can vary a lot depending on current skills and needs of a student.

Some students might want to be inspired by social activities unrelated to playing a musical instrument such as going to a summer camps for example. To do that with musical friend might then help them make friends with others that are more involved in music and thus they will gain a deeper interest in their own instrument in the long run so they practice more.

/Tom

[Wilktone]

Here are a few random thoughts that come to mind about pedagogy.

How many of us have had teachers (any subject) that really knew the materials and was quite brilliant, but not very inspiring? Do we get something different out of those lessons/classes? Did your opinion of what you get out of that sort of teacher change when you were really into that subject already or at a more advanced level?

If you're a teacher, have you brought in a guest lecturer/artist and observed that outside expert get amazing results by telling our students the exact same things we've been teaching for months? How many of us have had the opportunity to be that guest and get very fast results with someone else's students when our own take much more time to get there? Have you seen these fast results disappear in your students after a little time has past?

Have you had teachers or attended masterclasses where the instructions are jive, but the teacher is so inspiring that you don't care? Or maybe you've been to classes where you just can't get past the fact that what you're being told is so wrong that you end up dismissing everything else?

The scientific field of pedagogy is relatively young compared to other fields. There are many myths that are still quite prevalent among educators, in spite of not being backed up by the evidence. The "laboratory" of our teaching studios and ensembles (not to mention our own playing) is practically designed to elicit bias in how we assess our instructions. And controlling to eliminate that bias to really test our methods is not only not really practical, it can also make for bad teaching. It's hard, but it takes a very careful and often time consuming approach to really test what makes good pedagogy.

Dave

[Doug Elliott]

It might be useful for me to post my own history of lessons, partly because I think nobody does anything like this anymore.

From the very first time I picked up a trombone at 8 years old, I had WEEKLY lessons continuously with no breaks, for about 12-13 years straight. Slightly overlapped with monthly lessons for another 10 years straight with no breaks.

My first teachers (6-7 years) did a lot of demonstrating and playing along with me, continuously pushing me HARD to do things I couldn't quite do yet. I was in the Blazhevich Clef Studies by 8th grade and started working on the Creston Fantasy in 9th grade.

My next teacher was John Marcellus, weekly for another 6 years. More hard solos and technique books, LOTS of sightreading, orchestral excerpts. His playing was absolute perfection, a great model to emulate. Helped me with some chop issues a bit, but was more into ideas about air flow. All valuable stuff. And he always encouraged me to learn new things, look at other approaches, and go to masterclasses with other players.

Overlapping with him, I had 10 straight years of nearly monthly lessons with Reinhardt. Straightening out some remaining chop issues and gaining a thorough understanding of the physical whole body mechanics of playing.

That"s my background and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
There was no internet then....

[ithinknot]

I had 10 straight years of nearly monthly lessons with Reinhardt. Straightening out some remaining chop issues and gaining a thorough understanding of the physical whole body mechanics of playing.

How early did it become clear that you were studying more than just the bits that applied specifically to you?

[Doug Elliott]

I was familiar with Reinhardt's writings already, and I knew several people who studied with him, so I already had a background in awareness at least. I often drove the 3 hours to lessons in Philadelphia with other friends who were also studying, so there was always talk about more than my own issues. I pretty much spent the whole 10 years learning about all the embouchure types, their typical problems, and corrections. It was a subject I was extremely interested in.

I've taken it a long way since then. He talked to me a lot about teaching, and specifically asked me to keep going where he left off, so that's what I do.

[bcschipper]

I was familiar with Reinhardt's writings already, and I knew several people who studied with him, so I already had a background in awareness at least. I often drove the 3 hours to lessons in Philadelphia with other friends who were also studying, so there was always talk about more than my own issues. I pretty much spent the whole 10 years learning about all the embouchure types, their typical problems, and corrections. It was a subject I was extremely interested in.

I've taken it a long way since then. He talked to me a lot about teaching, and specifically asked me to keep going where he left off, so that's what I do.

How were lessons with Reinhardt? For instance:

Was is it more like “Here is what I want to hear from you today” or you telling him what you want to do?

Were you expected to start the lesson warmed up or did he use the warm up already to “diagnose” problems and “prescribe” exercises to fix them?

Did he use his book on the pivot system for the trombone during his lessons?

Did he observe solely as an outsider or did he also ask you to introspect in your own playing sensation and use this information as input for “diagnose and fix”?

How much was he emotionally invested in a students progress? Was a student just a client to him or did he take personal satisfaction in the student’s progress?

His encyclopedia is written in a question-answer style. Did he use the same method of raising questions about a student’s playing and trying to answer them during lessons?

How much of his analytical approach become obvious to the student during lessons? Was it more back in his mind or did he care to explain in detail to his student his diagnosis and the justification for the fix?

Sorry for all these questions. Please disregard if it is too much trouble.

[Doug Elliott]

Lessons were totally unlike any other teachers. And keep in mind that I was a very regular long term student, and I think that was unusual in itself. I would bet that most of the people who went to him had only one or two lessons - partly because they didn't really understand, or didn't believe him, or couldn't be bothered taking it seriously. I saw that a lot.

His power of observation was amazing - he would watch me play just a little bit, maybe a minute - and spend the next half hour telling me the corrections I needed to do, and then the remainder was going through exercises he wanted me to do until the next time. He changed my warmup and other routines quite regularly.

Sometimes the primary focus was on air usage; sometimes slide technique; sometimes low range, middle range, or high range. Occasionally an orchestral excerpt, or a solo, or a big band feature. Always about HOW to do whatever it was, how to practice, how to perform, phrasing, pacing.

Lots of stories about his career, his teachers, difficult cases he'd worked on with unnamed students. If he got into one of his long stories I would ask questions to get him back on a topic I wanted to hear about.

Sometimes he would want to see me without warming up. Other times he would make me play until I got tired, so he could see what changes.

He sometimes used his books as examples of what and how to work on things. But when I asked about using other books or exercises he would say "I don't care what you play, just do it right."

The question and answer thing was a bit strange, and it was only in the book. I think he was trying to write as if someone was was interviewing him. And a lot was sort of fighting against other "outdated" ideas that he thought were wrong, and bad teaching.

I think the way he used the analytical approach depended on the student. I was probably unusual in the way I wanted to understand why he said everything he said, and other students just wanted to fix their problems and go away. I know people who have no recollection of what he told them - they just did it and it worked.

[bcschipper]

Thank you very much for the answers. That’s a very nice teacher to have. I would like to have such a teacher in Northern California. I got some follow up questions if you don’t mind.

…

His power of observation was amazing - he would watch me play just a little bit, maybe a minute - and spend the next half hour telling me the corrections I needed to do, and then the remainder was going through exercises he wanted me to do until the next time. He changed my warmup and other routines quite regularly.

Did the change of the warmup routine follow a “grand plan” or was it in response to particular problems of the student?

How confident was he in his observations and suggested corrections? Did he express sometimes any self-doubt? The encyclopedia contained already some changes compared to the earlier pivot method for the trombone. So he must have been aware that any knowledge of the biomechanics of brass playing (like any other knowledge we have) must be tentative and will most likely be modified in light of new evidence.

Did he keep systematic records of his students (like notes of embouchure type, observations of what worked and what didn’t work, etc.) that he used to generalize from particular cases or was his head his database?

Sometimes the primary focus was on air usage; sometimes slide technique; sometimes low range, middle range, or high range. Occasionally an orchestral excerpt, or a solo, or a big band feature. Always about HOW to do whatever it was, how to practice, how to perform, phrasing, pacing.

Again, did the focus shift follow a “grand plan” (like these are the things that every student must cycle through in a particular order) or the did focus shift in response to particular playing problems of the student?

Would he address just one problem at a time or every problem he saw (even unrelated ones) at once?

He sometimes used his books as examples of what and how to work on things. But when I asked about using other books or exercises he would say "I don't care what you play, just do it right."

You used the term “books” in plural. I am just aware of his pivot method for trombone and the encyclopedia. Is there any other book he wrote?

The question and answer thing was a bit strange, and it was only in the book. I think he was trying to write as if someone was was interviewing him. And a lot was sort of fighting against other "outdated" ideas that he thought were wrong, and bad teaching.

I think the question-answer form is not very effective for presenting the approach. But it is very effective for understanding it. Once we are able to formulate questions, we begin to understand. The encyclopedia is like an exam book with exam questions I would ask somebody who studied the pivot approach, and it contains the answer key as well. But for studying the approach, I would very much prefer a more concise description of the various topics discussed in the encyclopedia. There is a need for an updated better presentation of the approach preferable with “self playing tests” and exercises. It shouldn’t be even called “pivot method” since the name is misleading.

I think the way he used the analytical approach depended on the student. I was probably unusual in the way I wanted to understand why he said everything he said, and other students just wanted to fix their problems and go away. I know people who have no recollection of what he told them - they just did it and it worked.

The problem is if one day it doesn’t work and you want to understand why and how to reproduce the earlier playing. I think every student should learn some method of “self-help” (like a first-aid box).

Again, thank you very much for the information.

[Doug Elliott]

You ask a lot of questions...
With me there was definitely a "grand plan" progressing through different warmups and routines. I don't want to be too specific because I really want to write a book (some books) myself in a similar progression. But everything depends on what the individual needs at any given time.

Confidence or self-doubt: He was constantly experimenting to see what approaches worked or didn't, and modifying his teaching as he went along. You can see that in differences between his early books from 1943, pretty much right after he finished at Curtis, and the Encyclopedia in about 1968 and 1975.

In some ways he was overly confident - I saw him misdiagnose some students. That's not good.

He had a habit of rotating through different approaches or emphasis, so everybody got the same stuff for a couple of months and then he'd move on to something else. I suspect a lot of teachers do something similar.

[SwissTbone]

I don't want to be too specific because I really want to write a book (some books) myself in a similar progression.

And you know we are really looking forward to this!

[bcschipper]

I am sorry for my barrage of questions. Thank you very much for the information.

I am looking forward to the book and I think many people are looking forward to such a book.

[imsevimse]

I'm very happy how this thread turned out. It is not because of me, but I want to express that I'm the OP and that this is what I want this forum to be. Please go on! I really love to hear about what "to be a student" meant to the most successful of us.

Thank you Doug for sharing! Thank you bcshipper for making this to a great thread

I now would like to know more about how "to be a student" from others too who sucessfully made it and become professional players, then I mean really good players like Doug, Chris and Basbasun. I know there are more real good professionals at this forum. Please share!!!

/Tom

[VJOFan]

Maybe the difference between great teachers and average teachers has to do with the way they were as students.

There are descriptions above of how some students want to know the why of the things they are doing and even the why of what others are doing. In contrast other students get the answers for themselves, get their jobs and never really consider the process that got them to their goals.

I now can see that most of my teachers approached playing and teaching as almost a set of religious rites: play these warm ups, practice these etudes, learn this repertoire and you will be transformed into a professional musician in a few years.

That is probably how they saw their own story. They just didn’t realize that the teachers they had were masters in giving students the input each needed. But I guess those teachers didn’t spend a lot of time explaining what was going on behind the curtain. Therefore the players I ended up working with thought the specific things they studied were the magic ingredients- “just play it this way.”

I believe the magic Ingredient in pedagogy is always the intentionality of the teacher in offering input that spurs growth.

Before shifting careers in my late twenties I thought I was teaching trombone at a university while playing in an orchestra. I did help a bunch of players improve but I know now that that was really accidental.

20 + years into a career as a high school teacher (band then ESL) I know that “pedagogy” and what I was doing in the studio back in the day are only tangentially related. I also know that a lot of my trombone teachers really had no pedagogy. They modelled, monitored and corrected. That is fine and helpful, but is far from an actual intentionally designed program to improve a person’s abilities. The magic of conscious intentionality.

[VJOFan]

Maybe the difference between great teachers and average teachers has to do with the way they were as students.

There are descriptions above of how some students want to know the why of the things they are doing and even the why of what others are doing. In contrast other students get the answers for themselves, get their jobs and never really consider the process that got them to their goals.

I now can see that most of my teachers approached playing and teaching as almost a set of religious rites: play these warm ups, practice these etudes, learn this repertoire and you will be transformed into a professional musician in a few years.

That is probably how they saw their own story. They just didn’t realize that the teachers they had were masters in giving students the input each needed. But I guess those teachers didn’t spend a lot of time explaining what was going on behind the curtain. Therefore the players I ended up working with thought the specific things they studied were the magic ingredients- “just play it this way.”

I believe the magic Ingredient in pedagogy is always the intentionality of the teacher in offering input that spurs growth.

Before shifting careers in my late twenties I thought I was teaching trombone at a university while playing in an orchestra. I did help a bunch of players improve but I know now that that was really accidental.

20 + years into a career as a high school teacher (band then ESL) I know that “pedagogy” and what I was doing in the studio back in the day are only tangentially related. I also know that a lot of my trombone teachers really had no pedagogy. They modelled, monitored and corrected. That is fine and helpful, but is far from an actual intentionally designed program to improve a person’s abilities. The magic of conscious intentionality.

[Wilktone]

Don't confuse me for one of the "really good players," but here's my pedagogical lineage, for what it's worth. As I read through it now after writing it, it's probably too long but I want to acknowledge all the great brass teachers I've had (and I'm leaving out some that probably deserve mention). I've been lucky to have had some really great mentors with a wide variety of approaches and backgrounds. I've taken a lot from them all and tried to summarize some of the things I learned from them.

My mom is a pianist and piano teacher, so I got started very young with music. Some of my earliest memories are singing and playing Orff instruments. I started piano lessons at 5 years. When I was in 5th grade I started taking trumpet lessons. In 7th grade I played baritone horn in junior high band, but continued taking trumpet lessons and played trumpet in 8th grade band. Growing up in the Chicago area with a musical mother I had lots of opportunities that at the time I didn't realize how lucky I was. I heard the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform several times on school trips and was dragged along to recitals by my mom all the time, often performing in them too from a very young age. Getting up in front of people to perform was just a thing I did, so I've never really struggled with feeling overly nervous playing in front of an audience.

When I was in high school I volunteered to play baritone horn in the freshman concert band. I went to a large suburban high school in Oak Park, Illinois, with several instrumental and choral music teachers. The jazz band director, Dr. Ron Holleman, really encouraged me and got me playing trombone as a sophomore in the jazz band. I blame Dr. Holleman for going on to make music my career. I continued taking trumpet for a while with Nick Drozdoff, who played with Maynard Ferguson, and then switched to trombone lessons with John Haynor and a few lessons with Mark McDunn. Nick and John both taught me the value of practice and were inspiring teachers.

My undergraduate trombone and jazz teacher was Dr. Tom Streeter at Illinois Wesleyan University, who played bass trombone with the Airmen of Note from 1967-1971. Dr. Streeter emphasized becoming your own best teacher and encouraged me to take everything he suggested with a grain of salt. His teaching was very much influenced by Arnold Jacobs's "song & wind" approach and emphasized thinking musically and letting the air do the work. Jacobs also gave some workshops nearby when I was a freshman or sophomore at IWU and I got a lot out of hanging around his masterclasses for a couple of days.

I did my masters at DePaul University in jazz studies. While there my primary trombone teacher was Paul McKee, who played and wrote for Woody Herman. I also took some classical lessons from Ed Kocher, who performed with the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Lessons with Paul were largely about getting around the horn as an improviser. He really helped me sort out doodle tonguing and lip flexibility. With Dr. Kocher I mostly spent trying to get my chops sorted out, which had been an issue for me for quite a while. Studying in Chicago was very cool. I got to hear a lot of world class musicians perform and began to play professionally in the area, subbing in Rob Parton's Jazztech Big Band and playing regularly in a couple other bands. At that time there were many big bands performing in the area and I got the chance to play regularly with some great trombone players in the Chicago area, which is a lesson in itself.

My doctoral trombone professor at Ball State University was John Seidel, who subbed regularly with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Fort Wayne Philharmonic. Dr. Seidel worked hard to help me sort out my chops at first, which continued to be an issue for me. Later in my studies with him we would spend a lot of time talking about pedagogy and teaching trombone. Although my lessons with Seidel were mostly orchestral trombone and solo repertoire, he was a jazz fan and was very supportive of my primary interest in playing and teaching jazz.

During my time working on my chops with Dr. Seidel he happened to be on the phone with Doug Elliott, talking about ordering mouthpieces. A lot of Seidel's studio played on Doug's mouthpieces. Doug was asking about another student's embouchure to help set him up with a good mouthpiece and Seidel mentioned that student's extremely low mouthpiece placement. Seidel mentioned something about moving it up some time, even though it didn't seem to really be holding him back now. Doug explained why that was probably the worst thing he could do.

After that phone conversation Dr. Seidel thought that maybe Doug would be able to help me sort out my chops. Seidel arranged for us to travel together the ITF that summer and paid for my first lesson with Doug, sitting in on it. Prior to meeting with Doug in person he had somehow worked out that I had the anatomy to play upstream but was trying to play with a downstream embouchure. Doug had advised me to try moving my placement lower, but I didn't quite figure it out until he worked with me in person. My high range had capped out at a Db above high Bb since I had been in high school (and that was a struggle to play). Within 30 minutes Doug had me playing the F above that. Dr. Seidel and I asked many questions to Doug in that lesson about how he approaches teaching embouchure technique.

I had already written my dissertation proposal (I was going to do analysis of transcribed solos by J.J. Johnson, Carl Fontana, and Frank Rosolino and show how contemporary jazz trombonists were influenced by those three players). What Doug had described to me in that first lesson seemed so counterintuitive to what I had been previously taught and read that I scrapped that idea and ended up writing my dissertation on his three basic embouchure types. Doug very graciously gave me an extensive interview and lesson for my research as well as a copy of his film on Reinhardt's embouchure types.

I've continued to take lessons with Doug, off and on. Doug always spots something that I can work on and often can get me to make a good improvement in a short amount of time. He also lets me pick his brain about pedagogy and how he helps other players who struggle with their chops. Some of the best lessons I've had with him weren't my own lessons, but being allowed to sit in on other students and watch him work with them.

There's a culture in our field that once we're out performing professionally we are supposed to be out there teaching, not taking lessons ourselves. I've always liked to learn new things and the more I study music the more I realize how much there is to learn.

[Wilktone]

The question and answer thing was a bit strange, and it was only in the book.

Yes, it makes it difficult to read the "Encyclopedia" and fully understand everything in there. There's a lot of repetition and sometimes real nuggets of information that are easy to miss because they seem to get mentioned in passing. I have gotten some grief from some of Reinhardt's former students for suggesting that someone should rewrite it using a better narrative.

I don't want to be too specific because I really want to write a book (some books) myself in a similar progression.

I wish you would. It's something that's really needed.

You used the term “books” in plural. I am just aware of his pivot method for trombone and the encyclopedia. Is there any other book he wrote?

I know he also wrote at least one etude book, I think perhaps more. He also had a ton of handouts with exercises and instructions that he would give his students. Over the years I've collected copies of a bunch of them from former Reinhardt students. They often had very specific handwritten instructions for how to practice them that were unique to the individual students. Many of his exercises can seem a little strange, but if you get your own specific instructions from someone like Doug on how to practice them they can really pinpoint your mechanical issues and help you sort them out. While Reinhardt's pedagogy on embouchure gets the most attention (probably because it is largely unique to him), he had a bunch of exercises and writings about breathing, tonguing, slide technique, fingering, ear training, musicality, etc.

[afugate]

I believe the magic Ingredient in pedagogy is always the intentionality of the teacher in offering input that spurs growth.

Before shifting careers in my late twenties I thought I was teaching trombone at a university while playing in an orchestra. I did help a bunch of players improve but I know now that that was really accidental.

20 + years into a career as a high school teacher (band then ESL) I know that “pedagogy” and what I was doing in the studio back in the day are only tangentially related. I also know that a lot of my trombone teachers really had no pedagogy. They modeled, monitored and corrected. That is fine and helpful, but is far from an actual intentionally designed program to improve a person’s abilities. The magic of conscious intentionality.

Without casting aspersions on people, I agree 100%. I've seen some great teaching and inspired every time. One of my blessings as an adult was watching Dr. Irv. Wagner teaching private lessons to our daughter. Pure gold.

There's a culture in our field that once we're out performing professionally we are supposed to be out there teaching, not taking lessons ourselves. I've always liked to learn new things and the more I study music the more I realize how much there is to learn.

A classmate of mine is world class trumpet player. I was surprised to find that even though he had become very successful he still took a periodic lesson.

Even Tiger Woods has a coach.

--Andy in OKC

[soseggnchips]

What Doug had described to me in that first lesson seemed so counterintuitive to what I had been previously taught and read that I scrapped that idea and ended up writing my dissertation on his three basic embouchure types. Doug very graciously gave me an extensive interview and lesson for my research as well as a copy of his film on Reinhardt's embouchure types.

Is your dissertation available to read online anywhere, Dave? I'm a newcomer to Reinhardt (via Doug) and I'm trying to read and learn as much as possible at the moment.

[Wilktone]

Is your dissertation available to read online anywhere, Dave? I'm a newcomer to Reinhardt (via Doug) and I'm trying to read and learn as much as possible at the moment.

Check your private messages.

The dissertation itself is filled with null hypotheses and Pearson correlation coefficients, so is pretty dry overall. In the appendix, however, is a transcription of the interview that Doug gave me, which is gold.

[robcat2075]

As I look back on my music education, from beginner band in grade school to graduate school, back on nine teachers that I had weekly trombone lessons with, on five other teachers that I had for weekly lessons on other instruments, and 11 ensemble directors in those academic environments that I was in regular rehearsals under...

...in hindsight, the most conspicuously lacking element in all that instruction was instruction in intonation. The instruction I encountered was just the vaguest of directives like, "learn to use your ears!" or "when you are out of tune you can hear the beats!"

Of course, tuning machines became prevalent by my college years but pulling the tuning slide to get to A440 is not the same as knowing what to adjust in performance.

Intonation in performance was treated as just a hidden sense that would develop eventually as you matured, like pubic hair. Eventually you'd get it and if you didn't... there wasn't much anyone could do for you anyway.

Today, forty-plus years later I know that there are specific things that can be said and taught and demonstrated and practiced to develop perception and accuracy of intonation. It doesn't have to be a mystery and yet, none of my teachers ever got into that, nor did any of the teachers of music pedagogy classes that I took.

I can think of only three times I was directly addressed about intonation...

• Once at a viola lesson my teacher hauled out her ax and played unison saying, "we need to work on your intonation."

• In my senior year of college I got switched to euphonium. One day the band director, unhappy with my novice playing, turned purple and began shouting, "PLAY... IT... IN... TUNE!!!" It's rare for black people to turn purple, but he did.

• And in grad school, I had a Blume etudes at a lesson and after I played it my teacher said, "you're playing out of tune." I dodged by saying it was hard to be in tune with no reference and that was the end of the conversation about intonation.

If I could go back in time and change things for my betterment and the betterment of all my fellow student musicians, there would be specific instruction in intonation.

[elmsandr]

As I look back on my music education, from beginner band in grade school to graduate school, back on nine teachers that I had weekly trombone lessons with, on five other teachers that I had for weekly lessons on other instruments, and 11 ensemble directors in those academic environments that I was in regular rehearsals under...

...in hindsight, the most conspicuously lacking element in all that instruction was instruction in intonation. The instruction I encountered was just the vaguest of directives like, "learn to use your ears!" or "when you are out of tune you can hear the beats!"

Of course, tuning machines became prevalent by my college years but pulling the tuning slide to get to A440 is not the same as knowing what to adjust in performance.

Intonation in performance was treated as just a hidden sense that would develop eventually as you matured, like pubic hair. Eventually you'd get it and if you didn't... there wasn't much anyone could do for you anyway.

Today, forty-plus years later I know that there are specific things that can be said and taught and demonstrated and practiced to develop perception and accuracy of intonation. It doesn't have to be a mystery and yet, none of my teachers ever got into that, nor did any of the teachers of music pedagogy classes that I took.

I can think of only three times I was directly addressed about intonation...

• Once at a viola lesson my teacher hauled out her ax and played unison saying, "we need to work on your intonation."

• In my senior year of college I got switched to euphonium. One day the band director, unhappy with my novice playing, turned purple and began shouting, "PLAY... IT... IN... TUNE!!!" It's rare for black people to turn purple, but he did.

• And in grad school, I had a Blume etudes at a lesson and after I played it my teacher said, "you're playing out of tune." I dodged by saying it was hard to be in tune with no reference and that was the end of the conversation about intonation.

If I could go back in time and change things for my betterment and the betterment of all my fellow student musicians, there would be specific instruction in intonation.

Perhaps it is because most of my specific teachers came from the same family tree of teaching, they all handled this the same way. Every lesson began with long tones. Played generally WITH the teacher. Not necessarily in unison, sometimes moving along with different intervals. As I improved, the tolerance tightened, meaning feedback from the instructor to stop, fix, listen and correct. As I further progressed, we even went into details about different types of tuning (open fifths in Just vs Equal Temperment, etc..)

Wasn't until I got into University playing that I realized most people didn't do this.

Cheers,
Andy

[VJOFan]

The complaints of lack of intonation discussion and instruction does not resonate with my experience. I learned about adjusting the intervals in major chords in my first year of playing-the teacher I had brought all his students together for the last lesson of each month to play ensembles. We made those little chorales sing (so we thought!).

Teachers I had after that always played with me and corrected my tuning.

Small ensemble coaching at university was, maddeningly, almost all about working on the vertical sonorities to the detriment of learning the musical flow of the pieces. (Except for the one guy who said that if we played the music of the music with beautiful sounds, most of the tuning would take care of itself. He was right, but we were all seniors and had already learned how to play in tune for the most part.)

Even high school stage band, now that I think of it, got bogged down in tuning. I'll never understand why they would spend half a rehearsal on an 8 bar sax soli, checking every vertical sonority when the notes flew by so fast... but we did become conscious of tuning.

[robcat2075]

It occurs to me that more time was spent in college (many weeks!) studying the proper crafting of Schoenberg-style 12-tone rows than the topic of intonation.

I dare anyone to tell me that was a productive use of time.

It would be like going to medical school and being instructed in crystals, auras and copper bracelets.

The complaints of lack of intonation discussion and instruction does not resonate with my experience...

That's great you had that experience!

I wish I had had it. I'm jealous!

I continue to suspect that yours not the most common experience of people who have contact with our music education system.

[harrisonreed]

My mom is a singer so when I was very young until I was too cool for it, we would take turns singing scales or arpeggios over the other person while they stayed on one pitch. The goal was to see what crazy extra notes we could get to pop out that neither of us were actually singing. I don't know if my mom knew about overtones or what, but she probably did. We would also practice (and laugh a LOT) singing out of tune on purpose, either with a song on the radio or while the other person tried to hold a steady pitch. If I knew the song I would sing either a quarter tone or half step down or up with the singer and try to not bust out laughing.

Singing in tune became easier and easier, while singing out of tune became more difficult and more hilarious.

It may be related, but I never once worked on intonation with a teacher in all my lessons. I never heard anything like what Rob is talking about. We definitely talked about tuning tendencies in different partials (which remained a mystery to me until I learned what 12TET and playing in the center of the pitch actually was), and with all my teachers we did drones as a part of warm ups religiously, but that was just what I have always done since I was 4, singing or otherwise.

I was often very frustrated in band when the director would have us pull out our tuners for working on a given chord. The tuner would say my pitch was out of tune when I knew the note I was playing was exactly in tune. My mother had taught my brain Pythagorean tuning for scales and just intonation for intervals, but hadn't given me the vocabulary to describe those concepts or even be aware that they existed. All I knew was that if I was playing in whatever key, say Bb, that the tuner would constantly tell me that my D was flat. It was wrong almost 100% of the time and I didn't know why. It was made all the worse when I was in tune with the tuba, but the tuba was out of tune with the tuner. I just started to pretend to use the tuner.

The closest thing I've done on specific intonation exercises with any teacher was early in college, and that was because I was heavily lipping pitches to be in tune. I had not been taught until that point the disconnect between "positions", "partial tendencies", and playing in the center of the pitch. My brain didn't grasp that subject until we worked on the difference between lipping pitches true and using the slide to bring centered pitches into true. But my instructor was great, and said exactly what I was doing, how it was affecting tone and endurance, and we worked to fix it.

[VJOFan]

It occurs to me that more time was spent in college (many weeks!) studying the proper crafting of Schoenberg-style 12-tone rows than the topic of intonation.

I dare anyone to tell me that was a productive use of time.

It would be like going to medical school and being instructed in crystals, auras and copper bracelets.

That's one of the big struggles in pedagogy. Do you teach a curriculum or do you teach students? Do you set up what you think are the most important things to be known and teach that or do you spend the time to figure our what's most important for the students you are with to learn and help them get that?

The problem with the first approach is obvious, but purely trying to follow the students is extremely challenging mostly from a day to day time commitment and maintenance of the quality of lessons and materials.

Most teachers I work with have to split the difference skewing one way or the other.

[ithinknot]

My mom is a singer so when I was very young until I was too cool for it, we would take turns singing scales or arpeggios over the other person while they stayed on one pitch. The goal was to see what crazy extra notes we could get to pop out that neither of us were actually singing. I don't know if my mom knew about overtones or what, but she probably did. We would also practice (and laugh a LOT) singing out of tune on purpose, either with a song on the radio or while the other person tried to hold a steady pitch. If I knew the song I would sing either a quarter tone or half step down or up with the singer and try to not bust out laughing.

Singing in tune became easier and easier, while singing out of tune became more difficult and more hilarious.

Exactly the same here

We regularly deployed insincere Happy Birthday at the quarter- or tritone.

[Wilktone]

It doesn't have to be a mystery and yet, none of my teachers ever got into that, nor did any of the teachers of music pedagogy classes that I took.

This doesn't mirror my experiences either. Most of my private teachers and ensemble directors were concerned with intonation and discussed it when necessary. Perhaps your private teachers didn't discuss the topic much with you because you have a good enough ear that it wasn't usually an issue with you (until you began playing euphonium where the technique of playing in tune was different from what you were used to)?

There's usually not a required Intonation 101 class for music majors, but every music school I know of has some form of a required ear training class. Presumably, intonation is at least indirectly covered in that course work, assuming that sight singing is covered.

In pedagogy courses I took intonation and how to teach it was covered. One course in particular comes to my mind, which used the Edward Lisk "Alternative Rehearsal Techniques" as the textbook. Lisk addresses intonation and also it's connection to balance in the book and ways to work on them both together within the context of a band rehearsal. It's a good book for anyone who directs ensemble rehearsals.

[timothy42b]

• Once at a viola lesson my teacher hauled out her ax and played unison saying, "we need to work on your intonation."

If I could go back in time and change things for my betterment and the betterment of all my fellow student musicians, there would be specific instruction in intonation.

Much of the discussion here tends to be on the nuances of tuning specific intervals or chords.

Most of the problems I hear in ensembles are with simple unison tuning.

[VJOFan]

In pedagogy courses I took intonation and how to teach it was covered. One course in particular comes to my mind, which used the Edward Lisk "Alternative Rehearsal Techniques" as the textbook. Lisk addresses intonation and also it's connection to balance in the book and ways to work on them both together within the context of a band rehearsal. It's a good book for anyone who directs ensemble rehearsals.

Just a nod to this text. If you are thinking of being a band teacher, this volume is absolutely worth having on your shelf.

And go to as many conducting workshops as you can. It's not even so much the techniques you pick up, but the way the master-band-masters see band as a medium for teaching MUSIC and all that entails.

[baileyman]

...
Most of the problems I hear in ensembles are with simple unison tuning.

Oh, man, unison is the worst. Followed by quarter notes in time, for trombones at least. Fortunately the big tuning slide helps with the unisons.

[imsevimse]

About intonation (and being a student):

One thing I really liked as a young student was the sound of being in tune. I remember we, the trombones played our whole notes while the others, clarinets, played the melody and I never focused on what they did, I focused on the long whole notes. I liked the nice chords. I think this is why I choose not to quit in my teens even thoug I really should have. I could not play a melody and I had no sound and bad technique. My teacher for the first four years was a clarinet teacher. I had never heard a trombone and sounded like a wounded moose. I really should have quit but I didn't. What I could do (for some reason) was to play in tune.

I have thought on the subject intonation in educational situations but have not been able to explain this to my students. Either they heard when they were in tune or they did not.

Even today a problem is when more than one in each chord is out of tune. If this happens everything falls apart. If I notice this is the case then I concentrate to NOT adjust. If it is to complex I do not adjust at all. This is because I know my slide and pitch is not too far away from where it is supposed to be

/Tom