Just Intonation Chart

I think one big thing that sets middle school bands apart from more mature-sounding bands is intonation. Students are still developing great tone so intonation can be difficult, but it should definitely not be ignored. Training young musicians' ears should begin the second they start playing with others - in beginning band. With the beginners, I say, "Make sure to match me/your neighbor" for a long time. When we get close to our first performance (winter concert), I then really talk about tuning and how to adjust their instruments. With the Honors Band students though, I play a drone through the speakers when playing our Remington warm-ups and make sure they really lock in on that note each time. It is really easy for them to just zone out during the warm-ups because they have them memorized and are turning their brains on for band at the beginning of class. In the music, we isolate certain notes and I have the students adjust their embouchures to bring the notes in to tune after they've tuned their instruments. I talk about how to manipulate their fingerings, air direction or make slight adjustments to their embouchures to bring certain pitches up or down to the correct pitch. I make sure to emphasize proper posture, hand position, embouchure, tongue position and AIR in order to create a beautiful centered tone. Once that's in place, we can talk about tuning within your section and then across the band. The students are getting better about making adjustments in rehearsals themselves and I do not have to tune each individual student every day in band, but great intonation is still not one hundred percent. 

It's been a whirlwind this first semester with all of the performances. Now that we are almost done with the first semester, the focus is really on to get the students sounding great for solo and ensemble contest as well as the District Assessment in February and UIL in March. We will continue to focus on tone, blend, balance, style and musicianship, but I'm going to put a bullseye focus on intonation. I just created this chart that I will give all the students to put in their band binders. My hope is that through warm-ups, sectionals and constant focus on intonation in rehearsals, my Honors Band students' ears will be hyper-sensitive to bad intonation, that they will have and use the tools to fix bad intonation and in turn will be more mature young musicians.