Working with a tuner is not glamorous. It’s not like technique. I love working on technique and I love using the metronome. It’s fun and it’s rewarding to hear yourself getting faster and cleaner. Working with a tuner let’s just face it, it’s laborious. It’s not glamorous. It’s tedious. It’s a lot of work and you have to be concentrating all the time. But it is time well spent. We’ve all heard the performances where the performer was sharp or flat a few times. This does take away from that performance, however well they played.
When you work with a tuner, you train your ear.
It’s really amazing that just learning to use a tuner and watching it as you are playing, tuning your notes as you go, your ear starts to hear when you’re sharp or when you’re flat even without the tuner present.
When I first started working with the tuner, I used arpeggios. Arpeggios are really good to work with. Play them 2 octaves, tuning each note as you go. Watch that when you ascend up, notes may be a bit flat in your lower octave. But when descending, they might be sharp. You learn that when you are approaching from above, a particular note might be sharp – so, you should aim down. Whereas, when you approach it from below, it’s going to be flat. So, you need to raise the pitch.
It’s very eye opening when you see all these different tuning changes.
It might seem daunting the idea that you must tune every single note. I can’t remember every single note. But trust me that if you work with a tuner a lot – I mean every single day your ear is going to start picking up when you are sharp or when you’re flat. Plus, your embouchure is going to begin to learn where to aim for each note! Eventually over time you can ping out a concert A right on pitch. I remember when that started happening to me and I thought it was miraculous!
Work with a tuner. Use your arpeggios. I think it’s a great place to start. You’ll be amazed at how well you train your ear when you’re working with a tuner.
Have fun!
DoctorFlute
Watch me demonstrate this: FluteTips 57 Using a Tuner
