I think we could be more specific and see it's the Music Director's fault - picking the right music for a group means you have enough rehearsal time to work on things like intonation.
-S- On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 2:13 PM, Steven Mumford <[email protected]> wrote: > > > ....is it to make sure the ensemble plays in tune? Is it possible for an > amateur band or orchestra to play beautifully in tune? Hmmm, well my high > school band played really rock solid in tune, I still have recordings so it's > not just my fading memory. The junior high band that the same teacher led > also played really well in tune. Those kids could barely finger Bb, but they > could play in tune. These were just a lot of average farm kids, no rocket > scientist kids, so I'd have to say that adults, even those with limited > skills on the instrument ought to be able to do it too, given the proper > situation. > The thing is, that teacher spent quite a lot of time tuning chords, > you're low, you're high etc. and he had a good ear and he'd get the chords to > ring right. Once you heard things IN tune enough times, you started to get > the knack of how to play in tune on your own. > In pretty much every amateur ensemble, and even quite a few high paying > gigs I've ever played in, there are quite a number of people who don't know > how to play in tune. I'd say that makes it pretty much impossible for those > who do know how, to successfully play in tune because there aren't enough > others to play in tune with. At that point, the only person who can really > make it work is the conductor. Many conductors don't know how to tune a > chord and so they just say something like "that's out of tune, fix it", or > "that's out of tune, could we have another A". Of course that usually just > makes it worse. Or they tell somebody to play sharper or flatter, but they > usually tell them to go the wrong direction, making it much worse. If the > players knew what to do , they would have played in tune already. > So there you go. If I played out of tune, it was the conductor's fault! > > - Steve Mumford > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/steve.freides%40gmail.com > _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
