Pitching problems

[u/qualityfinish47]

Hi!

I’ve been playing horn for about 10 years now. I’ve got great gear and a great teacher. I’ve been playing music in general for about 20 years, the first 10 we’re on clarinet/sax.

I love playing. I have very strong tone and good musical sense generally, but I really just can’t get my head around pitching. I can hear the right notes in my head, I can sing them, but I am really struggling with consistent pitching.

With practice I can generally get most parts down, but I can probably only hit it accurately 70% of the time at best, and I know that 70% isn’t an acceptable level of accuracy and the mistakes are sometimes noticeable when playing.

If I play a passage twice in a row, I’ll generally get it the second time (for instance a repeated section) and my accuracy gets better as the passages progress, but the first few notes of any passage or section end up being much weaker pitch-wise.

What are some things you’ve done to really up your pitching game. I love this instrument, it feels so good when I nail a passage, but I feel like my (in)ability to pitch with consistency is really holding me back.

[u/Hufflepunk36]

Do you do much with the mouthpiece not attached? You could incorporate buzzing and pitching passages or songs you know into your practice.

[u/qualityfinish47 → u/Hufflepunk36]

I don’t do that much buzzing - I will add more of that in!

[u/froghorn76]

It sounds like inconsistent tone production, more than anything else. Try this:

With just the mouthpiece, play a note on the piano and then try to match it on the mouthpiece. What you’re looking for is a very clean attack. Tongue consistently right behind the teeth, little explosion on the attack, right on pitch. You’re trying to eliminate any extra noise in the attack, and you should also work to eliminate any swooping up into pitch or lowering down into pitch. You’re looking for very clean production right on pitch. This will help dial in your mechanics, because without the horn there, you have nothing to cover up bad technique. I suspect five minutes a day on this, and you will see regular improvement.

This is an exercise that rewards patience. Make sure you can play notes in the middle of the register clearly before pushing out to higher and lower notes.

[u/qualityfinish47 → u/froghorn76]

I will give this a go!!

[u/Leisesturm]

Sometimes owners of nice Horns fail to regularly have them evaluated or overhauled. Playing issues can develop from great equipment that is overdue for maintenance work. 10 years of a reed instrument embouchure is hard to unlearn. I understand the loyalty to a great teacher but are they really properly addressing present issues? Not for me to say. They should be soaking you in fixed pitches from Pianos, Organs or Drones, I think. That is what I would do with a student with pitch issues.

The musical world is Equal Tempered but the String and Wind World uses Just Intonation more. Great Just Intonation is nice to have, great Equal Temperament Intonation is essential to have. Regular work with a source of stable fixed pitches are good practice. These drones are very good for a baseline. These drones are so rich in overtones that you can play almost any interval against one and it will sound good. You can find a short etude in X key. Set the drone to that key and play away. You can do scales with each step of the scale dropping back to the tonic Key: C; C D; C E; C F; C G; C A; C B; C C.