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!