Tip: Working with a Drone

  Recently I've started studying at DePaul with Jon Boen, and one of the big things he's into is intonation. As I've heard from many professionals, intonation is sort of what separates the good from the "just okay". Being able to mesh your sound in with an ensemble of any size starts with the intonation and must be exact to create a cohesive sound.
  When working on intonation, playing with a tuner and trying to center the needle is one thing, and actually learning to play in tune with others is much different. Being able to hear the pitches from the others around you and then play in tune with them is where tuning comes from.
  Now, did anyone catch the really important word from that last sentence that makes the huge difference? It's all about hearing! The first crucial step in becoming a better ensemble player is being able to hear the pitch.


  Hearing a note means a couple things at once...

1.  First is blatantly hearing the notes being played around you and being able to understand how they work together. Which pitches are the root, fifth, and so on?
2. Can you already hear the pitch you're going to play in your head? If you can't accurately hear the pitch that you're going to play then that first means hitting the note is basically luck, and beyond that the intonation would take a miracle to get right.

  The best way to improve your ears and mind so they can coordinate properly and end up playing everything right is to start spending some of your practice time playing with a drone pitch. What this means is using some instrument or device to establish a pitch, then you respond to it and play in tune with it.

  Things to use for the drone pitch can include...

• Piano - Matching the pitches or intervals that you play on the keyboard.
• Pitch Pipe - Electronic ones work the best since you can keep them going while you play.
• A Friend - I consider this option one of the best because it'll best prepare you for real life situations. They won't always play exactly right in the center of the pitch  and it's good to learn to react to this so you can still make it sound in tune.

  The exercises that you can do with drone pitches all start out pretty simple and the first ones are just matching the unison pitch and getting used to hearing a note and playing the exact same one. Then you can move to playing different intervals and learning how to make all of them ring. Once you get all of this to work as if it's second nature then you can work solos, etudes, and orchestral excerpts with the drone to get used to hearing it with some sort of accompaniment.

  On one last note, I want to stress how important it is to get used matching the given pitch, no matter how "wrong" you think it is. Since coming to DePaul I've heard a horror story of a horn player than went in for an audition and made it to the final round. They were required to play an excerpt from a Beethoven symphony with one of the current members of the orchestra. The only thing is that the current member made a point to play his first part either horrendously flat or sharp. This wasn't because he was having an off-day, but to see who would be willing and able to match their section leader under almost any circumstance. While this might seem crazy, this stuff does happen and it's always better to be over-prepared for these such occasions.