Anybody with a good musical ear develops, over time, an internal intonation scale - a scale developed by external influences.  A piano tuner has a defined scale, that of equal temperament but we wind players have no such rule.  We are dictated to by the variants of the quality of our early instruments, the quality of our early performing partners and the qualities of the ears of our early professors/teachers as well as our own. The results are something that our ears learn as being acceptable.

 

To give an example, many flute players in my part of the world would argue that a world famous soloist, also from my part of the world, usually plays at the upper extremities of what might be acceptable intonation, or to put it another way, he/she plays sharp - could well be a technique used to make the sound carry further?  To counteract this, and in my opinion, most flute players tend to play flat because they believe that there is nothing worse than playing sharp - and in many ways I couldn't agree more. So trying to play in tune with a flute section that has a tendency to err on the flat side makes life difficult - very difficult.  

 

And my point is?

 

Depending on a number of external factors (teacher, instrument, ensemble Director, ensemble members) we each can develop an intonation scale that bears absolutely no relationship to equal temperament let alone to the other players in our ensemble.  Sure the C sharp 5 on an Alex 103 can be generally described as a sharp note on the instrument but this sharp note can easily become the norm for the player who has learned on this instrument. After all, most playing is done alone and there are no demands placed on intonation issues during private practice.  And tuning meters work only at equal temperament and at the end of the day, we don't perform with tuning meters but with other musicians - each of whom have had their own external influences on their built-in intonation scale.

 

Next up, match a mouthpiece to the instrument and to the player with the perfect match being 10/10, how many of us can say we have the perfect combination in terms of intonation over the range?  Try to play a G4 on the B flat side of any horn using 1st finger and depending on mouthpiece, you will get various results using a tuning meter.  And then, this generalisation can only be somewhat justified because of the huge amount of personalisation that now happens in the instrument building process.

 

So where am I going with this?  Blow your horn into tune - learn the problems using a meter and overcome them using your ears and the ears of your colleagues. Come to terms with your instrument and don't generalise about issues.  And then, when your instrument feels like it's playing out of tune 6 months after you were perfectly happy with it, wash it out before you put it up for sale!

 

Now, having said all of that, if anyone can tell me how to play the first phrase of Mahler 1 perfectly in tune with the 2nd horn and with the rest of the orchestra when you're sh*tting yourself in front of 1000 people who have bought tickets, I'd be very interested to read your comments, even if they were as long as this email!!

  

Fergus O'Carroll