Once students can accurately and consistently match pitch on their instruments, it’s time to start teaching them to tune intervals. This is where things get tricky! Matching pitch is pretty straightforward, even when matching different octaves. Tuning intervals and chords, however, depends a lot on what tuning system you’re using and what the musical context is. If you love learning about intonation, that’s a rabbit hole you could spend a long time exploring.
Most of the time I stick with equal temperament tuning. It makes everything a lot simpler, and honestly most of my students aren’t able to hear small intonation adjustments yet.
With intervals, students need to hear them both melodically (notes played separately) and harmonically (notes played simultaneously). I typically start with melodic intervals before I move on to harmonic intervals. Here are some of my favorite exercises.
Singing Intervals
The exercise: Play a drone and have the students sing a certain interval above or below the note. Change the drone to different pitches and see if students can still sing the interval correctly. Once students can sing the interval correctly, have them play the intervals on their instruments.
Why I like it: Sometimes students develop the habit of just putting down their fingers without thinking about the sound. Singing the intervals helps students to listen to the pitches differently by audiating the intervals and internalizing what they sound like.
Scale Ladders
The exercise: Divide the orchestra in half. Have one half of the orchestra drone the tonic of the scale while the other half plays up the scale. When they get to the top, have them drone the tonic while the other half of the orchestra plays up the scale. Repeat on the way down.
Why I like it: This exercise uses drones, but the students are creating their own drones, so it allows students to hear intonation patterns using the same timbre that they hear when performing as a group. It also allows students to hear how each note of the scale functions in relation to tonic. (For more exercises that use drones, check out Teaching Intonation Part 5: Using Drones.)
Scale Elimination
The exercise: Have the students play a scale. Repeat but have the students leave out certain notes. For example, tell them to leave out the third note or the fifth note. You can either have the students sing the missing notes or just rest instead. As students become more familiar with the scale, leave out more notes of the scale.
Why I like it: Audiation, or the ability to “hear” pitches in your head, is a key skill for students to develop if they’re going to play in tune. This exercise helps students “hear” the missing pitches and focus on where the scale goes next. Many students don’t really understand what a scale is or what it should sound like. This exercise helps them better understand what a scale sounds like and what the pitches should be in relation to the other pitches in the scale.
Doublestop Tunes
The exercise: Play simple melodies with an open string drone as doublestops. As students progress, they can start playing exercises with multiple fingered notes. I’ve written my own doublestop exercises, but I’m sure you could find similar exercises or write your own as well.
Why I like it: Playing intervals harmonically feels and sounds differently from playing intervals melodically. To get the intervals in tune in a doublestop, you really have to have a solid hand frame and know exactly where each finger goes in relation to all the other fingers. Also, doublestop playing is an important part of string technique that just doesn’t get addressed in most ensemble music. Young students spend so much time learning to play on one string without hitting others that it becomes difficult for them to play on multiple strings. I like to give students extra practice with doublestops.
Tuning Chords
The exercise: Play through chord progressions with students. You come up with any chord progression you like, using very simple I-IV-V-I progressions, chorales, or even using chord progressions from one of your pieces. (This could be a great warmup if you have a section of a piece that never seems to be in tune!) Have the students choose one of the notes in the chord, or assign students to play a certain note of the chord. Encourage the students to listen to what each chord sounds like and where it wants to go next.
Why I like it: We string players have a tendency to think of everything melodically, because we almost always play melodic lines. A lot of intonation problems in an ensemble come because students don’t understand the part their individual note plays in the full chord. When you focus on playing chord progressions and listening to the harmonies, you can encourage students to listen to how their note (and the intonation of that note) affects the overall sound of the orchestra. For example, have your group play an A major chord. Have the students playing the C# to change it to a C natural and listen to how big a difference it makes. I do these kinds of exercises every year, and every year my students gasp when they realize how big a difference just one note makes in the sound of the orchestra.