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Notes from the Staff

Notes from the Staff

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 Conversations about music pedagogy, music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.Copyright 2022 All rights reserved. Musique
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  • Teaching Intonation

    Teaching Intonation
    Nov 22 2024
    Leah Sheldon shares tips for teaching intonation, even when working with beginning students. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to Notes From the Staff In this opening chapter, Leah Sheldon and Greg Ristow introduce the podcast and its focus on music theory, ear training, and music technology. They invite listeners to engage with the show by sending comments and episode suggestions. 01:06 Leah’s Background in Music Education Leah shares her journey in music education, detailing her experience from teaching elementary general music to her current role in middle school instrumental music. She emphasizes the importance of teaching intonation at various educational levels. 02:01 Introducing Intonation The discussion turns to the timing of introducing intonation when teaching beginners, with Leah explaining her approach to teaching it as early as possible. She highlights the need for students to produce a clear tone before focusing on intonation. 03:00 Tuner vs. Ear Leah discusses the pros and cons of using tuners versus relying on the ear for intonation. She explains how both methods can be beneficial but emphasizes the importance of developing students’ listening skills. 04:57 The Importance of Ear Training Leah outlines her sequence for teaching students to tune themselves in an ensemble, starting with ear training. She discusses the gradual progression from simple pitch recognition to more advanced tuning techniques. 06:47 Exercises for Intonation Practice Leah shares specific exercises to help students practice intonation, including the classic ‘F around the room’ exercise. She explains how this exercise helps students develop listening skills and blend their sounds. 10:00 The Role of Tone in Tuning The conversation shifts to the significance of tone quality in achieving good intonation. Leah explains how a clear tone is essential for blending sounds effectively within an ensemble. 12:25 Using Drones for Tuning Leah introduces the concept of using drones in tuning exercises, emphasizing the importance of singing before playing. She explains how this technique helps students internalize pitch and improve their intonation. 16:56 Waterfall Tuning Technique Leah describes the waterfall tuning exercise, where students join in one by one to create a blended sound. This method encourages students to listen closely to their neighbors and adjust their pitches accordingly. 18:55 Chaos to Calm Exercise Leah shares the ‘chaos to calm’ exercise, where students start by playing any note and then transition to a designated pitch. This fun exercise helps students practice tuning while also fostering ensemble cohesion. 22:02 Engaging the Whole Group Leah introduces the ‘Who’s in Tune’ exercise, which engages the entire group in assessing intonation. This interactive activity encourages students to listen and respond to their peers’ tuning. 25:04 Understanding Tuning Tendencies Leah discusses the importance of recognizing individual tuning tendencies and how to address them. She suggests using tuning tendency charts to help students become aware of their specific intonation challenges. 30:41 Advanced Tuning Techniques Leah shares advanced exercises for experienced players, including building chords during the ‘F around the room’ exercise. She emphasizes the importance of practicing intonation within a musical context. Transcript Theme Song These are the notes from the staff where we talk about our point of view, and we share the things we're gonna do. And we hope you're learning something new, because the path to mastering theory begins with you. Greg Ristow Welcome to Notes From the Staff, a podcast from the creators of You uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education. Leah Sheldon Hi. I'm Leah Sheldon, head of teacher engagement for uTheory. Greg Ristow And hi. I'm Greg Ristow, founder of uTheory and associate professor of conducting at the Oberlin Conservatory. Leah Sheldon Thank you, listeners, for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them, so send them our way by email at notes atutheory. com. And remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Greg Ristow Today, our topic is teaching intonation and leading us through this is our very own Leah Sheldon who is quite an expert herself in teaching intonation. Leah, for our listeners who may mostly know you, from uTheory, tell us about the other part of your life. Leah Sheldon Sure. So I also teach middle school instrumental music. I started out over 10 years ago teaching elementary general music, kindergarten through 4th grade. I did that for 6 years before I moved into the world of instrumental music. And now my current position is 4th through 8th grade instrumental music, large and small group lessons and one ensemble. Greg Ristow Awesome. Can you teach intonation at such an ...
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    40 min
  • Tuning Systems

    Tuning Systems
    Jan 15 2024
    In this episode we explore the difference between just intonation and equal temperament, and take a field trip to learn about an organ with 15 keys per octave (instead of the usual 12), that makes it possible to play purely tuned chords in almost all of the keys. Links: Tuning systems synthesizer: https://utheory.com/experiments/tuning-systems Organ demo field trip video: https://youtu.be/A9Enpt8hREg Chrome Music Lab: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/ Intonation/Tuning System "Puzzle Pieces": https://casfaculty.case.edu/ross-duffin/just-intonation-in-renaissance-theory-practice/benedettis-puzzles/ Show Notes: 0:00:20.9 - Introduction 0:01:03.5 - Topic Introduction: Tuning Systems Greg Ristow explains the complexity of tuning systems and opens the discussion on various aspects related to them. 0:01:58.4 - Just Intervals and Singing in Choirs Discussion on how choirs tend to move towards just intervals in their performances. 0:02:43.2 - Historical Context of Tuning Systems We delve into the historical variations of the A note’s frequency and introduces the concept of just intonation tuning. 0:03:22.2 - The Law of Superposition and Sound Waves Exploration of how sound waves interact and affect what we hear, using sine waves as an example. 0:07:00.8 - Beating in Sound Waves and Tuning Demonstration of how close frequencies can create a beating effect in sound, relevant to tuning and intonation. 0:11:25.7 - Constructing Scales with Tuning Systems Examining how scales can be formed using different intervals, like perfect fifths, and the issues that arise in tuning systems like Pythagorean tuning. 0:21:16.4 - Assigning frequencies to notes A practical approach to assigning frequencies to piano notes, highlighting the challenges in tuning. 0:24:00.8 - The Pythagorean Tuning System and the Wolf Fifth Understanding the Pythagorean tuning system, its implications, and the infamous 'wolf fifth.' 0:27:24.5 - Equal Temperament Tuning System Discussion on equal temperament tuning, its compromises, and comparison with just intonation. 0:28:27.3 - Comparison of Major and Minor Thirds in Different Tuning Systems Exploring how major and minor thirds differ in various tuning systems, including just intonation and equal temperament. 0:31:04.3 - Just Intonation and Chord Tuning Demonstration of how chords are tuned in just intonation, contrasting with equal temperament. 0:35:56.5 - Field Trip to Oberlin's Brombaugh Organ Greg Ristow and David Kazimir discuss the unique features of the Brombaugh Organ at Oberlin, demonstrating quarter-comma meantone tuning. 0:41:12.1 - Split Black Keys and Specialized Tuning on the Brombaugh Organ Exploration of the organ's split black keys and how they impact tuning and playability. 0:47:08.4 - Musical Composition and Tuning Systems Discussion on how composers historically wrote music with specific tuning systems in mind, affecting the musical expression. 0:49:00.3 - Wrapping Up We preview the next episode's topic, focusing on teaching intonation, and Leah Sheldon's experience in this area. Transcript: [music] 0:00:20.9 Greg Ristow: Welcome to Notes From the Staff, a podcast from the creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education. 0:00:35.4 David Newman: Hi, I'm David Newman. I teach voice and music theory at James Madison University, and I write code and create content for uTheory. 0:00:42.4 Leah Sheldon: I'm Leah Sheldon. I'm head of teacher engagement for uTheory. 0:00:45.7 GR: And I'm Greg Ristow. I'm the founder of uTheory, and I direct the choirs at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. 0:00:51.9 DN: Thank you listeners for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them. Send them our way by email at notes@uTheory.com. And remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 0:01:03.5 GR: So, today our topic is tuning systems, and this one has taken us a while to put together, partly because we wanted to build some tools to show them off. It's a concept that I think a lot of us have heard little bits about, but maybe one that not all of us know mathematically and musically in a really deep way. So, I'm excited to talk about this one. Maybe to kick it off, what kinds of things come to mind when you think of tuning systems, Leah and David? 0:01:32.2 DN: Oh, man. I let the harpsichordists decide what tuning system we're using. [laughter] 0:01:37.7 GR: That's right, 'cause you worked so much in the early music world, yeah. 0:01:40.7 DN: I trust that whatever I'm hearing is the one that we're supposed to be using. But I think definitely when we're singing in choirs, and I think this is probably true no matter what choir you're singing in, that you find yourself moving towards just intervals for reasons that may become apparent soon. 0:01:58.4 GR: Which of course, brings up this concept of just intervals. ...
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    51 min
  • Interval Ear Training

    Interval Ear Training
    Mar 15 2023
    In this episode, Greg Ristow and David Newman talk about the value and role of intervallic ear training, why it's time to move beyond Here comes the bride, and ways of teaching intervallic hearing that build fundamental skills for sight singing and dictation. Links: Karpinski, Gary. "A Cognitive Basis for Choosing a Solmization System," Music Theory Online, Vol. 27, No. 2. June 2021. https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.2/mto.21.27.2.karpinski.html Transcript [music] 0:00:21.2 Gregory Ristow: Welcome to Notes from the Staff, a podcast from the Creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training, and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education. 0:00:35.5 David Newman: Hi, I'm David Newman, and I teach voice and music theory at James Madison University. And I write code and create content for uTheory. 0:00:43.4 GR: Hi, I'm Greg Ristow. I conduct the choirs at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and I'm the founder of uTheory. 0:00:49.9 DN: Thank you listeners for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them, send them our way by email at notes@uTheory.com, and remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 0:01:01.7 GR: So today we'll be talking about interval ear training. And interval ear training is central to many teachers' and textbooks' approaches to sight singing and dictation. But the title of this episode is maybe a little bit misleading because research in music cognition suggests that for most common aural skills, ear training tasks we process notes by their relationship to a tonic or by their position in a scale rather than by actually hearing adjacent note to note intervallic relationships. So in our conversation today, we'll look at this research on how we hear and the role that intervals play in that hearing. We'll talk about why classic techniques we're teaching intervals can actually undermine students' reading skills. And we'll look at ways of teaching intervals that instead compliment and strengthen students' aural skills. It's a lot to get through in the course of an hour. [chuckle] 0:02:03.2 DN: It is. 0:02:04.5 GR: But David and I have agreed to play particular roles on this. So I'm going to, I'm gonna be sort of the the playback, keep us on track role and David's gonna be the the color commentary, [chuckle] role. 0:02:14.0 DN: Playing to our strengths. 0:02:15.4 GR: Playing to our strengths for sure, for sure. It is hard to talk about or even to think about how we hear, so much of how we hear music is really innate, that we don't, especially for someone with a well-developed ear, "how do I know how I know what I'm hearing?" is a hard question to answer. 0:02:40.1 DN: Yeah. 0:02:40.8 GR: And fortunately we have scientists and researchers who've been looking at exactly this question for a little, I don't know little over 40 years now. And what they have pretty consistently found is that when someone who is experienced in a particular musical culture, and so let's say broadly Western music, music that exists within the notes on a Western piano. 0:03:17.7 DN: An equal tempered scale. 0:03:19.2 GR: Yeah. A tempered major-y minor-y or rotation of its scale as opposed to for instance, some of the Turkish collections that have more notes in the scale than we have and notes that don't exist on our piano. So when someone is encultured in a musical system, when first they start hearing notes, the primary thing that their brain does is seek to determine a central pitch, what we would call a tonic and that's known in music cognition as the primacy hypothesis. The idea being that David, if I throw a few notes at you, before you're going to do anything with those notes, your mind is going to say, "what could potentially be tonic given these notes?" And we're gonna hold onto them. 0:04:20.8 DN: We contextualize it. 0:04:22.5 GR: Exactly. We seek to find the context in which that's occurring and will tend to hold onto our belief of that central note as long as we reasonably can even through the first few notes that contradict it. 0:04:39.1 DN: Yeah. I even think this is central to so much of why we enjoy music. And so if you enjoy music, you probably do this. 0:04:47.8 GR: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And it should be said we're saying this and let's just imagine that if I'm someone with really strong absolute pitch. And even in those cases although yes, someone with absolute pitch will know immediately, yes I'm hearing these particular letter names. They are also still working to contextualize them within some sort of tonal framework. If that's something that you're interested in reading about, one of my favorite articles on this is by Gary Karpinski and it's his, it just came out a couple of years ago in Music Theory Online. We'll put the link in the show notes, but this is freely accessible online and it's "A Cognitive Basis for Choosing a Solmization ...
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    1 h et 6 min
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