When I am playing by myself, I can't tell if I'm in tune or not. Is there anything I can do to train my ear?

Carry a tuner with you for a while. When you think you are out of tune, fix it with the tuner and look carefully at how sharp or flat you were. Then, once you get an idea on how you normally sound BEFORE you tune, then "guess" at whether you are sharp or flat before going for the tuner. After a little while, you'll start to pick up whether you are sharp or flat because of what the tuner normally says.

This worked for me because I am normally a few cc's sharp of where I am in tune, so I just look at where the headjoint is, where my mouth is positioned and, if everything is normal, I should be in tune without me needing the help of a tuner.

I don't know if this is the best way, it was just a way that was explained to me a long time ago, so it might work for you, it might not. I hope it does, though!

My suggestion also involves a tuner, but is a bit different. Unfortunately, the flute is not naturally in tune throughout all registers, so we need to learn to compensate for notes that are naturally a bit out there. After you've warmed up, go ahead and turn the tuner on, and tune your A's, D's, and F's, being careful just to observe where you are on the pitch spectrum without trying to adjust it yet, starting on A1 (in the staff), and progressively moving higher. This should give you a pretty good idea of how the head joint positioning is for you. If you notice that most of the notes are flat, push in a bit, and if you seem sharp, pull out. If most of the notes are pretty close (without adjusting using your mouth), your headjoint is in pretty much the right spot for you. You may notice that you switch from being sharp to being flat or vice versa at some point as you go up. In this instance, adjust the head based on what the majority of the notes were, and then work on compensating on the rest. For example, if 5 notes are flat, and 3 (I tune up to D4) are sharp, chances are pushing in slightly will make things easier on you. Now, once you've established a pretty good position for the head, go ahead and play, leaving the tuner on the stand. However, don't stare at the tuner as you play. Rather, when you find a note that's questionable, play up to it, and hold it out and then take a glance at the tuner to see what it says. If you're sharp, lower the angle of the airstream a bit to flatten the note, and if you're flat, raise the air to sharpen it. Over time you will begin to hear the intervals and individual pitches more easily, allowing you to adjust compensate with your mouth/air automatically. If it's not just certain notes that sound a little bit....interesting, do scales slowly and in various patterns (thirds, with octave leaps, etc.) with a tuner in front of you to get a feel for where the various pitches are. Hope that helps, and good luck!

Yes, listen to Celebrian and flutists06 they have the right idea and know what they are talking about.


Edited by Forum Admin at 02:47 on Friday, June 02, 2006
Reason: no unnecessary baiting please]

what are corect tons?

I tell students to use a tuner for the following reasons;

- to see how the flute in general plays in terms of notes being naturally flat or shart

- to see the tendency of your flute

- to see your tendency

Also, if you have a digital keyboard record various intervals and practice matching the tones, if you are in tune you won't know who is playing

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

OH! Patrick! i do that too..i match my tone with a recording in my ditial piano. There's all kinds of instrumet recodings. and i would record scales..and play along with it! pretty neat! yea, that helped me alot with tuning issues i had in band. OH, dID i have issues! with practice you will get A LOT better.

Some famous B.D told me that, (from his experince),..if you play expressively(good tone!!) the better tune you'll be with the band. YUp, i like that one. OUr band played beatifully..Ahhh..so pretty. When we relased together on this one pitch..there was a nice LOOOOONG echo. Ahhh..love making music!!
Oh, remember to listen..learn to listen!

HEEhee, this are the things i do..but i dunno, other ppl might have better ones^_^

writergirl25,

schoolgirl0125 has hit upon a very important part of tuning. Simply, you can't tune a flute with a bad or fuzzy tone quality. You also can't tune in a band setting where the other players are all generally not well tuned. As others have suggested, use a tuner but don't keep looking at it. Then it's jsut a video game. Learn to listen.
Try tuning to a piano as suggested or one other instrument. A friend on another flute would be good. Tune unisons then tune octaves and then fifths for starters. like C-G or F-C or Bb-F or Eb-Bb.

~Bilbo
N.E Ohio

I used to use my keyboard to tune myself but then i found out my keyboard is out of tune.

An electronic keyboard should not go out of tune at all. Rather than a piano, which has strings under tension, and the tension can be adjusted to change the pitch, an electronic keyboard uses recordings of a real instrument. So when you hit middle C, you might be hearing the Middle C of a Steinway 11' grand piano. If that piano was out of tune when the recordings were made, sure the keyboard may be out of tune from the start, but it will not go out of tune over time like a piano does.