Hi Joel- First, before you get too far into this find out more of what the band director is looking for. I work in a performing arts high school as an instrument repairer. In my experience, what is important to us as tuners is NOT important to bands. All the time we spend on temperaments, and achieving a temperament is important for keyboard instruments mostly. What I have found that is helpful, especially considering the time, is to focus on unisons, octaves and maybe 5ths. I use 2 audible pitch sources(korgs through an amp) My old Korg has a dial adjuster on the side that varies pitch up or down about a half step. It's simple with this to show what out-of-tune sounds like, and how one "instrument" can move to be "in tune". I even have each student come forward and twist the dial to "make it sound nice" It seems to help that they aren't worrying about playing an instrument, just listening, and tuning. Many band students have practiced without listening for so long, it becomes hard for them to listen and adjust, which is the MOST important skill for tuning in band. Even the best players sometimes hit a note out of tune, they just adjust their own pitch quicker to match whatever they are playing with. A piano is a fixed-pitch instrument. Temperaments help it sound as good as it can, for different keys. Wind instruments are variable pitched instruments. Through the ear-embochure (what you do with your lips etc..) connection, pitch is an ever adjusting process to make the music sound as good as possible. Even though the band director tunes one Bb on an instrument, the students need to realize that not all other notes will be in tune automatically, they need to listen and adjust. Hope this helps! Ron Koval Chicago ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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