frank

...maybe by announcing a special Trumpet Master discount for your wonderful products?

What do you think, Chase?

talcito

I have been using Chase's book and tuner for two weeks. The first week I used the tuner while doing Maggio arpegios and pedals and found the tuner very helpfull. It helps you find the "sweet spot" on all your notes.

Now , more specific to this thread. Chase provides tracks with "drones" on them. The drones help provide the pitch center for all the specific keys. With these drones I have been practicing scales and chords from the different modes of the scale. Playing the scales and chords with the drone in the background really helps to hear the relationship between the note played and the pitch center.

Practicing like this can be very meditative in nature. You can actually hear how every note fits into the sound of the pitch. Its very liberating when you start to improvise over the drone pitch using the scale. It is different to my ears than playing over piano chords.

I would love to hear from Chase and Ingrid on how they use drones to practice tunes. How can we get drone tones with changing chords or pitch centers?

Oscar Onoz

Chase Sanborn

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to reply or not since this is Ingrid's forum, but Oscar asked so here goes. With the root/fifth drones, every note you play is an interval, and in fact completes a chord. From an intonation standpoint, this is fantastic, as your ear naturally hears where each pitch should go. It's like somebody gently guiding you down the path. You will automatically adjust your pitch depending on the scale degree, as the pure-tuned position is where it sounds best. In the text I provide a chart showing the CenterPitch display for each interval. This allows you to visually confirm or correct your pitch once you have tuned by ear. Since I incorporated CenterPitch and Tuning Tactics into my practice routine, there is a radical change in the way I hear, and many others will attest to the same.

As Oscar points out, the drones are meditative in nature, and tend to keep you focused and listening. This has benefits beyond intonation, and helps to maximize the value of your practice time.

Mostly I practice scale and arpeggio-based exercises against the drones. It is very effective to play slow lyrical melodies as well. Even dissonant intervals can sound beautiful when well-tuned. I don't usually practice improvisation against the drones (for that I use a metronome or Jamey Aebersold) but there is no reason why you can't. If you want to create drones for specific tunes, I would record the root & fifth of each chord, in time. That would be a very intersting way to expore the harmony.

As far as a 'Welcome' discount, there is a package on the website that includes Tuning Tactics and CenterPitch. When you order, if you mention that you heard about it on this site, you'll receive a bonus copy of my new CD, Perking UP!

Tuning Tactics

gridjam

Hi Derek/and all...
I'm not familiar with the Promenade key centers so I can't answer that part of your question BUT, as far as the droning goes,I got into it while holding down notes and chords on the piano and playing over them (on trumpet) in a very slow fashion. My goal being honesty. I found that often I was only halfway hearing a chord or mode and was cracking notes and missing things because I hadn't gotten inside of the overall sound and color of the chord/mode or melody.
A drone can be one note on your tuner,a CD (Walter White is great) or something you program yourself on a keyboard or through music software. It's really another form of eartraining and I find that when I drone out first,that my ear wakes up and I can easily play along with things I want to transcribe (tunes/solos) with less of a lag in connection.
hope this helps...I go into the idea in depth on my trumpet lesson on my site and will continue to expand on the ideas when I get the next one up in the next year.

Derek Reaban

Ingrid,

Thanks very much for answering my question!

In an earlier post (Glad to be here!) (Glad to be here!) you wrote:
And in the post above you wrote:

The timing of when you do this in your routine really makes sense to me. It seems like since you are waking up sound and response with the mouthpiece / leadpipe combination and then transferring that to the horn with the 6 notes, it only makes sense to introduce the drone pitch to activate the “intonation” part of your brain as well.

I can easily see myself programming this into my daily routine (just choose a drone pitch on my iPod). Once I get in the habit of doing something, I stick with it, and this is something that I’ve struggled with to incorporate in my schedule.

If your first tune is in, either E minor or E Major, then you would consider the first interval relationship of the second line G (in the 6 notes) to key center before you start?

I’m looking forward to starting this 2-3 minute routine today. I get this feeling that this is going to take hold in a very positive way!

Thanks for getting back to me on this.

mholliday

Hey Chase, I Just Wanted To Say I Have The Center Pitch And I Really Like It.

adonis74

BUT, Chase, your web site and materials are super. Seems that many trumpet players dream up some "new" technique and sell poorly made, outdated, or ineffective materials and don't follow up with their customers.

You have earned your dignity and credibility, so we can excuse the wig.

I'm ready to order your tuning device and other materials.