Ingrid,
Last year I remember reading about a lesson that you gave to a player in the Seattle area. He wrote about
the great advice that he received from you regarding fundamentals and I remember thinking how similar the comments that you made to him aligned with what my teachers tell me.
This sentence from his post struck me as very important:
- She said she often does long tones or scales with a drone in the background so she can hear the relationships between the notes she plays and the pitch center of the piece she's rehearsing.
I have worked with a product called TuneUp in the past, and while I think the concept is great, I find it hard to incorporate working with a drone pitch in my practice sessions on a regular basis. What struck me as significant in what you mentioned to him, is that you focus on playing in a single key to get everything locked in before then rehearsing a piece with the same tonal center.
Could you mention how you approach this session with the drone pitch? I’m guessing that since you do it on a regular basis that you fall into what is most important fairly quickly, so the time that you spend may be less than someone new to this drill. For those of us that are starting from essentially square one on this, could you provide guidelines about what you are listening for, about how long you spend with this (both now and when you first began working with this technique), how loud the drone is (speakers or headphones), and anything else that you might consider beneficial.
I’ve been working on the Promenade from Pictures recently, and I’m wondering how I could include this technique in my practice sessions. Would it be a Bb drone or F?
Looking forward to any helpful hints that you could provide!
Thanks,