Getting to know your and your instrument’s natural pitch tendencies…

How many of you have allergies? It seems, in today’s world, most of the population has some sort of allergy. Perhaps this is a strange way to start out a blog on intonation…or perhaps not. If you have several allergies or severe allergies, you have likely gone to an allergist and been poked in the back with different allergens to see if you react. This is necessary to see which allergies need to be treated. This is akin to testing our flutes to see which notes “react” poorly. It’s also important to note that our intonation is a result of our instrument’s natural tendencies and our natural tendencies. An instrument cannot be solely blamed for bad intonation, but an instrument with better intonation will make our jobs easier.


This exercise is the bonding process for a flutist and their instrument. In order to play with good intonation, you first need to know what you’re up against. I use an intonation chart in tandem with the app RTTA Tuner. If you’re unfamiliar with this, RTTA stands for “real time tuning analysis”. The upside to working with this app is that when you stop sounding a note, the app retains the pitch of the note as you left it. This allows you to accurately see what your intonation on that note was after you stop playing the note. It’s difficult to get an exact reading of your pitch on most other tuners. 


To put this exercise to work:

1. Set up an intonation chart, a pencil and RTTA Tuner.
2. Tune your instrument: I usually play all three As and all three Ds to get a reference, but you can choose other notes.
3. Start in a comfortable area of your range. In other words, don’t start on low B or C just because it’s first on the chart. Perhaps, start with the same progression of the first exercise in Moyse’s De la Sonorite.
4. Do not look at the tuner when you play the note. Instead, look away or close your eyes and focus on playing with the best, most focused sound possible. Once you’ve decided that you’ve done your best with that note, stop playing and look at the recorded pitch. Notate that pitch on the chart (+10=10 cents sharp).
5. Clear the data and repeat the same note two more times. This is your chance to manipulate the pitch without changing your tone. After the third repetition, move on to the next note. Continue until the chart is completed. It is important to mention that if a note is particularly out of tune, and you don’t clear the data, it will take a long time for the tuner to give a new, accurate reading.
6. Highlight any notes that are in your “danger zone”. At first, it might be any note that is +/-10 or more. +/-5 or better is a nice goal.

You can do this exercise as often as you like, but I would recommend completing no less than one chart per week. Refer to the most recent chart when you are completing a new chart, so you can anticipate problems. This exercise will not only help you to predict possible intonation problems, but it will also help refine your hearing. You will eventually be able to distinguish changes in intonation more precisely. This is the progress one of my students made over the course of four weeks. 
​1st: Top Left
​2nd: Bottom Left
3rd: Top Right
4th: Bottom Right
​Sorry for the shadow....