Basic Music Theory: How to Read, Write, and Understand Written Music

Interlude: Don’t Say Practice

mistake is painfully obvious. Again, we learn the most from making

mistakes.

But as with the metronome, don’t let those mistakes stand. Fix ‘em.

Try recording yourself. You’ll be surprised, and you might like doing it.

You will definitely improve!

You Can Tune a Trumpet but You Can’t Tuna

Fish

A tuner is a valuable tool. If you play a fretted instrument like guitar or

electric bass, you’ll probably need a tuner only to tune your strings.

The rest of us benefit a lot by using a tuner. With a tuner, you can become

more aware of how your instrument plays, where it’s out of tune, and

what you need to do with your mouth or your finger placement to correct

the pitch. Every wind instrument has certain notes which are out of tune.

With a tuner you can find these out-of-tune notes on your instrument.

The best type of tuner for this sort of thing is an analog tuner, one which

has a little arm that swings back and forth to show how sharp or flat you

are. If the little arm is straight up at “0,” you’re in tune.

There are many types of tuners. Visit your local music store for a

demonstration and decide which will work best for you.

Other Ways to Play.

You aren’t limited to playing only during your daily session. There are

opportunities throughout the day to hone your skills, and you don’t even

need your instrument.

For brass players, there’s always buzzing (if you don’t know what this is,

ask a brass player to demonstrate for you). This can be done either with

or without a mouthpiece. For other wind players there are other lip-

strengthening exercises.

Using only your lips (no teeth), hold a pencil out parallel to the ground

for as long as you can. This will strengthen your pucker muscles.