As a string playing, playing in tune can present certain challenges. In this video I explore the three intonation systems we can use to “play in tune.”
Splendid! This has helped me so much as a violinist, my teachers expect me to play in tune but they haven't explain this to me is very frustrating. Cheers ❤️
Hey thank you! That was very interesting and explains some of my frustrations; I have no teacher and although fairly autodidactic, you don’t know what you don’t know. Things like this provide ways through the ceilings encountered by self-taught folk like me.
I struggle so much with my A string's sound. I just started cello and have started the cello a weeknand a half ago but as a flutist i am used to clean nice notes. The a string and d string is what suzuki book one focuses on and my A string is driving me nuts. My cello is not particularly expensive R4500. But all the components are wood. I am wondering if i should change the bow and strings ? My bowing technique is not perfect of course but even when I hit the A string correctly it still sounds off. I play with a tuner to try and hit every note sharp and clear Can you help?
Ben-Hur Horses I can relate to the struggle. I had the hardest time making the A string sound less biting. Have you tried exploring where the cello now is in relationship to the fingerboard and bridge? Also some cellists opt to get strings that are gut instead of synthetic. You could explore that as well. But maybe take the cello to a shop and ask what they think of your A string to see if they might have a solution.
I also considered this a lot this past week and made a list of things to do to help with this: 1) Watch the angle of your bow as you move to or from the A string. You want less bite, so avoid drastic angles when you switch. 2) It takes less energy to draw the A string when compared with the C or G string, so don't put so much arm weight that you get that bite sound. 3) If you are playing the string and about to open up, try gently plucking the string with the finger that is playing the last note. The goal is to disrupt the purity of the oscillations of the string. This should somewhat mask the bite on the A string. 4) Experiment without playing anything but the A string. Approach your practice with some basic bow strokes. Try to find the sweet spot. Once you find it, try getting that sweet spot each time you transfer strings.
Please help! My issue is that notes played on my A string are coming out flat when compared with notes played on the other 3 strings. And the further down the neck i go, the worse it gets. So for example, when all my open strings are in tune, I can go to 3rd position and play a G on the D string, but when i move to the A string and try to play a note in the same exact spot on the neck, its coming out flat and is closer to C# when it should be a D.
Austin Reed thank you for your question. I actually think this might be worth making a video about. Im making sure I’m getting this right. Your fingers stay in the same place after playing the G on the D string and you move it over to the A string then a C# comes out instead of the D that you expect?
@@lenworthwilmot699 Hey Lenworth, thanks for the quick reply. Yes, that is exactly correct, and the notes on the A string seem to deviate more and more the further down the neck i go. It's puzzling because the open strings are all perfeclty in tune, but for some reason the intonation of anything I play on the A string seems to be slightly off compared to the other 3 strings. Im a new player coming from playing classical guitar for many years and I'm self teaching, so I'm not sure if this is actually how the cello is supposed to be, but I assume not. I know that intonation works differently on the cello vs. guitar because there are no frets, but shouldn't I still just be able to bar my finger to play both of the notes from my example? It doesn't seem right that I should have to compensate by fretting the note a half step from where the finger position should be.
@@austinreed3733 I'm so sorry for not replying to this sooner. Hopefully, you have solved this issue by now but I can still offer up some hints on this. Here are some tips: Consider the angle of your cello. When it sits in between your legs, it isn't actually vertical. If it was, you would expect that the all of the notes, would be distributed horizontally perfectly across from one another. For example, your G on the 4th finger would be exactly in line with your D on the A string 4th finger. The reason, they don't line up is because your cello is angled. Keeping that in mind combined with how your arm is angled could serve a valuable insight into why you are getting out of tune. I read once that if we want to get good at intonation, we can't settle for anything less than great intonation. I would recommend playing extremely slowly with a drone. Your goal is to set the drone to a specific fundamental note like a D and follow the scale. Lock in every note. While you play the scale, try to focus on how your hand naturally curves and moves on the cello. Additionally, focus on where it needs to slightly move in order to get in tune. Depending on your angle, the next strings pure notes might be slightly higher than their lower neighbor string. I hope this helps some.
@@lenworthwilmot699 Hey Lenworth, thank you for the reply. I'm almost convicned that it might just be a structural problem with the cello, though I could be wrong. It is a rather cheap instrument I bought online, so I honestly wouldnt be surprised if that were the case.I honestly havent touched it since my last reply unfortunately because I became a bit discouraged. I do come from a musical background, mainly classical guitar so am pretty familiar with instruments, but am completely new to the cello and with the cello having no frets, I guess my initial question was how the intonation compares to that on a guitar. With the guitar having frets, you can move from one string to the adjacent string in the same fret position and everything should be in tune, but being new to cello, I wasnt sure if that's how it was supposed to work seeing as they dont have actual fret bars. I can definitely see your point about how the cello sits at an angle and that might give the illusion that I'm moving my finger straight across the fingerboard from one string to the next when in reality it is at a slight angle. However, the reasons why I really believe it might actually a structural problem is for one, because i have the positions marked with tape and two, I'm only experiencing this issue with one string. On the other 3 strings, after I've tuned them, I can move perfectly horizonally from one string to the next in the same "fret" if you will, and it plays the note its supposed to. It's only when I move to the A string, that I am having to offset my vertical fingerboard position compared to the D string. And it seems i have to offset it by quite a lot, almost an entire "fret".
Just wondering why you are stretching the length of the first 1/8 note... I mean that the notes are not equal in length? It sounds like your lingering on the first note in the grouping of 8 notes?
Splendid! This has helped me so much as a violinist, my teachers expect me to play in tune but they haven't explain this to me is very frustrating. Cheers ❤️
Hey thank you! That was very interesting and explains some of my frustrations; I have no teacher and although fairly autodidactic, you don’t know what you don’t know. Things like this provide ways through the ceilings encountered by self-taught folk like me.
Excellent video! Very well explained
beautifully explained thank you
Nice explanation, especially considering you didn't need a whiteboard! Thanks!
Thanks for this
GabbishLee Gifted you’re welcome
It's interesting how the spinning fan is deflecting the sound :D... Nice vid!
Lol my dad told me the other day, 'you need to turn off that fan when making videos'. Good catch.
There are Fretted Cellos too which help alot
Good vid!
Thank you
Omg I've been doing the pythagorean stuff without realizing it haha
I struggle so much with my A string's sound. I just started cello and have started the cello a weeknand a half ago but as a flutist i am used to clean nice notes. The a string and d string is what suzuki book one focuses on and my A string is driving me nuts.
My cello is not particularly expensive R4500. But all the components are wood. I am wondering if i should change the bow and strings ? My bowing technique is not perfect of course but even when I hit the A string correctly it still sounds off.
I play with a tuner to try and hit every note sharp and clear
Can you help?
Ben-Hur Horses I can relate to the struggle. I had the hardest time making the A string sound less biting. Have you tried exploring where the cello now is in relationship to the fingerboard and bridge? Also some cellists opt to get strings that are gut instead of synthetic. You could explore that as well. But maybe take the cello to a shop and ask what they think of your A string to see if they might have a solution.
I also considered this a lot this past week and made a list of things to do to help with this: 1) Watch the angle of your bow as you move to or from the A string. You want less bite, so avoid drastic angles when you switch. 2) It takes less energy to draw the A string when compared with the C or G string, so don't put so much arm weight that you get that bite sound. 3) If you are playing the string and about to open up, try gently plucking the string with the finger that is playing the last note. The goal is to disrupt the purity of the oscillations of the string. This should somewhat mask the bite on the A string. 4) Experiment without playing anything but the A string. Approach your practice with some basic bow strokes. Try to find the sweet spot. Once you find it, try getting that sweet spot each time you transfer strings.
Please help! My issue is that notes played on my A string are coming out flat when compared with notes played on the other 3 strings. And the further down the neck i go, the worse it gets. So for example, when all my open strings are in tune, I can go to 3rd position and play a G on the D string, but when i move to the A string and try to play a note in the same exact spot on the neck, its coming out flat and is closer to C# when it should be a D.
Austin Reed thank you for your question. I actually think this might be worth making a video about. Im making sure I’m getting this right. Your fingers stay in the same place after playing the G on the D string and you move it over to the A string then a C# comes out instead of the D that you expect?
@@lenworthwilmot699 Hey Lenworth, thanks for the quick reply. Yes, that is exactly correct, and the notes on the A string seem to deviate more and more the further down the neck i go. It's puzzling because the open strings are all perfeclty in tune, but for some reason the intonation of anything I play on the A string seems to be slightly off compared to the other 3 strings. Im a new player coming from playing classical guitar for many years and I'm self teaching, so I'm not sure if this is actually how the cello is supposed to be, but I assume not. I know that intonation works differently on the cello vs. guitar because there are no frets, but shouldn't I still just be able to bar my finger to play both of the notes from my example? It doesn't seem right that I should have to compensate by fretting the note a half step from where the finger position should be.
@@austinreed3733 I'm so sorry for not replying to this sooner. Hopefully, you have solved this issue by now but I can still offer up some hints on this. Here are some tips: Consider the angle of your cello. When it sits in between your legs, it isn't actually vertical. If it was, you would expect that the all of the notes, would be distributed horizontally perfectly across from one another. For example, your G on the 4th finger would be exactly in line with your D on the A string 4th finger. The reason, they don't line up is because your cello is angled. Keeping that in mind combined with how your arm is angled could serve a valuable insight into why you are getting out of tune. I read once that if we want to get good at intonation, we can't settle for anything less than great intonation. I would recommend playing extremely slowly with a drone. Your goal is to set the drone to a specific fundamental note like a D and follow the scale. Lock in every note. While you play the scale, try to focus on how your hand naturally curves and moves on the cello. Additionally, focus on where it needs to slightly move in order to get in tune. Depending on your angle, the next strings pure notes might be slightly higher than their lower neighbor string. I hope this helps some.
@@lenworthwilmot699 Hey Lenworth, thank you for the reply. I'm almost convicned that it might just be a structural problem with the cello, though I could be wrong. It is a rather cheap instrument I bought online, so I honestly wouldnt be surprised if that were the case.I honestly havent touched it since my last reply unfortunately because I became a bit discouraged. I do come from a musical background, mainly classical guitar so am pretty familiar with instruments, but am completely new to the cello and with the cello having no frets, I guess my initial question was how the intonation compares to that on a guitar. With the guitar having frets, you can move from one string to the adjacent string in the same fret position and everything should be in tune, but being new to cello, I wasnt sure if that's how it was supposed to work seeing as they dont have actual fret bars. I can definitely see your point about how the cello sits at an angle and that might give the illusion that I'm moving my finger straight across the fingerboard from one string to the next when in reality it is at a slight angle. However, the reasons why I really believe it might actually a structural problem is for one, because i have the positions marked with tape and two, I'm only experiencing this issue with one string. On the other 3 strings, after I've tuned them, I can move perfectly horizonally from one string to the next in the same "fret" if you will, and it plays the note its supposed to. It's only when I move to the A string, that I am having to offset my vertical fingerboard position compared to the D string. And it seems i have to offset it by quite a lot, almost an entire "fret".
Just wondering why you are stretching the length of the first 1/8 note... I mean that the notes are not equal in length? It sounds like your lingering on the first note in the grouping of 8 notes?