Achieving Great Intonation - Part 5

Hi and welcome to virtualsheetmusic.com's Meet the Expert. My name is William Fitzpatrick and I am professor of violin at the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music, which is located on the Chapman University campus in Orange, California. I am as well, director of Music Share, which is located in Irvine.

We've had a lot of conversations about pitch or intonation with regard to patterns. Well, why don't we look at it in a little more practical way? Let's look at a piece of music, or a couple of pieces of music, and let's explore a bit into how to use these patterns. Why don't we start with Beethoven, the romance in F major?

Now, there are some interesting spots in this Beethoven to figure out how in the world we find the notes. For example, there is a spot which starts with a G and goes to an F. Now, how do we get to that F? Let's look. We have the open G. Now, what do we have in our left hand? That's what I call mapping.

First, we're going to look and find, where's the D? Third finger. Well, that's where my first finger will go. What am I going to do next? Whole step, half step. From here, I find it. Now, obviously, we cannot take that much time to find the note, but we can begin to choreograph or to slightly program how we find it while we're playing the G.

Let's see. We can do ... Except, I'm not going to play ... that's how I'm going to practice it to find the notes, so we have what? One, two, three, four. This is how I'm going to use my patterns to find the notes that we're doing. Let's see. Let's try another piece. For this piece, let's use Bruch Scottish Fantasy.

Now, I remember that I went to Sweden to visit a friend, who was a violinist, and I was enraptured by Bruch Scottish Fantasy as performed by Michael Rabin. Now, I remember I was trying so hard to play it like Michael Rabin, but to help me with it, I didn't look at the music. Okay? Here we go. I'm playing it for my friend, showing him what I felt was so, so wonderful about Michael Rabin.

Now, my friend looked at me and said, "It's true, Bill. His performance is really, really beautiful, but it doesn't start on a B. It starts on a B-flat." And I'm like, "Oh." Okay? How would I do that? How did I start a piece in one key? Someone said to me, "Bill, it starts on another note." And I was able to do it. I simply transposed the inner hooks. I knew where the patterns were.

Whole step, whole step. Whole step, half step. Whole, whole. Half. That's how I did it. Now, hmm, did I have to know that it wasn't B natural, G, A, B, B, E? No, I didn't need to know that. Did I need to know that it was B-flat? I didn't know, I didn't need to know. I just remembered the patterns intervallically with what was going on, and I could play it in whatever key.

Now, just as a little aside, do you know where I learned to do that? Believe it or not, in Nashville, Tennessee. Because I used to do country music sessions there when I was like 17 or 18 years old. Sometimes, a senior would come in after we'd practiced something and she would sing or he would sing with us in person or live. He would come out and go to the producers, she or he would say, "It's just too high. Can't we do it a half step lower?" We would have to add, right on the spot, lower it a half step.

We didn't have a lot of time. I mean, these are three-hour sessions. There were four pieces in the session. There was not a lot of time, so you would have to mentally calculate how to lower that pitch that was written on the page a half simpler. This was the beginning of me understanding through intervals or through patterns, how to deal with things.

I hope that this has been an interesting journey. It's certainly been interesting for me to share it with you. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to ask. I'll see you the next time.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---