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Unlike piano players, ear training is essential for wind band performers. But how many band directors bother to give their bands suitable exercises?
While tuning is simple act of adjusting a length of tubing on a wind instrument (often by reference to a single note), intonation is an ongoing process in which a player strives to match the pitch of others in the ensemble during performance.
A common misconception among wind players is to believe that the air moves through the instrument in order to produce the sound. This is simply not true.
The best way for a conductor to improve is in front of a live ensemble. The unfortunate reality, however, is that this is not always possible. Aspiring conductors therefore have little choice but to find other ways of honing their skills.
Most people, even those with little more than an elementary education, can usually define sound fairly accurately by describing it as the result of some kind of vibration that can be detected by the ear. In most cases, these vibrations are carried to us through the air, but they can just as easily be communicated through some other sort of homogeneous medium such as water, wood, or even one’s own skull. Sound travels away from its source in a series of waves as adjacent particles swing into and away from each other.
We become aware of all this activity when vibrating air molecules set the eardrum in motion. To observe this effect in the music room, touch the skin of a timpani or snare drum lightly with one finger when the band is playing a forte passage. It is very likely that you will actually be able to feel the vibrations as the membrane responds to the sound waves in the air.
We identify high and low notes by the speed of the air vibrations associated with them. In other words, a note that has a very fast frequency (produced, for example, on a rapidly vibrating guitar string), is described as being high, whereas notes with low frequencies (as in the case of a more slowly vibrating guitar string) are described as being low.
Physicists measure frequencies in terms of cycles per second or Hertz (Hz). The lowest frequency audible to humans is about 20 Hz and the highest is about 25,000 Hertz. There is, however, a great deal of variation between individuals. Generally speaking, young people can hear sounds at the extreme ends of these ranges much more easily than adults or retirees. Animals also have quite different hearing ranges. Dogs, for example, can hear very high frequencies inaudible to humans, while whales can hear very low ones.
Volume, on the other hand, refers to the amplitude rather than the frequency of the vibration. The greater the initial force used to start a sound source vibrating, the greater the amplitude and thus the louder it sounds.