Violin - intonation - clarinova piano

[clarinova]

Hello all, DC has been learning violin for 18mths and is getting to grips with intonation. I have a Yamaha CLT320 Clarinova piano - full keyboard, weighted keys, lovely tone - can I assume that it is definitely in tune?!

Yes, the clavinova should always be in tune. Violin is hard to play in tune, even after 18 months, listening to the piano should help though.

I agree with you, I play a wind instrument and so completely different.
Over lockdown we spent more time playing together and I'd play his pieces on the piano and he has naturally developed more of an "ear" which I thought was all good. However, the reason for the question was that he saw his violin teacher yesterday who re-tuned his violin out of tune, and he said it really threw him now that he was getting used to listening to what he was playing and he struggled to play the pieces for her and he got upset about it afterwards. We aren't in UK, lockdown is over where we are. She has done this before, before Lockdown - it appears she moved her piano sometime in January and everything has been out of tune since (!) and at that point I said that I thought her piano might be out of tune and she basically said that my clarinova wasn't a real instrument and I didn't know what i was talking about. This is how she talks to everyone. DC wasn't hugely sensitive to it before, but having spent 3 months playing in tune it has now thrown him! It isn't an immediate problem as we now won't see her until September but at that point I am not sure what to do. There are no other violin teachers in our area so moving isn't an option. Sorry - long - thanks for reading if you got through all that.

I’d get a new teacher! Why would you pay someone to let them talk to you like that?

Oh goodness she is horrendous and that is the view of everyone including everyone else in the music school, she is constantly offending everyone, all the other music teachers, but the way the set up is here there really is no one else, the other aspects of the music school are amazing, lots of cultural things for the children, separate music theory, and they provide the instruments, and all heavily subsidised, everything works out at about 4 euro per week and he doesn't want to give up the violin.

You can get many electronic tuners that clip on to the instrument (or use a pickup), as well as apps that show the note being played and whether it's in tune or not. You could test out the piano to make sure it's in tune, as well as getting him to use it regularly to tune the violin, and to practice with it for tricky notes. (It's a little harder to use with strings while you're playing, because they aren't a completely steady pitch, but you do get a reasonable idea, especially if you stop on a certain note).

Time to change teacher!

If you really can’t change teacher then I think you will just have to retune the violin to be in tune every week after the lesson.

I certainly wouldn’t want him playing all the time out of tune when it’s easily avoidable.

Whereabouts are you?

It sounds a little like the French conservatoire system, in which case I understand the value of everything else that happens there. Maybe he should learn piano at conservatoire and find a private individual violin teacher elsewhere.

Thank you for the replies.

brandleberries that was a really good idea, thank you - just to check my sanity if nothing else and good for dc to carry along with him - I have just googled how to use one specifically for the violin and it looks like it clips on and is easy to use. We also have a luthier in a nearby city and I will take the violin there before re-tuning myself - we need some resin anyway.

ineednewshoes it is the cost of a decent violin which would push us over the edge is the problem especially as dc is rapidly growing - I have thought about it though and if the luthier agrees with me I think I might email the head of the music school and find a diplomatic way of getting him to check the piano over the summer.

If you're playing a violin with a piano, you need to tune it to the piano. If the piano teacher's piano was a bit below pitch (remember that tuners won't have been working) then they will have tuned the violin to it, and you now need to retune it to yours. You're obviously a musician, so presumably you can do that. If you're lucky, it will have the little screw tuners at the bridge end, so that you don't have to do it all with the pegs.
You should check the tuning each time he plays, really.

Hi, all of my children and I play violin. It can be a problem of pitch. Piano is tuned often by different pitch. 442 or 440 are popular but sometimes it is tuned by 432 or 444 etc. Check your clavinova and find which herz it is tuned at and confirm if it is same with his teacher’s piano. In addition, you should tune his violin everyday and every time before he plays. Of course, it becomes out of tune after he comes back from lesson.

Does ds have perfect pitch? Is this why he finds it hard to cope with a slightly different pitch?

@houselikeashed I am not sure, he might be developing that, or just a sort of long lasting auditory memory if that is a thing. I think the real issue here though was that the piano wasn't a bit out, it was very out. And I do think a pp might be right that the situation has worsened because piano tuners haven't been working because of covid. I think the electronic tuner will help as he can take it into the lesson with him - though his teacher might faint with horror!

ah, I see. Then I agree a tuner will be your best bet. Maybe ask the teacher what frequency "A" he should tune to at home? Then send ds to his lesson with the tuner. Good luck!

@houselikeashed that is a good idea. Do you think that perfect pitch brings problems of its own when playing with others?

@wineandmusic what you said about pitch was interesting. The advice generally appears to be that if you are using an electronic tuner you set it at 440hz for orchestral wind instruments. Obviously with timbre and so on pitch is not going to be fixed but why would a piano be tuned at the outset at a pitch other than 440 hz? Thank you - just interested really. Or if anyone else could answer that it would be interesting too. As I said, I don't think that this was the problem here as the piano was significantly out of tune, but it is interesting and might be relevant in future!

Some pianos are beyond bringing up to 440 due to the condition of the wires I guess. Putting too much tension on them may cause them to snap??

Re Perfect pitch, I don't think it is a problem if you're playing a concert pitch instrument. I have taught a pupil on trumpet who had perfect pitch, and it didn't bother him.
I think having relative pitch is much more useful, and this can be developed over time. I say this as a horn player - I imagine having perfect pitch would be a nightmare for me!

This might be a completely unhelpful suggestion, but if there is really no chance of changing teachers, would your dc consider a different instrument? I can't see how a rude, dismissive teacher is going to engender a love of playing the violin, so maybe a different instrument and teacher is a possibility?

Good evening. From my experience, the pitch used at orchestra is various. When I was young, I often tuned my piano at 442 because some orchestra I used to play with used 442. It is also varied in different regions. Last year my child performed in Poland and the pitch of the piano at the concert hall was tuned at 443. So, we needed to tune her violin at the same pitch. Anyway, we usually tune at 440 now.

Anyway, I don't think that good musicians/teachers have always good communication skills but it would be better to change teacher if you and your son feel uncomfortable. My son had a similar teacher. He was learning with her for two years but his progress was really slow at that time.

If you have a smart phone then there is a really good app called Clear Tune which costs next to nothing and a lot of the professional musicians I know use it. You can set it to tune at any pitch - and it shows you to a tiny degree if a note is sharp or flat. It is great as Ds can prop the phone on his music stand and check the intonation of each not he plays. It will also tell you if the clavinova is in tune to 440 or not.

Thank you for all this info.

@strongmummy66 that sounds really good!

@Nineteenseventy not unhelpful at all. Before lockdown we were seriously considering switching to oboe until they get a new violin teacher because the oboe teacher is so nice and it would keep the music going. But he has loved violin since before he was old enough to start, and was happy playing it over lockdown, and basically has renewed determination. Whether that will last next year i am not sure.

Yes, I use ClearTune app. It's good.
clarinova - how about french horn - I know a very good teacher…

@houselikeashed

Some pianos are beyond bringing up to 440 due to the condition of the wires I guess. Putting too much tension on them may cause them to snap?? Re Perfect pitch, I don't think it is a problem if you're playing a concert pitch instrument. I have taught a pupil on trumpet who had perfect pitch, and it didn't bother him. I think having relative pitch is much more useful, and this can be developed over time. I say this as a horn player - I imagine having perfect pitch would be a nightmare for me!

My daughter is a trumpeter, and I don't think she has perfect pitch. However we went to a "come and sing", and she told me she was mentally transposing everything up a tone because otherwise she expected it to be a tone lower than it should be!

Brass instruments are interesting; I had no problems getting the right harmonic with a trumpet because Bb is near enough to C that it was roughly where I expected. When I tried tenor horn, which is in Eb, I found it much harder, and had to mentally transpose to start with.