Help me Develop a Scale and Descriptions for Tone Quality

[tknowlton]

Hi All,

I'm a trumpet teacher and occasionally I have group lessons and ask students to judge each other. One thing I am thinking about now is the judgement of tone quality. I could simply use a scale 1-10 or something like that (without any descriptors), but I am wondering about attaching descriptions that would aid in evaluating tone quality (and also aid students in how they THINK about tone quality).

Please suggest a possible scale with descriptions:

It could be something like:

1-7 scale

7-- Full sound, not pinched or out-of-focus, good clarity, pleasing to listen-to
6--
5-- Somewhat full sound, some notes are pinched or out of focus, reasonably good clarity, somewhat pleasing to listen-to
4--
3-- Generally pinched or out-of focus, might sound forced, general lack of clarity
2--
1--
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[Billy B]

Describing sound is like describing the taste of chocolate.

Can't be done.
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Bill Bergren

[TKSop]

[tknowlton]

While I understand what you are saying with the chocolate analogy I will say that the analogy with tone really isn't the same. We are not describing chocolate to someone who has never sampled chocolate. Instead we are describing differences in chocolate to people who have already sampled it.

With chocolate there can be issues of roasting, refinement, too much cocoa butter, not enough cocoa butter, mouth feel, too sweet, too much vanilla, badly tempered, complexity, texture, etc, etc. --- There are dozens of ways of describing the quality of chocolate. In fact there are international chocolate competitions where they do this very thing -- judging chocolate.

-------------

My point isn't that these descriptive words take the place of listening and tonal concept, they simply are a means of describing what we hear. Have not your previous trumpet teachers had to use words as well as demonstrating/modeling to help you get to where you needed to be with your own tone? Words are important.
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[Derek Reaban]

I started a topic a couple of years ago that was going down this same path. Unfortunately the pictures that I had linked from photobucket are no longer available because it became a pay site. If you're interested, I can find the images and email them to you.

1. Red Rainbow
2.
3.
4. Reds, Orange, and Yellows
5.
6.
7. Full Spectrum of Colors

Just an idea that I thought would be able to highlight some intangibles and help students listen more closely to understand why some sounds are more vibrant / resonant.
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Billy B]

Have not your previous trumpet teachers had to use words as well as demonstrating/modeling to help you get to where you needed to be with your own tone?

No. Not the ones who could actually teach.
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Bill Bergren

[Andy Del]

Your idea has a LOT of merit, as students need to be able to assess what they are hearing, before they can take action to improve or refine their own.

It is very common for young players to become stuck when describing sound, meaning they are not going to be able to d anything about it in their practice. Even thought kids can hear quite clearly, even at the very start of their playing, knowing the difference between a good sound and a tight pinched (etc.) one is critical if they know what they are listening to and for.

So, working on their awareness, or lack of it, which is going to determine in part their progress.

How to get this awareness? I don't get them to compare each other, but to listen to recordings, to me, and to themselves.

cheers

Andy
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[cheiden]

I think what's perceived as tone is too complex to lend itself to a simple scale. There are factets to tone. How do you quantify spectral content into a simple series of grades? I'd also argue that there really isn't an objective best tone.
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[EBjazz]

I think this is a good idea. I would start with all positives for the 7 like:
Full sound, centered, very focused, pleasing and resonant.

Then work your way down from there. I'm interested in what you come up with.

Eb
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[drboogenbroom]

In case no one wants to read this whole thing, let me answer the question plainly. The scale proposed by the OP will work just as well as any similar scale. But I don't recommend going down that road.


A little story about my experience with judging tone quality. Sorry it's a bit long. I just feel like writing.

When I first became a middle school band director, I taught at a small, underfunded, struggling band program.

All through college I had heard, "tone is the most important thing. You have to teach tone." And the tone qualities in the program were not very pleasant to hear.

I told the students "Your tone isn't very good." This didn't help.

I told them "Blow more air and play with a better tone." They played with the same tone, but much louder.

I told them "Don't play with so much tension" but it was the only way they could even imagine playing. If they knew how to play with less tension, they told me, they would. They really wanted to do what I asked and play with a good tone.

I decided the problem was, we didn't have the right words. I asked the students to listen to several recordings of the great soloists on several instruments. We came up with all the adjectives and metaphors and similes in the world to describe a good sound. We filled the board with beautiful poetic language about what a good sound would smell and taste and feel like.

I asked the students to play and listen to their own sounds and describe them. We filled another board with poetic descriptions of their young and developing sounds.

I was a genius. I gave them all the words. They were much more aware of the fact that they had poor tone qualities.

For the rest of the semester we made word poems about tone quality, and I gave them prescriptions. Relax more. Blow more air. Firm your corners. Not that firm. Firm your corners, relax the middle, open your jaw, raise your tongue, but keep your throat open, and blow more air. Did that sound like snow falling on a still Christmas morning? No? Okay....

Needless to say, almost all of the progress that was made in the area of tone quality was completely incidental to my "teaching". This is a phenomenon I have seen a lot over the years. Some students will always succeed despite us.

Of course, it took me many years to realize that none of this helped. We graded each other's tone on a scale of 1-10. We talked about all the ways our sound wasn't right and tried to top the poetry of previous years. We talked about a pinched sounds, bright sounds, dark sounds, laser like sounds, unfocused sounds... All the while, tone quality did not become any more beautiful. But, they were learning. I was teaching.

Obviously this wasn't the only thing we did to try and address tone quality, but it was one of the most harmful and time consuming activities we did.

A decade later and a move over to the high school and I am finally beginning to really undo the damage I did in those first years.

I don't want to get too far into the detail of the day to day in my classes, but essentially, some years ago I finally bought into the idea that what matters most isn't getting the students to judge the sound they have, it's to get them to imagine the sound they want. The more time they spend focusing on the things they don't want and judging themselves "good" or "bad" the more they will shut down the natural learning mechanism.

Of course, I also believe that the only way we get to where we are is by the path we traveled to get here. So if all of this sounds like nonsense to the OP or anyone else, then it is. Try what you like and good luck.

Kevin

[tknowlton]

Excellent and thoughtful post, Kevin. Thank you for your insights. I really like what you have said and it does cause me to think about all of this.

The path to beautiful tone certainly is an individual path. I really do advocate listening to recordings, modeling good sound in lessons, and teaching students to understand what a centered sound feels like (through singing, mouthpiece buzzing, and doing things like note bends, etc.)

On a slightly different note from the OP, though, is about the judgement of tone, even if only from an adjudicators point of view. Can there not exist labels for what constitutes good tone?

Some on this thread have said that it is all too subjective and complex. But I think there are things that players as diverse as Lee Morgan and Maurice Andre have in common - "centered, full, resonant, energized" are words that come to mind.

Lastly, it appears that this is a somewhat controversial issue. (Frankly I don't think there has ever been a non-controversial issue on this forum. Everyone likes to disagree LOL). Anyhoo, I don't know where this leaves me. Probably nowhere. I still think, however, that listening, modeling, imagining, AND talking about tone cannot hurt. If anything it will help students to be more aware of the importance of tone. After all, we tend to talk about what is important, right?
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I like traffic lights, but only when they are green.
- Monty Python

[Seymor B Fudd]

[brassmusician]

I agree with those who have stated the importance of students hearing and internalising the sound of good trumpet players. However, a simple way to create a workable tool, if you are keen to pursue the scale idea, would be to create a series of audio samples of trumpet sounds ranging in sound quality. You could record yourself demonstrating a range of terrible to mediocre sounds and then some good to great sounds. If you didn't want to record yourself you could co-opt some beginner students and also grab some recordings of professional playing from CD's. So the aim is to end up with an example library of pinched, airy, unfocussed, resonant etc sounds, whatever you manage to get. I think it might be easier to have not much more than 3 groupings, - poor, middling and great tones. So in the end the students don't need words, they hear the examples.
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[Seymor B Fudd]

[Derek Reaban]

Here's another scale that I think is exceptionally well conceived. "Oboe 5, Tuba 3!" "It is a scaling of color". Very cool. Tabuteau clearly had a way to both demonstrate and then share his ideas in words.
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[chuck in ny]

as pops said you have the general qualities of 'good' and 'bad'.
fleshing that out somewhat a player has to find his/her own style, overtones and the rest of it.
this is like trying to describe what is alluring about a particular lady and then trying to establish standards for the rest of the group. fortunately on that subject jane russell has been well documented on film.
you quickly get to the point where it is easier to shut up about it.

[Rod Haney]

I hope the students are of an age where they bear others opinions well. When I was much younger the only opinion that mattered was mine anyway👹Rod