Avoiding Mistakes When Performing a Concert Pitch Lead Sheet
concerts are always playing live in the back yard. They’re seeing your audience face to face; they feel the energy that’s put into the music for their performance. None of those things are possible through reading an online mp3. Music actually allows to connect better with individuals; concert shows let you connect directly with those individuals. There is nothing more rewarding than getting up and performing a special song you’ve been waiting to perform.
One of the biggest mistakes many make when preparing to get ready to play at a concert is to not pay attention to the concert pitch every single time you play an instrument. This can be extremely dangerous to your career, because most music teachers grade your score strictly on the perceived concert pitch. This simply grades you on how well you play per note instead of focusing on the total range of notes played. While it may seem simple, keeping the correct concert pitch is not easy. It requires a great deal of concentration to keep a consistent tempo, as well as being able to focus on each note without becoming distracted by other instruments in the mix. In order to master this skill, you will need to dedicate plenty of practice to learning the techniques involved.
Another mistake many musicians make is not listening to the score while preparing to play a concert, either during rehearsal or immediately after a performance. Many musicians will rush to get to their instruments before the director asks them to, and oftentimes, they fail to hear the true concert pitch in the score. If a director says “tone” instead of “concert pitch” or “frets,” listen very carefully to the words. This tells you exactly what tone of the piece is supposed to sound like.
The easiest way to quickly and easily transpose a chord from one key to another is to learn the transpose techniques used in some of the more popular music pieces. For example, if you see a picture of Beethoven playing a major scale, such as G major or E minor, play the scale with only flats and sharps (not sharps). When the conductor asks you to play in standard notation, simply move the piece’s name around from measure to measure. This quick concert pitch lesson can save you lots of time, since you won’t have to search for and memorize your transposing fingers between each musical piece.
Another common concert pitch transpose mistake is accidentally playing a flat instead of a sharp. For most cello, alto sax, trumpet, and upright players, it’s fairly easy to spot the difference between an “accidental flat” and a “sharp”. For many other instruments, including strings, brass instruments, and woodwind instruments, it’s harder to see the difference.
However, with brass instruments like tubas and basses, and woodwind instruments like flutes and clarinets, it’s often difficult to tell the difference. And for both upright and cello players, the fingering diagram for transposing instruments is different, since the placement of the hands on the fretboard varies on these instruments. So, what can you do to make sure that you are playing correctly? Practice! Spend a few minutes each day playing around with your cello, alto saxophone, trumpet, or whatever instrument so that your fingers are well-trained to transpose properly.