Intonation is the key to playing with others successfully.
It is more than just being in tune. But first of all… let’s make sure your bass clarinet is in tune.
1) How do you tune the bass clarinet?
To tune the bass clarinet, you adjust the crook. Either making it longer (pulling out) if you are too sharp, or making it shorter (pushing in) if you are too flat. Use a tuning devise to determine this first. If you are playing in a warm room, or are in the middle of a rehearsal - you’re likely to be sharp. If you are in a cold room, or haven’t played a note yet - you’re likely to be flat. If you have a long rehearsal, you may want to re-tune mid rehearsal.
Different parts of the world tune to slightly different frequencies - in the UK and USA we usually tune to 440 hz, whereas parts of Europe tune to 442 hz.
The trick to intonation - is being able to ‘blend’ your sound with other players. You need to be able to bend your pitch small amounts to match other players
2) Pitch Bending Exercise
Once you’ve got used to using your tuning device, something you could experiment with is using your tuning device to help you bend your pitch.
It may seem counter-productive, as you’re technically using the tuner to show you that you are ‘out of tune’ - but being able to bend your pitch means you have the flexibility to bend it in tune.
It can be quite tricky to do this on low notes on the bass clarinet, so I’d recommend to first try this on notes with open fingerings - throat G, A, Bb or altissimo C, D etc - and practice bending them down. Aim for a gradual shift down in pitch - it’ll take time to build this up, it is not something you can do straight away.
How do you bend the pitch on a bass clarinet? You have to change the shape of your mouth/embouchure. There are two main ways:
You can bend your pitch by slackening off your embouchure & dropping your jaw slightly.
You can bend your pitch by altering your tongue position.
What to do:
Set your drone pitch. Remember that the drones will be in concert pitch, so you’ll need to transpose down a tone from the note you’re playing on bass clarinet. Eg, if you want to play C then your drone needs to be on Bb. If you want to play an A your drone needs to be on G… etc.
Adjust your tuning with the drone.
Check your octaves against the drone. Then when you are happy with your octave - add in some 3rds & 5ths.
Play some scale & arpeggio patterns based on the tonic you have chosen. Eg. if you’ve chosen a C, then play around with C major/minor to begin with.
Improvise! Do some light, melodic and easy improvisation. Try to relate every note you play, to the drone you hear.
3) Play with a Drone!
Playing with a drone helps you train your ear in intonation.
No bass clarinet is perfectly in tune - so you’ll have to do some adjusting. If you tune one octave ‘perfectly’, I guarantee another octave won’t be as perfect.
I highly recommend the Tonal Energy Ap - which has a big smiley face that changes colour depending on your pitch. But there are also other aps, and you can get pitched drones up on YouTube.