Edgar Miles 1972 Study: All Beginning Wind Students To Receive Beats

SLIDE 10
Bailey (1984), Crider (1990), Lisk (1991), and Hofmeister (1982) each emphasize the importance of providing students with opportunities to listen for interference beats. In fact, Edgar Miles’ 1972 study, which examines whether beat elimination can be used to improve the pitch matching ability of beginning wind students, confirms the effectiveness of this teaching technique. Miles’ findings reveal:
1. All beginning wind students can learn to perceive beats.
2. All beginning wind students can perceive when beats are eliminated.
3. All beginning wind students can learn to match unison pitches using the beat elimination process.
4. The majority beginning wind students can use the beat elimination process to achieve correct intonation.
The key is listening to the speed of the beats. The faster the beats, the more out of tune the interval and the slower the beats, the more in tune the interval. When the beats can no longer be heard, the interval is finally in tune. Although the beat principle works for all intervals that have overtones in common, Bailey (1984) recommends that beginning students being with unison intervals.

When demonstrating beats, both Lisk (1991) and Crider (1990) recommend that teachers utilize two students to illustrate the concept. For example, ask two trumpet players to play concert F. However, before they start playing, pull out one of the students’ main tuning slide quite significantly. Then ask the class to listen to how the speed of the beats change as the trumpet player slowly moves their tuning slide back
In all honesty, it doesn’t matter if they push in or pull out, as long as they make a move. As Stone (1999) stated, “The key to developing good intonation in young musicians is teaching a sense of urgency to adjust an out-of-tune pitch” (p. 52).

After making an adjustment, if the beats get faster, the student has adjusted their instrument in the wrong direction. If the beats get slower, they have adjusted their instrument in the correct direction and should continue in that direction until the beats stop. Additionally, if the student find that they need to pinch their embouchure to eliminate the beats, that means that they need to push in. Conversely, if they need to relax their embouchure that means that they need to pull out.

SLIDE 12
As we know, embouchure adjustments can be used to control pitch. At the middle school level, students are still developing proper embouchures, so it is important that we don’t give them too much information regarding embouchure adjustments. The simpler, the better! Using Rush (2014) and Markovich’s (1993) respective texts as guides, I have outlined some basic embouchure adjustments that are appropriate for middle school