Intonation Woes - HELP!

[chris ivey]

the best way to improve your pitch is to record yourself constantly. with other musicians, live on stage, or even playing along with a recorded track. the playback will either sound good or bad. when it sounds bad, that is the incentive to make you try harder and listen more carefully.
if you can't tell the difference, take up the harmonica.

[Curt Trisko]

Our ears, not our eyes, should determine the actual bar-handling all along, until it becomes automatic. Takes time and practice, and although I haven't tried playing blindfolded, I guess that practicing-method would speed up the process of improving bar-handling for improved intonation quite a bit.

Watching (looking at) ones barhand too closely while playing may, IMO, slow down ones reaction to what one hears, resulting in intonation-lag = sliding too slowly into correct position. Eyes and ears mainly use the same parts of the brain, and what we see gets handled through a much slower process than what we hear. The fretboard is a good guide, but that's all it is - or should be, a rough guide.

I logged in just to say this. Intonation is still a work in progress for me too, but I found I made a breakthrough when I established that direct coordination between my ears and my left hand. There is no hesitation for me to let my ears control the bar, no matter what my eyes tell me about bar placement.