Klarinet Archive - Posting 000146.txt from 1997/10

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Anchor tonguing
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 21:14:31 -0400

On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:

> The difficulty is that many of these exceptional types of articulation
> interfere with the air stream, yet students are unaware of this. So,
> while I agree with your heirarchy (tone production is first, then
> articulation, then fingers), I can't equate anchor tongueing with better
> tone production. All my experience indicates the contrary.

Of all the student I have who anchor tongue or students in the past who
have anchor tongued, none of them could tongue well in legato passages,
and all had sound production problems. However, I believe that these
students were not motivated to solve their sound production problems in
much the same way that they were not motivated to solve their tonguing
promblems. I am not sure that the anchor tonguing was the cause of the
problem.

> I suspect that teaching effective articulation and tone production to a
> student who had been taught anchor tongueing would be even more difficult
> that teaching one who had learned it more of less by experimentation. The
> apparent endorsement of this method by a teacher would lend it more of an
> air of authority and credence, which would be likely to increase the
> student's resistance to learning other ways.

I agree with this statement. I would like to point out that there are
many professionals who anchor tongue. One of them, a close friend of
mine, works at Illinois State University and used to play 2nd Clarinet to
Larry Combs in the Santa Fe Opera. His name is Aris Chavez. Aris would
be the first person to tell you that he a) does not teach anchor tonguing,
and b) has a slow tongue.

There is much to be said about this way of articulating....I would be
interested in hearing from many on the listserv who have opinions or
anchor tongue themselves. This is an excellent discussion topic!

Roger Garrett

   
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