Klarinet Archive - Posting 000141.txt from 1998/01

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: swabbing really does wear it out (retransmitted)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:17:06 -0500

On Sat, 3 Jan 1998, Bill Hausmann wrote:
> "The motion of the reed during the cycle is of interest. Consider the
> chink is just on the point of closing. With the aperature closed, the reed
> appears motionless to the eye for about half of the time of the complete
> cycle. It then leaves the mouthpiece with relatively high velocity and
> reaches its position of maximum displacement in a series of short spurts.
> The time spent motionless at maximum displacement is roughly a quarter of
> the fundamental period. The tip of the reed now returns to the mouthpiece
> in a series of short spurts, and the fundamental cycle is complete. Thus,
> the actual motion of the reed occupies only about a quarter of the period."

This experiement is dependent upon a person who closes the reed off
against the mouthpiece. When I tongue (and when many tongue for that
matter), the reed is closed off at the top....that is, the reed is not
pressed against the tip of the mouthpiece, it is in fact stopped.
Depending on pressure from the tongue, a bit of air can be heard going
through the sides of the reed.....or the reed itself is still vibrating
ever so slightly. But....one thing is very certain in the majority of my
tonguing (and you notice I said majority....there are always times we
close the reed off....more for some, less for others) - I do not press the
reed against the mouthpiece.

John Mohler once asked in a studio class where we tongue on the
reed.....there were a wide varitey of answers you can imagine. I raised
my hand (as a dumb undergraduate) and said that I actually tongue just
beneath the tip of the tongue on the top of the reed. He put his index
finger to his lips and said, "shhhh....." with a smile. The next lesson I
asked him why he shushed me and he told me that my description was
accurate but that people would begin trying it and actually tonguing
incorrectly....that tip to tip or tip to top tonguing (that is, unless one
is anchor tonguing....for all you anchor tonguers out there!) is how most
people tongue. We never spent more than a few minutes on the actual
mechanics of tonguing because when he asked me to articulate in the manner
I described above, I already did it (don't ask me why or how, I don't
recall being taught in that way....just kind of happened I think).

At any rate, this should be good for a deviation away from the anchor
tonguing and tip to tip (or tip to top as I like to say) discussion and
jump into yet another rip 'em up thread!

Roger Garrett
IWU