Klarinet Archive - Posting 000922.txt from 1999/10

From: Shouryu Nohe <jnohe@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] tip to tip (LONG!)
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 03:45:56 -0400

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Daniel Stover wrote:

> Then my question is, on sax, with the mouthpiece entering at nearly a 90
> degree angle, how can it still be possible to tongue tip-to-tip? You'd be
> slicing your tongue on the edge of the tip of the reed. I know my teacher
> says it's better to tongue slightly lower on the reed.

Actually, that's also how the saxophone professor here teaches as well
(I'm a saxophone minor, clarinet major), but because the tip-to-tip is
virtually the same as the tip-to-just below tip method, he has no problems
with my articulation.

As I mentioned before, Daniel, I'm still a student, and when I arrived at
NMSU, I was pretty dang-oned lousy. Reason being as I was a bassist
throughout high school, with a fair but not perfect embouchure. Of
course, I had to switch to Bb and went through the embouchure change, and
by far, the hardest part was articulation. I had been sort-of anchor
tonguing (I dunno what it was, but it was clean and accurate when I used
it in high school), but it wasn't going to cut it. Not on Bb, anyway. I
can't count the number of times I had to take my finger and..."touch the
tip of your tongue, now touch the tip of your reed, now touch the tip of
your tongue, now touch the tip of the reed" x4 then "now touch the tip of
the tongue to the tip of the reed!"

And even after this, my articulation downright bit. Tip to tip absolutely
did NOT work, and was never gonna work, and if anything, I sounded worse
doing it.

For seven months, I wrestled with the stinkin' problem. Then magically
(and I'm not kidding), my tongue just popped into place. And suddenly it
was easy. What really bit about it was that it happened in the practice
room the day AFTER the Symphonic Winds final concert, when I could have
put it to use.

I had no clue what happened then, but looking back (this is in May '97)
I'm pretty sure that it had to do with tongue POSITION in whole. I
concentrated so hard on just getting the tip of the tongue to the tip of
the reed that I ONLY altered the position of the TIP of my tongue, never
trying to mess with the rest of my tongue, which was actually in the way.
I had been trying to cross tip-to-tip with anchor tonguing: my tongue
layed on the bottom of my mouth while I curled the tip up to reach the
reed. Try it sometime, and if you can get it to work...you're pretty
cool, because that bugger pestered me for months. But seriously - out of
the blue, for some reason that day, I arched my entire tongue UP and
pointed the tip down slightly, forming a very concise and tight 'eeeh'
syllable with my tongue. What this did was draw my tongue high up (think
like a cobra when it's ticked off) and further back in my mouth, allowing
plenty of room for my mouthpiece, and strangely enough, the tips of tongue
and mpc were right near each other. With a slight motion of slightly up
and forward, I could touch the edge of the reed with little effort, but
not great speed. But it was no longer uncomfortable or ugly sounding. In
fact, my sound had improved.

Why did this work so well? Not only was my tongue positioned right where
it needed to be for it to work, I was playing every stinkin thing at
fortissimo to ensure that my air was seriously moving. In truth, I now
believe that to be the key to articulation is FAST AIR. In fact, I would
say that 95% of articulating tip-to-tip is fast air, and 5% tongue motion.

Try this. Cruise down the highway with a buddy of yours driving. Say,
cruise around 50-70mph. Roll down your window and stick your arm out
fairly relaxed. (It's best not to do this when there's oncoming traffic.)

Under normal circumstances, your arm should fall and bang against the
door, causing a very annoying and painful tingling that we are all
familiar with. But instead, it should sort of hover, floating on the
moving airstream. This is the principle with which tip-to-tip tonguing
works: your tongue floats on the fast air stream and a slight push
forward, with little effort, is all that is needed to touch the reed.

The added advantages of the high arched tongue...

1) Speeds up the air flow. By raising the tongue, you constrict the
passage that the air must travel through, and therefore, it must travel
FASTER - in physics, I believe this is called Bernoulli's principle. This
can be demonstrated by turning a hose on so that it is producing
moderately, and then placing your thumb over the opening, creating the
high pressure spray most of us became familiar with during water fights as
kids. The water moves faster because of the constricted passage.

2) Opens the back of the throat, which helps darken the upper clarion
register (at least for me).

That being said...

> However, I can't single tongue due to complications from being born with a
> cleft pallet and a final skin graft not taking (leaving a passage between
> the roof of my mouth and my nasal cavity). I've anchor tongued since the
> very first day i started articulating and have neither had any problems with
> it or had anyone able to tell otherwise.

Then you are an excellent anchor-tonguer. I've heard that there are
players who do perfectly fine with it, and if it's your only option, do
it. I always like to explore all options available to me and choose which
works best, and for me and many others, tip-to-tip is our choice. Just
always be sure that the choice you make doesn't hold you back.

> on flute, i don't anchor my tongue behind my lower teeth, but i rest the tip

Not having done any flute (that comes next semester), I can't really make
an analysis...

> I know many fine players who anchor tongue (my clarinet teacher uses it some
> on bass... says he can actually tongue faster on bass using anchor tongue)
> and you would never know they were unless they told you. I say if it
> doesn't compromise anything, why force a student to change it?

My previous point stated. However, when presented with new options, try
them, and if they work better than what worked before, THEN you should
change, is my point.

As for saxophone and bass, once that odd moment when tip-to-tip started
working, I immediately applied it to sax and bass. The trick here was
simply to draw my tongue a little further back into my mouth, but keep the
air cruising at high speed. However, this begins to close of the back of
the throat, so I change from 'eeeh' to more of an 'aayyy' type tongue
shape. On BBb contra, I have to go to a full 'aaah' but I also use a
little more tongue, as there is quite a bit more reed.

Hope this answers your questions (and probably then some) on how I do it.

(Hey, I'm still learning, and I got a long way to go...any of you profs
out there looking for a grad assistant in fall 2001? ^_- )

J. Shouryu Nohe
http://web.nmsu.edu/~jnohe
Professor of SCSM102, New Mexico State Univ.
"If I wanted a 'job,' I'd have gone music ED, thank you very much!"

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