 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kjSean
Date: 2011-04-24 19:53
Hi, I'm a student clarinetist, around 2 years into playing.
Here's my problem:
Whenever I tongue, my jaw keeps moving up and down. From what I know, that means that my tongue is moving too much. Because of this, I am very miserable at tonguing lightly on fast passages. It is very frustrating.
Can you clarinet virtuosos suggest a way for me to fix this?
Thank you!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2011-04-24 19:56
Keep your jaw still!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: v12clarinet73
Date: 2011-04-24 20:26
I had this same problem for the first five or so years that I played. I finally realized it and began changing it about a year and half ago from now. My advice is to practice in front of a mirror for just a few minutes everytime you practice. on a stable note (not open G, I would suggest something like middle C or Bb) set your metronome to about 60 BPM. Begin by tonguing 2 4/4 measures of quarter notes, then 2 measures of triplet quarters, 2 of eighths, 2 of eighth note triplets, 2 of sixteenths, and if you feel adventurous, 2 of sextuplets. Make sure your tongue stays relaxed and your air stream is constant. Don't let your tongue tense up; let it ride the stream of air from your lungs. The tip of your tongue should be touching the tip of the reed very lightly (think Tee or Tah). Try to keep your jaw steady and don't bite on the mouthpiece. I fixed my problem in under 2 years with about 5-10 minutes every day. Don't expect the problem to go away instantly, but be patient and soon you'll be fine.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2011-04-24 21:15
Try practicing without the instrument. Can you say 't-t-t' or 'n-n-n' without moving your jaw?
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2011-04-24 21:16
I'm not sure exactly why it works, but playing double lip usually stops the jaw from moving up and down.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2011-04-24 23:25
If you want to play an instrument where you move your jaw as you tongue, then the bassoon's the one for you!
In all seriousness, use a less percussive attack, so instead of a hard 'ta', use a softer 'da' - you could be over-exaggerating the attack which could be the problem.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: ddavani
Date: 2011-04-25 01:45
Practice very slow legato tonguing to the point of the attack being a "la." You also want to make sure your embouchure stays still when you do this to ensure when you go faster, all of your work goes to waste. Do this with your scales, chromatic scale, and studies and slowly increase your tonguing as you go along. Good luck.
-Dave Davani
http://allclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2011-04-25 15:13
The mirror trick is THE way to cure yourself of unsteady embouchure problems. Get a cheap full page sized piece of mirror at a glass shop. Wrap tape around the edges to keep from cutting yourself on the edges.
Put it on your music stand and share space with your music. Tip the mirror with strips of wood or something and compromise space with your music. You want to be able to read your lesson materials AND see your neck and face.
It may not always be possible for you to read the music and watch your embouchure at the same time with this set up, but in-context, real world observation is necessary. This is far better than playing scales and arpeggios from memory in front of a mirror.
Hang in there, it could take months.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-04-25 19:05
I think the approach is to come at it from the opposite direction, which I learned from the well-known clinician Bob Lowrey when I was in high school.
Relax your jaw and drop it a little so that your teeth and lips are slightly apart. Then, say "LA" very lightly, using just the tip of your tongue on your upper gum. Don't move any part of your tongue further back than the tip, and keep the tip relaxed and flat, so it's making the movement for the voiced TH (as in "the"). Keep the movement almost invisible. Watch your jaw in a mirror to make sure you're not moving it.
Then play a secure note (say, C or D below the staff), starting it mezzo piano with the breath. Put your tongue with the tip just below and slightly back of the tip of the reed and make the LA/TH movement without touching the reed. You want to just barely miss.
Move the tip forward gradually, so that you touch the reed only for an instant, producing the smallest possible "tic" in the sound.
Move the tip forward and back until you learn to reliably brush by the reed tip consistently and evenly. Then move to 3-note scales up and down (C-D-E-D-C). Then do 4-note and then octave scales. The feeling should be that of your tongue tip moving smoothly across the reed, but never stopping, and barely bouncing. The breath and the sound never stop. Keep watching in the mirror.
It's VERY important to do this dead slow -- perhaps one note per beat with the metronome set to 40. You're teaching yourself to do something new, engraving it in your muscle memory. For this purpose, slow is just as good as fast. If you let yourself make even one mistake, you're just practicing how to make that mistake.
Give it your best time -- about 5 minutes at the beginning of each practice session. Stop the moment you lose total concentration. Then, 15 minutes later do the exercise again, and then 15 minutes and a third session. Then put it away for three days to let it "cook" and begin again.
Once you get this extremely light action under control, it's easy to make it more forceful. Equally important, you teach yourself to play with a continuous tone, which is interrupted by the tongue, without interrupting the effort of moving the air stream. This avoids the problems that come when you think of the tongue as what starts the tone, rather than stopping it.
See also http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=160954&t=160907.
Keep us informed of your progress.
Ken Shaw
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