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The very fine, undogmatic teacher, Mitchell Lurie, was definite: you never, ever start a tone on the clarinet without the application of the tongue. Otherwise the attack won't be clean and focused.

Yet it would seem to me that in some cases an "air attack", unaided by the tongue, is more called for: starting a note imperceptibly pp or ppp; playing a Fp (not to be confused with Sfz). In other words, sometimes the beginning of a note would be a vowel sound rather than a consonant.

Your thoughts on the matter, discussions on barrels and synthetic reeds permitting?

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As the opposition is set up, we can imagine a drawn bow, about to shoot an arrow. The abdominal muscles take the role of the bow, whilst the diaphragm corresponds to the hand and arm, which provide the equal and opposite force holding the system in equilibrium. The more the support, the more the bow is drawn and the greater are the forces involved. More support thus means a steeper initial curve in the diagram if the diaphragm is suddenly relaxed, whilst very little support gives a more gentle entry.

But this is as though we actually shoot the arrow. Sometimes we will want to maintain control through the initial curve, as though we simply allow the arrow to move forward as the force of the bow overcomes the reduced pull of our arm. If we maintain the support in this way, we can often achieve a very focussed and precise entry, even without the use of the tongue, and control of how the note subseqently develops can give all the varieties of accent, fortepiano and phrase-shaping which are the life-blood especially of slow and expressive music.

The one thing we cannot do in this way is to completely eradicate the initial upward curve.

But we can do so using the tongue. The effect is as though by very delicately stroking the reed at the beginning of the note, we shave off the initial curve, so that the note reaches the peak almost immediately. Remember, the note begins when we imagine it beginning (see, 'All that stuff about the diaphragm'), not when we experience doing something to begin it -- so, here, we imagine it beginning and then simultaneously perform the tongue stroke. The duration of contact of the tongue with the reed is very short, and the touch very gentle (imagine a feather). Even if we want an explosive accent, the holding back of the attack is done by the diaphragm.

The important point is that the action of the tongue can be cosmetic. We can imagine the attack first and then clean it up with the tongue as it begins.

The 'hosepipe' metaphor applies to the situation where it is just the tongue that holds back the attack. We play without support – and then the action of the tongue takes longer, because it must remain on the reed during the build up of air pressure from the abdominal muscles. When the air pressure is at the level we require, we release the reed, which begins to vibrate. The analogy is with a garden hose, controlled at the 'business end' by a valve (or a thumb). The water pressure is constant after the tap connecting the hose to the water supply is turned on.

Personally I usually find this less satisfactory, because I dislike the artificial feeling of the air pushing against a non-vibrating reed for such a long time. Also it is possible to achieve effects of any subtlety as we articulate notes in quiet dynamcs only by using a combination of tongue and diaphragm, or diaphragm alone.

Still, using the tongue alone can be useful, though it seems ironic that this less flexible method is the one that is most commonly taught. The 'hosepipe' method is in fact the special case of the 'bow plus cleanup' method in the limiting case where we don't use support.