The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Meri
Date: 2001-11-09 18:58
My teacher tells me that when I tongue (especially rapidly, Kell 17, no. 4 for example), that there is an air pocket in my throat, which makes my tonguing not as clean as it should be. I have no problems with the tip-to-tip idea. Unfortunately, he only seems to know one way of teaching tonguing (this is not true in other aspects of playing) which does not work for me. We have ruled out embouchure and air problems.
Any ideas on how to make my tonguing cleaner, so that I can eliminate the air pocket? (I've already done the search)
Meri
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Author: Tilly
Date: 2001-11-11 05:23
Well it is true that there is the tip to tip technique, but i don't actually use this method. Because it's not the way that came naturally to me. This is what my teacher uses, and when she tried to teach me the finer details of tounging (using the tip to tip), we discovered that i was using one of 'the other' techniques.
What i do is I don't hit the reed with the tip of the tounge, my tounge hits the reed about a centimetre from the tip. (sorry if you don't understand centimetres) And my teacher said that is perfectly fine.
I hope that helps.
Tilly
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-11-11 11:47
Can you explain better what you mean by an air pocket in the throat? This is difficult to imagine and it actually sounds quite uncomfortable.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2001-11-11 11:49
If you didn't have an air pocket in your throat your throat would surely be blocked!
I have a friend who can stick his tongue out an extaodinary distance. He speaks rather indistictly as if he had a large lump in his throat. This seemed odd because because he has majored in linguistics. I asked him about his speech. He said it was because his tongue was so huge - not much room for it in his mouth/throat. That explained all, and he poked it out again to reinforce his statement. My point is that people may be very different in what is appropriate for them to do with the nether regions of their tongue.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2001-11-11 12:01
Air in the throat is indeed needed of course but what I am visualizing is some kind of "ball" of air rather like a squirrel with its cheeks full. Otherwise, why call it an air "pocket?"
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