 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: asheekad
Date: 2006-07-28 18:30
hello!
i am in a high school marching band (although, i'm only in grade 7) and we are playing "SHEHEREZADE" for marching band. the tonguing in all 3 movements is EXTREMELY fast and i just needed to know if anyone had any tips on how to tongue that fast and maybe even how to move my fingers that fast! hehehe......it is the real piece, but has been cut down quite a bit so that we could play it. any help would be greatly appreciated!
thank you!
asheeka
Post Edited (2006-07-28 18:33)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-07-28 19:24
There is no quick fix or magic bullet for achieving both rapid tonguing and fast technique.
As long as your tonguing is being executed correctly (and your teacher can assess this by watching and listening to you), start practicing NOW at a speed you can play clearly and neatly - hearing every note perfectly. After a week, increase the tempo by one or two metronome clicks.
Do the above EVERY DAY, without skipping any days.
Chart your progress - after 6 months, you will start to see the first differences in your speed.
Final thought: Everyone has an inherent finite point of progress. Eventually you will "hit the wall" and not be able to go any faster.
Work hard (every day) to sustain that final speed.
Need faster tonguing than that? investigate double tonguing...GBK
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2006-07-28 20:40
Focus on tonguing groups of notes rather than individual notes. For example, try tonguing five notes (1 2 3 4 1, or 1 e and a 2 if you prefer... a beat of sixteenths that ends on the next downbeat), thinking of each note as a new event to tongue. Now try it, thinking of it as a group of 4 that ends on a fifth note.
If, then, you have a whole bar of sixteenths, you can eventually go from thinking of them as four individual groups to one big group of four groups of four groups.
To get this actually going, it helps to think of each note within a grouping as leading toward the next grouping. For the 1 2 3 4 1 example, the 2, 3, and 4 should all be thought of as moving to the next 1. To pull off a full bar of sixteenth notes, the same can be done with the four big groupings.
If the emphasis is put on "attacking" each individual note, it is very easy to lose mental traction with the pulse of the music. A good deal of the time, the sense of "not tonguing fast enough" is actually a symptom of the tonguing going slightly out of phase with the fingers, which is quickly compounded.
These techniques are better at aligning the tongue and the notes, at which point you may realize that you can tongue faster than you thought you could. For increasing stable tonguing speed in general, though, I'd go with GBK's advice.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Brian Peterson
Date: 2006-07-28 23:06
How long do you think it will be until we see a marching band arrangement of the Quartet for the End of Time?
Just wondering....
Brian
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2006-07-28 23:06
Might be a good time to start developing double and triple tonguing. Charles Neidich contends that anyone can do it. Unfortunately I waited until my later years to work on this and it has taken me some time to build up technique. Still it is invaluable even in basic classical literature (Beethoven 7, Midsummer's Night's Dream, Mendelsohn Italian etc).
Just keep in mind the "kas" will always sound worse to you than the "tas" but this difference is much less so from the perspective of a listener. Start by getting comfortable in the chalameau and work your way up. I still don't have much of an altissimo but there's still time!
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: FDF
Date: 2006-07-28 23:26
Ask yourself, in the time allotted to accomplish this amazing feat, how am I likely to succeed? Are my fingers faster or my tongue? Will the audience notice that I'm behind in my fingering or my tonguing? What am I best able to accomplish? Can I achieve good fingering hitting all the notes at the correct tempo, or will I be able to tongue each and every note? What will be heard? Also, ask your band director, "What do you prefer, all the notes, or correct tonguing? Of course, you want to achieve both tonguing and fingering, one will lead to the other. Assess your abilities and proceed from there.
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Author: asheekad
Date: 2006-07-29 01:53
thanks to all.....the problem is that i ahve to ahve this piece memorized in two weeks....ugh! good luck to me on that! i will practice my hardest these enxt 2 weeks, but don't think it will happen.....and yes, we did only get the music today.
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