Author: Liam Murphy
Date: 2008-01-30 01:30
Thanks for the replies,
Tobin,
Thank you for your contribution to the thread.
In a way, I am happy that you have encountered a case similar to mine, and was wondering if you tried to get your student to change her tonguing? My instructor certainly did, however he liked how I was playing, and indulged my technique after a while.
I should have changed my technique earlier than ten months ago because I foresaw its limitations, but was reluctant to abandon such a "successful" technique.
Clarijen,
It's great to have heard what you said. My response to your question of the transition from (1) to "conventional" tonguing:
When I first gave "Conventional" tonguing a go, it was, as you say, most unpleasant. However, I found that when you kept an open mind about it, and persevered for a few weeks, the results were very pleasing.
The "conventional tonguing” problems that I ran in to:
Speed: At first, my single tonguing was INCREDIBLY slow, circa 80bpm eighth notes! Nevertheless, it gradually built up to a relatively quick speed as I mentioned in the original post.
Clarity: In the beginning, the initial attack of the note was "spitty" and lacked the instantaneous transition form silence to sound, with a husky prelude to each staccato. This disappeared after a while, within the first few practice sessions in fact.
Co-ordination: I think there is a small difference between the muscular movement to perform a (1) attack, and a "Conventional" attack. The result was tonguing between fingered notes, and creating a strange out-of-sync feel to each set of tongued notes. This also disappeared after a while.
"Intonation": I can't think of a better word right now other than intonation, what I mean is: Prior to most upper clarion and altissimo register notes, I would inadvertently performed a "Scoop", or other pitch slides, upwards to the intended note. In a way, this was the hardest problem to overcome, actually, no one really does overcome the problem, everyone mis-hits a few notes and scoops into them. Sufficed to say, my "conventional" tonguing amplified this phenomenon.
Embouchure: My embouchure had to be slightly modified to accommodate my new tonguing style; I will explain my necessary modification: less of my bottom lip needed to be covering my lower teeth. For some anatomical reason my tongue was incapable of a clean or comfortable attack with my old embouchure.
If you are tonguing in the same way that I used to, I do recommend that you try to change your tonguing style. I have found the "conventional" style to be more fast, clear, easy, and less restricting on my abilities. It took me a few years to actually take the plunge and "fix" my tonguing, and I feel that I should have done it earlier and not have procrastinated so much.
Good luck, and give it a go.
Arnoldstang,
They way in which my old (1) tonguing style differed from "Anchor tonguing", is in the fact that my tongue never got close to the reed at all, and definitely did not make any contact with it.
My own instructor is, to this day, certain of me being guilty of anchor tonguing, however the descriptions that I've read, do not seem to exactly fit mine.
"Brushing the tongue side to side on the reed" my friend does this very quickly, around 180 sixteenths, but it admittedly lacks much tonal power or clarity for him. When I attempted this, I could only get a few notes in a row before my tongue refused to repeat the movement anymore.
soggyreed,
I've read David Pino's book, and Keith Stein's for that matter, but must have over looked this detail, can you give me a page number?
What you say about Italian reed set up, I find to be very interesting, and I will research further.
Tobin, Clarijen, Arnoldstang and Soggyreed,
Once more, thank you for replying to this topic
-Liam
Post Edited (2008-01-30 04:12)
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