 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: A Brady
Date: 2009-07-09 18:49
A new student came to me a few weeks ago who is going into 5th grade next year, and has been playing clarinet (but no private lessons before) for a year or so.
He gets a pretty nice sound, but had no real conception of breathing, finger position, embouchure, or tonguing. While teaching him the fundamentals of articulation (keeping the air going, tip to tip, etc), I asked him to try (on the mouthpiece and barrel alone) to tongue several notes in succession. He immediately proceeded to multiple tongue at an incredibly rapid rate, followed by asking me, "is that right?"
Understandably, the tonguing is uneven, as he is really just getting the idea, but the sheer speed has got to be up around 16th notes at 200 bpm!
Has anyone ever experienced this before in a young (or any age) student? I certainly haven't, and am wondering about the best way to proceed. Multiple tonguing is so challenging on single reed instruments that I wonder if he has some sort of physical characteristic or trait that enables him to do this so effortlessly.
Any thoughts?
Alan Brady
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2009-07-09 19:57
Wow...any idea exactly how he's doing it? There are a couple of different possibilities.
What I usually find in students of that age who have had no instruction is that they typically do not use the tongue at all, but their throat. They do some sort of air-glottal-stop thing by starting and stopping the sound from their throat, as if coughing.
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Author: Gretchen
Date: 2009-07-09 21:49
I had a 7th grader this year who could double tongue because their teacher was a horn player and mentioned to her brass players during band class that they should play with "tuh kah tuh kah"...I suppose she didn't hear that it was only for brass players. She took it up, and can now do it quite easily. I was pretty impressed! She can't single tongue very well at the moment, but we're working on improving that, while keeping her skill for double tonguing up.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-07-10 14:12
>>It's easy if you can do it, practically impossible to do if it doesn't come naturally.
>>
I have a pretty strong hunch, though unbacked by any scientific evidence, that a lot of kids could double-tongue instinctively if teachers didn't warn them in advance that it's a difficult technique.
Same with a lot of other stuff. My band teacher, whose own first instrument was clarinet, taught the whole beginning band clarinet section to play back and forth over the break in about five minutes, without ever using the phrase, "over the break," and without ever suggesting there was anything difficult about it. He taught all fingerings the same way: he told us; he showed us; he invited us to copy what he did. When a new kid who took private lessons joined the band and expressed shock and awe that we were "already playing over the break!," I think we all stared at him as if he'd suddenly sprouted donkey ears.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-07-10 16:23
** side to side ** can't be learned. You either have the ability to swing your tongue from side to side really quickly, or like 99.99 % of the population can't.
Regular Double or Triple can certainly be learned, though isn't something that is very easy at all to get really good at.
Can be helpful though!
I think it's a lot more popular now than ever. Back in 1988 when I was talking to the Clarinet Soloist of the Navy Band John Coulehan, he told me that he was the only Clarinetist in the band who could double tongue. I was a bit surprised that was the case - would bet there are several now that do it.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2009-07-10 20:06)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-07-11 13:19
The kids parents are lucky; they can give him a tin cup and rent him out for birthday parties.
Bob Draznik
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