Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-05-05 06:11
Caroline Smale wrote:
> The Taa etc occurs exactly when the tongue is "released" from
> it's resting position.
Well, the issue is whether the tongue is truly resting, or exerting some level of force (pressure) to hold the reed still while air presses up against it.
The release of the reed, in my intuitive understanding of all of this, implies that the reed has been held while an air column tries to move past the reed, which must require some positive muscular engagement, however small. So, when the tongue leaves the reed, it is either at that point relaxing or it is deliberately being acted on by whatever muscle opposes pressing against the reed - I assume both, just as the opposing muscles must do in any movement.
The difference, as I sense it when I concentrate on it, between spoken "da" and "ta" is in the amount of pressure - force - that the tongue exerts against the roof of the mouth just before it leaves and allows vocalized air to flow. Using images of those feelings to articulate a reed, there is, again in the sensations I think I feel, more initial pressure holding the reed still when an explosive release is formed ("Ta") than when a softer release is used ("Da"). I would say that a tongue that is completely at rest during the time the reed isn't vibrating is, by its passivity, unable to do anything to affect the reed and you would simply get a breath attack.
This is almost certainly overthinking the whole process by several degrees. We tend to do all of this on the clarinet the same way we learn to do it in speech - by listening and subliminally imitating what we hear. When we teach, most of us, I suspect, simply tell our students to make the articulation light - to "tongue as lightly as possible."
The original question had to do with using an image that is, I suspect, fundamentally impossible to simulate authentically on a reed because the vocal component of "n" (the nasopharynx has to open to let air into the nasal passages) is the main difference between "na-na-na" and "da-da-da" (or substitute an "i" vowel for the "a" if you prefer). Thus my comment that I personally can't imagine how "na" feels, but that if the OP can (he's working with a mental image, not a real consonant), and the result is what he wants, then it works for him.
Most of the rest of this analysis is far more esoteric than most players want or need to think about and some of it is beyond voluntary control.
Karl
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