 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: christian_comeau
Date: 2006-04-25 00:50
Hi,
I'm not sure if I "tongue" right...indeed I tongue as much with air as with my tongue....
I tried to do it with a constant air and only with tongue strokes: it works but I can't do much articulations
Must I re-learn everything?
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Author: Tyler
Date: 2006-04-25 02:40
Do you have a private teacher? That's really one of the only "sure" (usually) ways of knowing these kinds of things.
The air should rarely stop at any point in a phrase, regardless of the tempo, note lengths, or articulation marks within the phrase. For most articulation work, your tongue will make the difference by being lightly placed on the reed to stop its vibrations (for various lenghts of time), even though there is still air pressure behind it. For accents and such, "pulses" of air can be used in conjunction with a regular tongue stroke.
In a tongued, staccato passage this is what happens: the first line is sound which is alternately present and not present due to the reed being permitted to vibrate or being prevented from vibrating. The second line is what the air pressure should be:
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The places where the air pressure is still there but there is no vibration of the reed because of the tongue being placed lightly on the reed near the tip may seem unusual at first. And for me, if I'm using enough air pressure, I can often hear a note wanting to almost speak even though my tongue is on the reed.
The concept of constant air pressure is similarly applied to most other articulation styles, with the exception of perhaps the staccato-legato marking, where a slur is drawn over the notes but there are also the staccato dots above/below the notes.
Keep this all in perspective though. Never tense up. Articulation is nowhere near as important as relaxation, air pressure, or embouchure.
Hopefully this all made sense; it's been a long week already! hehe
-Tyler
Post Edited (2006-04-25 02:41)
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Author: christian_comeau
Date: 2006-04-26 00:37
I used to "push" a short amount of air before every detached note.
I now try to only move my tongue...but that's the thing I'm not sure of.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2006-04-26 06:20
We a masterclass about tonguing with Robert Spring couple of weeks ago. He told us something that really gave me hope!
He said he has one student who is a very good clarinet player, but her staccato was just horrible. It came to a point when she told him she just don't know what to do anymore. This really reminded me of myself. Robert Spring told her that they are going to stop working on single tonguing and try double tonguing. After a while of working on double tonguing her single tonguing got so good she now can do it faster than most of his students!
I took that advice and started working on double tonguing. Although my single tonguing is still pretty bad, I found that it is much easier for me to keep a good tongue position when double tonguing than when single tonguing. If I try single tonguing even at a very slow speed of 16th at 80bpm after just a few bars my tongue automatically does something that I heard is called anchor tonguing. So what I did is try to double tongue no matter the speed, and it works so much better!
The most important things that I found in both single and double tonguing are, first to keep the air going just as if you were playing legato, and second to keep a high tongue position.
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Author: JessKateDD
Date: 2006-04-27 14:09
I recommend:
A Clarinetist's Compendium, by Daniel Bonade (chapter three covers tonguing)
It is a Leblanc publication, costs 3 dollars, and is widely available.
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Author: Tavis the Repertoire Guy
Date: 2006-04-28 09:32
Try not to even think about tonguing. Think about keeping a strong and steady air flow, a relaxed playing position, and think about maybe one of these:
1. Think of one taste bud tapping on the reed.
2. Think of taking the tongue away from the reed rather than the opposite.
3. Don't think about it at all. Let it come naturally, sometimes thoughts physically impede your technique.
Hope this helps.
Tav
Email me if you want to be in the mailing list for my clarinet repertoire collection.
Post Edited (2006-04-28 12:48)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2006-04-28 14:01
I heard some strange sounds from the saxes last night - they were only breathing out as they were tongueing so it sounded like a hi-hat coming in before the beat as heard on a '70s disco track!
I think I need to take them aside to show them how it's done properly.
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