 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: salzo
Date: 2010-01-20 16:36
How do you do it?
When I was in college, everyone would say "Just roll your Rs". Well, I could never roll my Rs. A friend of mine was a speech therapist, she would try and casually show me how to do it, I could never get it. I get by doing it with a kind of "grrrrr" in the throat. It sounds OK, but I would never get up and play the Berg five pieces. Flutter tonguing is not something I have to do all that often, but I did play the Eb part in the Ravel piano concerto last year, and I really sweated on that one(I kind of squawked on the first one, but after that I survived-barely).
The other night I was driving home, and somehow I was rolling my Rs! I have never been able to do that, but it was working that night driving home in my car. For a half hour I rolled away, very excited that I finally figured it out after forty years. Of course, when I picked my horn up the next morning, I forgot how I was doing it the night before. As I am typing this post, I am trying to do it-I think it is in the memory hole.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-01-20 17:04
I've always been able to roll an R and flutter tongue as long as the note involved isn't above a G5 or so. My problem has always been sustaining the roll. Sometimes in a piece that needs a long flutter I just have to re-start it. It has a great deal, I think, to do with where your tongue touches the roof of your mouth. Another player once told me it needed to be back farther on my hard palette, but when I tried it I couldn't roll (or flutter) at all, suggesting to me that it must be a fairly individual location related to your tongue length. I find that my tongue needs to touch close enough to the front of my hard palette (very near my upper front teeth) that it's awkward to do it with the mouthpiece in a normal position, so I sometimes have to take less mouthpiece to provide room for the tongue roll (which is mostly why I can't do it much above the staff - I don't have enough reed in my mouth to produce anything higher).
In a pinch, if I can't make a legitimate flutter work, I hum along with the notes - a pretty standard jazz technique you probably already know that produces a growl effect. It's not a flutter, but most of the time it's enough of a distortion to get by.
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-01-20 17:45
This is a technique that many players have trouble learning. I believe the proper way to do it is to pull your tongue back a bit in your mouth and then roll your tongue as you mentioned. I can do it very easily without a mouthpiece in my mouth but once I try it with the MP nothing happens. I believe that is the way flute and brass players do it. Of course they don't have anything inside their mouth getting in the way. I can do a pretty good job flutter tonguing with my throat. If you've ever gargled then you know the technique. As a kid, when I had a sore throat, my mother had me gargle some kind of solution to kill the germs, or something like that so I've been able to transfer that to my clarinet playing. It is difficult to do in the altissimo register but I don't recall having to do that and often I do have to begin the note first and then begin the flutter in a higher note. Just like learning how to gliss, you have to practice it over time a little each day until you start to get the nack of it.
If you've never gargled try doing it with plain water, once you get it down apply it to your playing. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: salzo
Date: 2010-01-20 18:39
Knotty- No it isnt. She is discussing and demonstrating a rapid tonguing technique. Flutter tonguing is an effect that sounds, well, like fluttering.
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Author: USFBassClarinet
Date: 2010-01-20 22:37
I would advise taking a quick trip to the sax on the web forum. I did a search there a few months ago about it and some pretty good things turn up.
Post Edited (2010-01-21 00:28)
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Author: lj
Date: 2010-01-21 00:15
Say words like "ladder," "butter," "better..." (with an American accent rather than a British one), and feel where your tongue hits the alveolar ridge behind your front, top teeth. Repeat this a few times. This is where the "rolled r" takes place. If you put a little air into it, you'll roll your 'r's' or flutter your tongue. Hope this helps--I'm more of a linguist than a clarinetist!
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2010-01-21 12:15
Also being something of a linguist, my flutter tonguing technique of choice is to roll an R french style at the back of the throat. I fully accept that there is more than one way of doing it though and I would also agree that to be able to flutter reliably takes quite a lot of regular, if brief, practice. If you just want to learn out of interest try a few every time you pick up your instrument. If you are learning a particular piece, like the Berg, I find you need to practise it in context regularly over some time.
Have fun though and try not to stress. I think that relaxation is also a very important part of the technique!
Vanessa.
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Author: grenadilla428
Date: 2010-01-21 17:00
Aha!! So glad!! I, too, have a hard time with this technique (even with rolling my R's just in speech), so I substitute with gargling in the throat... and always feel guilty about it. Good to know that other fine musicians gargle, too! :-)
While we're on the topic of "extended techniques," I find double-tonguing rather difficult with the mouthpiece. It's more the stoppage of air on the "k" than the actual coordination. Thoughts?
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Author: srattle
Date: 2010-01-21 20:07
I think it's good to have both methods under your belt, if possible, as they produce completely different effects.
The rolling R version can be much more aggressive and also much more clear.
The gargling version seems to sound more like regular playing with a little bit of 'flutter' in the sound.
I generally prefer the rolling version, because I think most composers writing flutter tongue in a piece, want something a little more clearly differentiated.
I also think learning a rolled flutter tongue can be a big help to the embouchure. I find that naturally the pitch wants to drop a bit with this kind of flutter, especially in the throat tones, so learning how to keep the muscles strong enough to hold the pitch.
Also, just learning how to make a nice, stable sound with flutter tongue is also good training for the normal tone. I often do some flutter tongue scales in my warmup routine.
P.S. I also find flutter tonguing on A, B, and C above the staff very difficult. D and higher is again no problem though. ..strange
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Author: grenadilla428
Date: 2010-01-25 01:00
Following reading this thread, I tried working on flutter tonguing again, and find that it feels like there's not enough room in my mouth to allow the tongue to flutter with the mouthpiece. Anybody else feel this way? Is it likely just a perception from the standpoint of one who is struggling with this technique, or is it possibly a real physical issue? (Dentists have complained that my mouth is small and thus difficult to work in.)
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2010-01-25 01:38
Practice with a large oral cavity. As you are fluttering reduce the cavity size. Then try starting with a small cavity. No difference in difficulty. Then apply this to the clarinet.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2010-01-25 02:03
When I flutter tongue or roll an R, I find that I have to anchor the back of my tongue on the top molars.
Also, my tongue goes "off center"; I anchor more on the left side than the right. I have tried anchoring on the right side, but I can't flutter as easily.
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Author: rfoot
Date: 2010-01-25 21:19
I'm currently learning Widaszek's Capricious Miniature, and that needs flutter tongueing, but I just can't do it! I've been trying for 6 months, but nothing. I can't roll my "r"s, so that avenue can't be used. What makes it worse, is that in that piece there is a whole bar of what is meant to be flutter tongueing. Infuriating, that's what it is.
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Author: elmo lewis
Date: 2010-01-25 23:11
Fluttering is easier to learn if you use a double lip embouchure. Once you get the hang of it then go back to the regular emb.
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2010-01-26 02:13
If you can't flutter without a mouthpiece in your mouth it doesn't matter whether you use single or double or triple lip embouchure......
Freelance woodwind performer
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