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Re: tonguing high notes

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-08-22 20:05

samsmash wrote:

> I've recently noticed whilst practicing arpeggios that the back
> of my throat moves when I start to tongue high notes or notes
> in the altissimo register...

I'm not clear where in the clarinet's compass this starts to happen. You say "high notes or notes in the altissimo register" so I'm not sure whether you're reinforcing the meaning of high notes with further description or you mean that the problem begins somewhere lower than the altissimo - I'd guess somewhere around A5 (1 leger line above the staff).

I have a student who, when he began lessons with me several weeks ago, scooped attacks on everything above the altissimo break. I'm nearly certain that it happens because he's moving his tongue so far that it forces his throat to pull open in the same way you do when playing the Rhapsody in Blue (or any other longish) gliss. He succeeds now most of the time in starting altissimo notes cleanly just by not moving his tongue so far and *not letting the inside of his mouth change* between registers. Whether or not it really does, or even must, change is beside the point - he had been doing in such an exaggerated way that the sound and pitch became completely distorted at the beginning of each affected note.

He has no evident problem with tonguing below the altissimo range. I don't think he could be doing the same thing anywhere on the clarinet without some audible effect on the sound quality. So I'm fairly certain (without a camera to actually see what he's doing inside his mouth and pharynx) something made him start exaggerating the tongue movement particularly for that register, maybe as an antidote for what he heard (or someone told him they heard) as thinness above C6. Anyway, he'improving. It will take him some time - old habits die hard, especially bad ones.

Karl

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