 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ChopinLiszt
Date: 2015-04-08 21:26
Recently, both my teacher and I have become aware of jaw movement in my tonguing. I've stood in front of a mirror watching myself play, and the chin movement looks similar to that of a staccato bassoon articulation. When I speed up my tonguing (sixteenth notes around 115), the chewing motion goes away. The movement seem to worsen when I'm playing in the upper clarion and altissimo registers, when I play staccato, or when I play accented. Although it is more subtle when I play unaccented and mezzo forte, it seems I can only get it to stop moving when I legato tongue open G. When I speed up and shorten my tonguing, the chin bobbing reappears.
To my knowledge, I'm tonguing in the proper way, contacting the reed with the middle of my tongue, but I'm obviously doing something incorrectly. Do you have any ideas as to why I do this, and more importantly, how to fix it?
Thanks!
Matthew
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-09 00:22
Well, if you are using the middle of your tongue (which I would HIGHLY discourage) are you anchoring the tip of the tongue under the front teeth?
The 'correct' posture would be to use the very tip (more of a mental image because tongues are usually to thick to really have a tip) of the tongue and apply it to the very tip of the reed (if you are tonguing further back on the reed, moving up to the tip will cause you to feel the buzzing of the reed upon the tongue. This goes away in a week or two).
As I try to approximate what YOU say you do, I find the entire back of the tongue being forced to move in the process of tonguing. If you change from the middle of the tongue to the tip, you should find MUCH less effort involved and your jaw movement should immediately fix itself.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-04-09 00:23
See my posting from this morning and other good material at http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=422614&t=422614.
Work on keeping an absolutely steady airstream and using only the tip of your tongue. Any movement of larger and slower parts of your body (jaw, Adam's apple, diaphragm) slows you down.
Also, even for loud and percussive staccato, you need to put your tongue gently on the reed and then move it back to "release" the sound. You make accents with your tongue, but it's only by adding to the steady stream of wind that's always there.
Ken Shaw
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Author: TomS
Date: 2015-04-09 05:38
I had the same issue over 35 years ago ... no one told me this was wrong until I found a good teacher that "jerked a knot in my tail". My chin, cheeks, neck modulated all over the place. Primarily the problem was too much movement of the tongue during tonguing ... and just trying to compensate for bad notes due to bad instrument, MP, reeds, ignorance and emoting. Yeah, total lack of real professional training in early days caused a lot of grief ...
I know great professional players with advanced degrees in performance that still have this facial modulation problem. It's painful to watch them play ... but they manage to get by ... just brute power through their problems ...
Robert Marcellus said: "the chin should remain very calm ..."
Tom
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-09 06:38
er......
Accents are created by MORE abdominal pressure, air. As David Shifrin puts it, "the tongue is the damper, your air is the hammer."
Also SPACE (and or silence) before the note creates accent.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-04-09 10:07
While some bassoonists still chew the reed while tonguing, it was demonstrated long ago that jaw movement is not needed for tonguing the bassoon. Can you say "tee, tee, tee, tee" without moving your jaw?
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2015-04-09 16:12
Yes, Wes, I've always wondered about that too. I have very little playing experience on the bassoon, but I've seen many excellent bassoonists chew away.
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Author: TomS
Date: 2015-04-11 20:05
I think some chewing is normal on bassoon ... the teacher that enlightened me about reducing all my facial contortions, also taught bassoon. He stated that some movement is unavoidable on bassoon ...
Tom
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Author: willow129q
Date: 2015-04-13 03:02
It sounds like you are anchor tonguing. I used to do that, it was just how I naturally played when I started, and my jaw definitely moved around. Also if I see my students' jaws moving that's usually a tip off to me that they are anchor tonguing.
Anchor tonguing is when you hook your tongue on your front bottom teeth and tap the reed with the middle of your tongue - like you said you are doing. Basically if you can feel your front bottom teeth at all when you play, you're anchor tonguing!
I switched to tip-of-the-tongue in college because my teacher couldn't help me improve my technique otherwise. It took a couple of months at least, but I think it was a good thing, cleaned things up a lot.
As was mentioned above, some professionals do this, but I think it's somewhat rare. My argument for switching to tip-of-the-tongue is primarily that it will be difficult to find someone to help you overcome any hurdles associated with anchor tonguing. (And I don't think it's possible to not move your jaw with that method.)
Good luck
Post Edited (2015-04-13 03:03)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-13 05:50
willow129q wrote:
> It sounds like you are anchor tonguing.
>
> I switched to tip-of-the-tongue in college because my teacher
> couldn't help me improve my technique otherwise. It took a
> couple of months at least, but I think it was a good thing,
> cleaned things up a lot.
> (And I don't think it's possible to not move
> your jaw with that method.)
>
Well, one of my first private clarinet teachers was Leon Lester, who at the time was a member of the clarinet section (and bass clarinetist) of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Although he never used the name "anchor-tongue," that's the way he taught me to tongue. I don't think he had a problem, as a player in a major symphony, with faulty articulation or jaw movement. I'm pretty sure he didn't invent it, either, so he must have learned from other successful players. You *can* anchor without its causing problems with clean articulation.
Jaw movement, at its root, is caused (by definition) by excess movement. Sometimes the movement is caused when the tongue action is simply too aggressive and pushes the jaw down in reaction (since the mouthpiece can't move very far as it rests against the top teeth). Sometimes the movement is caused when the jaw clenches tightly at the beginning of an articulation, forcing the player to back it off to allow the reed to vibrate. In either case the distance and force of the tongue's motion needs to be corrected and the jaw needs to be kept in its ideal playing position (for producing a full tone) and not closed down for an "attack."
You can have a problem with jaw movement if you're tonguing tip-to-tip. You can anchor your tongue and not move your jaw. It's true that anchor tonguing is largely out of style among American players (I have no idea what European or Asian players do). It may be that more delicacy and, maybe, speed are possible with tip-to-tip than with anchoring. It may be that changing from anchor tonguing to tip-to-tip will make it easier for clarinet teachers who in the U.S. mostly don't anchor, to work with a student who is having serious problems with articulation.
But changing won't necessarily, certainly won't automatically, relieve jaw movement, and the change may be a waste of effort when a simpler fix is possible to calm the motion a given player is unproductively adding to the articulation process.
That the problem seems to go away when the articulation speeds up may be an indication that you're actually using better technique at higher speed and are overdoing the tongue movement or clinching when there's more time between notes to allow it. Articulation should be a brief interruption of an otherwise continuous air stream - you may be making too much of the individual notes when they're slow enough.
BTW, it isn't at all surprising that players who "tongue" tip-to-tip and don't normally anchor find it hard to produce clean articulation with anchor tonguing. I couldn't play clean articulation (or probably even produce a sound anyone would want to listen to) with the reed on top of my mouthpiece. But a lot of players in another era (and place) played that way very successfully.
Karl
Post Edited (2015-04-13 10:51)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-13 05:59
ChopinLiszt wrote:
> Although it is more subtle when I play
> unaccented and mezzo forte, it seems I can only get it to stop
> moving when I legato tongue open G.
So, in at least some circumstances you are able to tongue without jaw motion. The logical next step is to analyze what you're doing differently between those times and the ones where the problem appears. The difference, after all, between "legato tonguing" or long articulation and "staccato," by which I assume you mean short articulation, shouldn't be in how you produce the note, but how long you stop the reed with your tongue in between tones. The mechanics should ordinarily be the same for any articulation - long or short - on any note. Open G happens to be the least resistant note (possibly excepting A just above it) on the clarinet, so you may be reacting with jaw pressure to the resistance you encounter in other areas of the instrument. If that's happening, the motion may be a necessary release of the pressure to allow the reed to speak.
Karl
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