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Re: Anchor Tonguing

Author: Anonymoose
Date: 2018-11-06 05:56

Hey, thanks for all the great responses.

To kdk,

Yes my teacher is a clarinetist, and he also just told me to keep working at it, slowly transitioning to the point that I can use tip-to-tip comfortably. I'm not being coerced into switching, it is my own decision. I also find that it sounds better tip-to-tip.

Even though the subject of this post is "anchor tonguing", I am not actually anchoring my tongue to the back of the bottom teeth. It maintains a form without pushing against the teeth. I am not sure what tonguing with the middle of the tongue without pushing against the bottom teeth is called.
I'm attempting to change due to various reasons:

One is because I find that the longer the practice session, the angle of the clarinet in relation to my body gets larger (aka closer to a right angle than an acute angle) because the larger the angle is makes the contact point between the reed and my tongue closer. This results in a rather less focused tone (in my opinion, because the clarinet is further away from my body kind of like jazz playing), but the articulation gets easier and lighter.
I can't seem to raise my tongue in a way to still use the middle of the tongue without choking my sound.

Two is because I do find that my tone improves, and my tonguing is cleaner if I use the tip of the tongue. I find that if I develop this, I can use this to create more colors in my sound as well as various different articulations.

To Bob,

Oops my bad, I meant 16th notes at quarter = 130.
I've watched some tonguing videos by Charles Neidich's on the PlayWithAPro website. It seems that he tongues lower on the reed because the tip is thin enough to buckle against the stroke of the tongue and also because of the various partials. I see the logic in that, and also what you posted about raising the reed above the mouthpiece to hit that "sweet spot". I'll experiment.

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