rowuk

Patric,
with t and k you have no air flowing and therefore no sound. ooh and ah are the just vowels to visualize what the tongue is doing. You better not be singing any note into your horn. Vocal chords that "sing along" or grunt while playing can make your sound very dirty!

Tooh (Tu) is the most open and is used by Arban and other masters as the preferred articulation to start with. The variations later for a more legato do not change the vowel setting, only the consonant at the beginning. Other consonants are d, g, l, and r. If you check out doodle tonguing, you will see that the OOH is also very prevalent in the jazz world too.

If you check your anatomy, it is really tough to change the size of your throat. You can change the tension on the outside all the way down to the shoulder muscles and that is what most people perceive as "constricted" or open. It has nothing to do with an "open" or "closed" throat.

If you do what most people do when seemingly "opening" the throat, you are approaching a "yawn". Try it -yawn and try and then pronounce an AH - you will see how the tongue moves up and limits the airflow. Tooh on the other hand keeps the larger oral cavity intact.

I do not know where you read about this AAH stuff. I do not recommend working with that method in any case! It is simply wrong.

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Vulgano Brother

The tongue is a wicked organ, and the most powerful muscle (pound for pound) in our body. To train our tongue, we must make it tired in a relaxed fashion. My favorite exercise was to start with the Arban Triple tongue-exercises at a comfortable speed and play them straight through, one after the other, until my tongue sort of started to "stumble." I would then do the same with the double-tongue exercises. Near the end of the session it wouldn't sound so pleasant, but by the time I'd make it to the exercises that required coordination of fingers and tongue the tonguing was working.

Relaxation is important; by trying to tongue "harder" we'll just add unwanted tension. Letting the tongue "melt in our mouth" while practicing and going for cleanliness rather than forcefullness helps in the long run.

Coordination of the tongue and fingers can be somewhat speeded by watching our valves (and slamming those suckers).

Articulation is all about consonants, and whatever overall tongue position we have when slurring a passage should be the same as when we tongue, and vice-versa.

The cool thing is, that like the bicycle,once we get tonguing multiple tonguing "down," it will stay with us.

Have fun!

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Jude

Then why would the doctor say "Say AAH" when he wants to look at your throat? As for me, I can't (yet) hear any difference in the sound out the trumpet when using different vowels, but elementary linguistics texts show the tongue positions for various sounds, and "a" is a low vowel, "e" a forward mid-vowel/"o" a back mid-vowel, and "i" and "u" are high vowels (as determined by the level of the tongue in the oral cavity). How this relates to playing the trumpet I'm still trying to work out. As for singing, maybe in another lifetime.

Warren

Thanks for some brilliant advice. Glad to hear that what I'm doing is the correct thing. More or less at least.

Vulgano. Just a question on what you said about slamming the valves. I know this is the right thing to do, and it's something I don't always do: What is the logic behind this? Not being sarcastic, just want to understand the reasoning behind this practise.

Rowuk and Patric, some heavy conversation going on there. Thank you both for the insite from both sides. I'm far from being "educated" enough to be able to speak on the level you guys are, but personally I find that tuku works better for me than taka. Just doesn't feel comfortable.

Is it then recommended that I use double tongueing when practising my scales, even though I'll be doing it at an extremely slow pace to start off with? Or should I first get used to producing the right sound on the tuku before advancing to the scales?

dstrad

I prefer to use Dah Gah. The same syllabel for all pitches. No tu tee stuff.

Vulgano Brother

It's all about timing and our collective dim, dark past. All players, even Vulgani, were once beginers, and went through that period of not knowing what valve to push, If you get a chance, carefully watch the fingers of some new players. Sometimes the fingers will "dance" on the finger buttons before commiting to a fingering, then "pounce," and often the note is late, leading to a player being chided for bad internal rhythm.

As we get more "advanced", we will learn a nifty trick--by pressing the correct valves a tad bit more slowly starting before the next note we buy some time between the notes; the conductor will sense something not quite right, something clearly not professional, but the rhythm seems ok and the drummers in back demand more attention because they are, well, drummers, and we get just a smidgen more time to tongue or slur to the next note.

"Slamming" the valves reduces the time between strokes, making everything cleaner, and forces honesty on our part.

Hope this helps.

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ccNochops

Thanx VB, you taught me something today.........chuck

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rowuk

Warren,
the more you use it, the better it will get. Make sure that accuracy is at the top of the list. Tu and Ku must be very even in rhythm! No need to wait until tomorrow!

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Patric_Bernard

Yes... you should practice your scales and other passages double tounging. One thing that sets good players and Amature players appart is that the Pro's can double/triple tounge through passages and phrases of 16ths or sextuplets. Amatuers can only do it fast. Once you get the correct syllable down, go ahead and start carrying it on to you scales, starting slow as you said, and speeding them up as soon as you get it right and cant get it wrong.

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Warren

Great advice once again.

Thanks for the explanation Vulgano. I often found myself wanting to push the valves down slowly when playing legato, and then came to the amazing realization: There is no such thing as a "half valve", it's all or nothing. So that problem has been sorted out. Just gotta get used to "slamming those suckers".

Does anyone else find that resting the pinky in the pnky ring inhibits the use of their other fingers? I usually reast my finger on top of the ring.