Jimi Michiel

Hi Ed,

I'm on a Berio kick and decided to take a look at the Sequenza X. So my question, as you can probably tell from the title of my post, is what exactly is "doodle" tonguing?

Thanks so much,
Jimi


PS. While I was looking for a recording of the Sequenza, I stumbled upon a recording of Gut Nacht for solo trumpet. What an amazing little work!

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Tootsall

Go to: Video Clips | and watch and listen to Clark Terry giving a masterclass on just that topic.

Lesson #1

mahaberio

Jimi,

The Berio Sequenza has been my first experience with doodle-tonguing as well and I've had a bit of trouble smoothing it out as it always seems to want to fall into the groove of the (more natural) double-tongue.

This might be helpful, it's from a masterclass with the trombonist Conrad Herwig:

[The difference between double tonguing and doodle tonguing is that in double (and triple) tonguing, the rebound has a harder syllabic pronunciation. In doodle tonguing, the dominant consonant is also "d" or "t," but the rebound sound is "l," (actually, "ul"). When you combine these consonants with the series of vowel sounds, "a-e-i-o-u," it comes out, "da-dle, dee-dle, di-dle, do-dle, doo-dle."

You can practice this by continually saying each "da-dle," dee-dle," etc., four times in turn. I call it my "doodle tonguing mantra." This is a great way to utilize your time away from the horn. When I was a kid, I used to ride the bus an hour each way to school and I did this every day. Of course when we play, we're not articulating the syllables with the vocal chords. It's almost like a whisper. But this exercise helps the tongue become flexible.

For practicing doodle tonguing on the horn, Arban's is a really great book. A lot of the exercises that I used to start doodle tonguing were the same ones on which I practiced single and double tonguing. Start slowly, just five minutes a day, because you'll find that your neck and your tongue are not used to it and you can get overtired. You can actually become muscle-bound, at first.

Also, some people can doodle very fast, sort of like flutter tonguing, but control is a problem. If you can do it really fast, practice with a metronome and slow it down.

One other important key is to keep practicing your single tonguing. As fast as you can single tongue, you can doodle tongue twice as fast.

Practice combining doodle tonguing with single tonguing. I used to tape myself going back and forth: "duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh-duh, da-dle-da-dle, da-dle-da-dle, duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh-duh, da-dle-da-dle, da-dle da-dle." Then I'd listen back and see if I couldn't tell which was which. The goal is to have a consistency of articulation and execution. Practice to the point where you cannot differentiate between your single tonguing and your doodle tonguing.]

Hope this helps.

Off to work on doodle-tonguing,
Matthew

mahaberio

Oh,

Perhaps you could tell us a little more about Gut Nacht. Is is the one in the Tarr Fanfares-New Trumpet Music for Young Players book? I've been trying to get ahold of the book as it has some short, simple pieces by some very iconic composers (Berio, Birtwistle, Cerha, Feldman, Kagel, Ligeti, Rihm).

Jimi Michiel

Hi Matthew,

The best way to describe Gut Nacht, based on what I heard, is that it is Berio's very hip arrangement of TAPS. I've been looking around on the internet and I believe that it is in the book you mentioned, published by International Editions. If you find somewhere on the net that sells it, please post. It would be easy enough to transcribe from the recording, but I'd rather own the music.

Best,
Jimi

PS. Thanks for the info on doodle tonguing. This is going to be interesting...

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CGUM

This should be available from sheetmusicservice.com

At least that is where I picked up my copy. I think I searched under Tarr as composer. It does have some really nice stuff in there and pretty accesible for both performer and audience, IMO.

ciao,
CG

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Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

ecarroll

Jimi,

More on doodle tonguing when I have the time.

I played Berio's little piece to conclude a recital, shared with John Wallace, at the ITG Conference in Richmond some years back. It was performed from backstage and few in the audience heard it due to talking and screwing around in the hall. A pity.

I have it in the Tarr collection (UE) mentioned above.

In haste,
EC

Jimi Michiel

Sheet Music Service

Thanks, CG!

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