| Eric, could you expound upon this a little bit more? Do you mean that it is feeling stiff the faster you want to articulate? I notice a lot of players will tongue harder and with more tension when the tempo increases. I advocate the opposite. The faster the tempo, the less insistent the tongue needs to be. A quick tempo already makes up for articulation so there is no need to accentuate it further. Relax a bit, ride on the airstream, and when increasing the tempo, switch from "ta" to "da" or "doo". When I was working up the Jolivet Concertino one time, I reached a temporary ceiling when executing the triple tongue part. With consistent work in a very short timeframe, that ceiling shattered and I was able to work it up to a faster tempo than marked. I always work up speedy tongue passages a few notches faster than marked so the marked tempo feels easy when performed. I hope this helps. |