Bloomin Untidy Musician

G,daye.

After many years of struggling with fast single tonguing, i have finally decided to take a more intelligent strategy than spitting more air through it, and see what the professionals think.

The tonguing technique i use is the one adopted by most british brass banders e.g. the arban tu method, and it can achieve a comfortable semiquaver speed of around 96. I can play 2 beats of semiquavers at a top speed of 120, and a single beat at around 132. In british terms my single tongue is an Austin Allegro (old 1970s british banger ), and not the Ferrari of your goodselves. Firstly, could you recommend any trumpet method books that concentrates on articulation.
Secondly, can you recommend any strategies for speeding up my single tongue.
Finally, what is the speed of your fastest comfortable single, double,and triple tongue?

rowuk

There will probably be tons of controversial posts here!
My take on speed is that you have to reduce the force of the attack and the motion of the tongue to increase speed. A very light de-ge-de-ge can be much faster than a forceful Tu-Ku-Tu-Ku. Practice very softly!!!!!!!!
You do not need any specific book to practice multiple tonguing, you just need to practice articulation DAILY 15 or 20 minutes and after 6 months, you are hell on wheels! Scales, intervals, whatever you have is good enough!

My single tongue gets thick with 16ths at about 132-136. The double tongue at just over 200 and my triple tongue (sextuplets) currently are only about 124-132 but increasing as I started the beginning of December to work on them again.

Hags888

I'm going to divulge a little bit of my inner evil by saying this...but I'm huge fan of heavy metal...and singing along to that stuff has done wonders for my multiple tonguing. Those guys play SO FAST that in order to sing along and "keep up"...you have to multiple-tongue the passages!

Kind of a strange way to practice multiple-tonguing I know, but the point is...you don't necessarily need your trumpet to practice. While you're driving, or showering or in some other solitary space, sing out loud your multiple tonguing passages. It will help build your tongue strength and dexterity.