Bloomin Untidy Musician

Recently i heard about a school of thought based upon the single tongue making a "popping" type articulation. I am working hard on cleaning up my single tongue and this sounds an interesting idea. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

rowuk

BUM,
I think the more energy applied to tonguing, the slower it goes. The tongue only needs to barely interrupt the airflow, that does not take much motion (or generate that much additional sound). I think your time is better spent getting the tongue to relax rather than "popping". If you have the low energy version down cold, adding more force never seems to be a problem.

It is necessary to be very careful about "visualizations". If taken out of context, they can cause more harm than good. If you were taking a lesson from Rafael Mendez, and he demonstrated the "popping" sound, it would have direct application to YOUR playing AND his monitoring of the results. Someone else who read about that method could very easily get it wrong (something I run into a lot when teaching).

dogtre1

Hi I also am working on my tounging , I read a thread the other day, about a person haveing trouble triple tounging carnival of venice. the answer led to more questions for me . I was told that if you learn double tounging first the triple tounge comes easier. I use a tctt, for triple and tc for double, have I been doing it wrong all these years , please help

rowuk

Dogtre1,
as much as we all WANT to help, most of us that successfully multiple tongue (how many of us REALLY have the Carnival of Venice DOWN?) only know what helped us get there. If we happened to bring a bad habit to our studies, the prof worked with us first to break the habit and then replace it with one that has more chance of success. That is a personal bit that most often cannot be transferred.

There must be hundreds of posts here about players "working" on their tonguing. What does that mean? Can you K tongue at any reasonable speed? At what speed can you triple tongue PERFECTLY in rhythm? What warm ups do you do, how does your daily ROUTINE look as applied to tonguing. I find no difference in training double or triple tonguing, regardless of order. I start with a double tongue because that is more often required in various shapes and forms.

The serious side of tonguing is that this is a motion that is foreign to speaking or daily life in general. We have to practice this just like with a foreign language. Most of us get "fluent" in foreign languages after 5 years or so of DEDICATED study and use. My experience is that tonguing is no different. Except for my youngest beginners, that can develop awesome tonguing inside of 2 years (just like they can learn languages quickly), the older the student, the longer it takes to learn or RELEARN.

The current Nintendo Generation is used to downloading "cheats" to get through things quickly without having to learn the trade. There is no cheat for multiple tonguing. You start slowly with a metronome and train daily - it is critical that all sloppiness be eliminated immediately. Diligence and attention to detail speed the process up, making multiple tonguing especially tough for the DIY player without a good teacher.

Everything that you need has been said. You need a daily routine based on your abilities. That is impossible to perscribe without hearing you play.

Patric_Bernard

I dont know if your tripple tounging is based on 16th notes or not, but you might want to start using tripple tounging more for sextuplets/triplets. If anythings in 3's or sextuplet feels, i'd use tripple tounging, if its 16th or anything like that, Double. Its just how you wrote the tctt. I personally use ttk, just because i learned it from arbans.

tomba51

That might be Jerry Callet's method of "spit buzzing", where he wants you to "pop" the notes. On Forum: trumpetherald.com there is a forum devoted to Callet's teaching.

Tom

Ed Kennedy

Check out Leon Merian's Trumpet Isometrics. He taught that the air is "turned on" (backed up behind the tongue) and the tongue functions as a valve.

Try a set of piano staccato 8th notes (about 120 metronome) on a middle G lasting an entire breath. Make each note pop, make them consistent. He talked about the pop consisting of "mouth air," not forced at all.

Bloomin Untidy Musician

Thanks gentlemen. The info is very much appreciated. Unfortunately when i did have lessons i never spent much time on articulation, and it's different colours.