MahlerBrass

Mr. Laureano, I was wondering if I could receive some advice for the tonguing on the Royal March movement on this piece. I can't seem to get the quintuplets even or clean for the life of me, I've slowed them down and have tried a variety of different tonguing syllables. Any suggestions on how to play this excerpt, the articulation and/or some steps to achieve the goal would greatly be appreciated, I'm actually having some similar problems on Ravel's Piano Concerto but not as bad, tonguing does not seem to be my strong point in my playing, thanks a bunch!

Manny Laureano

Dear MB,

When I have had to play the Royal March I have used the following articulation for each set of five notes:

TKTKT

So it comes out thusly:

T T T TKTKT TAH... T T T TKTKT TKTKT TKTKT T tt Tah.

First try it legato and then shave length off the end to get the true staccato You should also know that conductors will ask for it slurred also. Be prepared to do either one.

Ravel?

Page 148 in the Arban. Loosen up the tongue and be able to play the whole page at 108 with 8 measures rest between each line. Next day, start the first line at 100 and increase each line by 1 tick of the metronome until you can play whatever your last one is ( after you've gone back to the top and continued like a loop) at 116 or beyond.

If you're tongue-tied, you're probably tightening your stomach when you blow making your tongue overarch and stiffen until it's immobile or too slow. Use a low syllable and float the air. Don't go for loud just yet; go for light and buoyant.


ML

MGTrumpet

FWIW -

I've always wondered about quintuples and why they cause so many problems. I finally realized that every time I ran into them, I subconsiously "stiffened" because I never knew how they really should feel.

Finally, I added them as part of my daily warmup routine. I wanted to make them feel as comfortable as four sixteenths. I started by single-tonguing quintuples on low C, one group at a time and going down to low F# and back up. The pulse was always on the first note and I just let the tongue "bounce" the five notes. Then I expanded to two, three, four and five groups of five on each note. First, I started slowly, then I worked for as much speed as I could get.

Once that became comfortable, I started doing the Clarke Second Study doing quintuples on each note. I found I had to concentrate on what note I was playing and had to get to the point where my body simply played the quintuplet without conscious thought.

Finally, after some time I'd pick my horn up and do some single tonguing practice to relax and have to stop to think what pattern I'd just played. When I was playing quintuples without thinking about it, I decided maybe I was finally getting more comfortable with them. Now, when sight-reading and running into quintuples, I don't tense up and feel more like I just play the phrase.

One of my favorite etude books (Albert Mancini's "Etudes and Caprices" - not a common book at all) that has lots of odd-meter etudes has one in 10/16 that is all two quintuples per measure. That is really fun to play. I also practice it with Manny's suggestion of TKTKT TKTKT.

Someday maybe I'll start on sevens, elevens and thirteens.