OK, so I’ve been searching the archives on tonguing and have mainly learned that it’s a hot-button topic. But I really need help here, and am hoping to somehow avoid re-igniting the usual squabbles. The basic problem is my recorder background, causing my newbie whistling to sound just like a kid playing recorder. I started taping and listening to myself, and was just horrified at how toot-toot-tooty it sounded. Blecch!
To try to avert dissention, I’m gonna a leaf from the dieting thread, and set a couple of parameters.
Firstly, I’m not playing just traditional Irish music – I really like how old folk songs sound on my whistles, plus they’re easy enough that I can play 'em w/out getting too frustrated. And since music like this seems to call for a fair amount of tonguing, let’s start from the assumption that learning to tongue aesthetically is a valid pursuit. (I’m also practicing all legato w/ cuts on Irish music, but that’s (perhaps) beside the point just now).
Secondly, my particular brain is wired in a way that many people find excessively analytical, but that’s the way I work – whatever intuitive brilliance I may possess just doesn’t ever kick in until my left-brain has hashed everything over, and that’s the step I’m on right now. So this thread is for people who enjoy analyzing stuff and find doing so to be a valid pursuit, OK?
On to tonguing. I’ve read all the Tuh and Duh stuff, but it doesn’t speak to my experience because my D’s are actually articulated further forward and a bit more explosively than my T’s – I do D’s right at the roots of my front teeth, just behind where I do the Th in “the”. My T’s are actually further back, in the middle of the ridge behind the front teeth. Anyway, I find that both my “tu”'s and “du”'s sound too explosive for constant use when I listen to myself taped. I’m looking for a softer articulation.
To try tonguing further back, I’ve been using a Japanese style flicked R (“ra ra ra”), which I’ve always been clumsy at – it sounds OK when I get it right, but I can’t do it consistently (I’m practicing…). When I do it right, my tongue is flicking the very back edge of the ridge behind my front teeth, right before where the roof of my mouth curves upward.
And I’ve also tried also a light L (“la la la”), which sounds nice running up and down scales, but doesn’t sufficiently separate repeated notes. This L happens slightly forward of where the flicked R hits, but my tongue is “squishier” when I do it.
I’ve also been playing with articulating further back (I think this the “glottal” stuff I hear mentioned?). I seem to be much faster at doing “ka ka ka” than “ga ga ga”, For me, K happens at the very front of the soft part of my throat, and G happens a little deeper in. “Ka ka ka” feels quite comfortable, but “ga ga ga” kind of tires out my throat and makes it feel scratchy. Is there anything wrong with doing “ka ka ka”? It’s still a little harder than I’d like the sound to be, but less annoyingly explosive than using the recorder-style “tu” or “du”.
And if anyone does a good “du” tonguing, one that doesn’t sound as clumsy and explosive as my forward-articulated “du” – where is your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, and how is it shaped? By “shaped”, I mean is it pointed or relaxed or what? When I do T, my tongue is kind of pointed, when I do D, it’s kind of relaxed flat and wide, and when I do a flicked R, it’s sort of curled backward a bit.
So anyway, for now I’ve gone back to the very fronts of my tutorial books where it’s all nursery songs and suchlike, and I’m taping myself using different tongue shapes and positions on the same song (played over & over, sigh!), looking for something that sounds good and which I can also do without getting too frustrated. And going around practicing that blasted flicked R… I sound like an 8 year old boy during that annoying phase where they wander around making weird noises all the time…
Anyway, I want to get away from that recorder tonguing, and instead develop a range of tonguing or articulation modes, from distinct to almost imperceptible, to help me express musical statements with different feelings. I’d gotten so wrapped up in getting the fingerings for notes into my head that I wasn’t listening to how it sounded, so I want to rewind my learning process a bit and concentrate more on making things sound pleasing and expressive.
Any thoughts on this, descriptions of articulation methods, or suggestions of exercises to play with would be very welcome!
Noel
But really, you seem to be on the right track experimenting is the right thing to do I think.
For me, getting a soft attack means saying “Dah” with the tongue somewhere on or behind the ridge of the upper pallette, while maintaining a steady airstream, which means to support the air column a bit by slightly contracting the lower ab muscles as you control the outward flow of air. Do not stop or start the air with the epiglottis, unless you are looking for a special effect; which, I think, would be glottal tonguing and or glottal stops, ( the flute player in Jethro Tull sort of playing).
They can also sound mushy due to the way your cheeks control whatever air remains in your mouth when the stop happens. The primary reason for using tonguing would be for a sharp-edged short duration pause, which is much harder to get if you swap over to glottal stops.
At least we can say there’s plenty of room for disagreement!