daiv wrote:
fintan vallely describes 5 types of irish articulation:
tonguing with a t
tonguing with a k
glottal tonguing (which is with your throat, different than a k)
taps
cuts
using the air pressure as you described to separate notes
Going back a few years to when I started on flute....
The "t" was what seemed natural and easy, because I grew up with it on clarinet and sax - but on wood flute didn't seem to produce a pleasant or smooth start to the note. Then I read that "nobody" in Irish trad tongues on flute. So back to the drawing board....
The "k" tonguing was easy, but makes a KLUNKY sound, and hard to do very smoothly and/or fast - just my experience. So maybe I'll use it occasionally for special effect.
Tap, cuts, diaphragm huffing all were easy to pick up, but appropriate only in certain passages or phrases.
But the glottal stops (and starts) - I used to think...."what are they doing? How am I ever going to learn that?"
Then one day I realized I _already_ knew how, and had actually been doing it since childhood... every time I whistled a tune! Same deal. Produces a much nicer start to the note.
And for extra emphasis on a given note you can combine it with increased diaphragmatic (actually abdominal) pressure to help "honk" the note.
Denny wrote:
yer man left out the hardest one.....burps
I thought burps were for getting semitones. (try it)
My wife is a classical player who never warmed up to tonguing. She's been doing glottals on the sly (I don't think she told me till we'd been married 10 years) for over thirty years. As long as she didn't tell her teacher, the teacher never complained. She makes them sound like she's tonguing.
As has been said, if you can make it sound right, that's fine. And by sound right, it's not just the sound of the articulation itself but how the music flows around it.
I read a transcript of a Baroque music workshop recently in which a teacher goes through seven different types of tonguing in Baroque music. And that's tonguing, not articulation, so glottals and K's don't count. These vary from huge big accents to subtle actions that don't stop the airflow, from flicking the tongue on the soft palate to sticking it almost on the teeth. I think having a bag of tricks like that would benefit anyone playing any music, but taking the time to learn them may very well get in the way of your learning the essence of the music you want to play. IOW, rather than learning to make a tongue sound like a glottal, why not just learn the glottal?
Charlie Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
Lar wrote:Going back a few years to when I started on flute....
The "t" was what seemed natural and easy, because I grew up with it on clarinet and sax - but on wood flute didn't seem to produce a pleasant or smooth start to the note. Then I read that "nobody" in Irish trad tongues on flute. So back to the drawing board....
The "k" tonguing was easy, but makes a KLUNKY sound, and hard to do very smoothly and/or fast - just my experience. So maybe I'll use it occasionally for special effect.
Tap, cuts, diaphragm huffing all were easy to pick up, but appropriate only in certain passages or phrases.
But the glottal stops (and starts) - I used to think...."what are they doing? How am I ever going to learn that?"
Then one day I realized I _already_ knew how, and had actually been doing it since childhood... every time I whistled a tune! Same deal. Produces a much nicer start to the note.
And for extra emphasis on a given note you can combine it with increased diaphragmatic (actually abdominal) pressure to help "honk" the note.
Just my 0.02.
Thank you, Lar.
Bob
Come to the edge/ It's too high/ Come to the edge/ We might fall/ Come to the edge/ And we came/ And he pushed/ And we flew!
Guillaume Apollinaire
chas wrote:I read a transcript of a Baroque music workshop recently in which a teacher goes through seven different types of tonguing in Baroque music. And that's tonguing, not articulation, so glottals and K's don't count. These vary from huge big accents to subtle actions that don't stop the airflow, from flicking the tongue on the soft palate to sticking it almost on the teeth. I think having a bag of tricks like that would benefit anyone playing any music, but taking the time to learn them may very well get in the way of your learning the essence of the music you want to play. IOW, rather than learning to make a tongue sound like a glottal, why not just learn the glottal?
Makes a whole lot of sense to me, Chas, thanks.
Bob
Come to the edge/ It's too high/ Come to the edge/ We might fall/ Come to the edge/ And we came/ And he pushed/ And we flew!
Guillaume Apollinaire
Listen to what Seamus plays on the CD-rom and try to match his playing. Don't think about T's and K's. Get the feel for the tune, get the rhythm and play it with as powerful a tone as you can master. Rythm first, then ornamentation (and no classical thinking here), and then speed.
Björn wrote:Listen to what Seamus plays on the CD-rom and try to match his playing. Don't think about T's and K's. Get the feel for the tune, get the rhythm and play it with as powerful a tone as you can master. Rythm first, then ornamentation (and no classical thinking here), and then speed.
This is really good advice, thanks, Bjorn. There is a wealth of solid guidance in this thread.
Bob
Come to the edge/ It's too high/ Come to the edge/ We might fall/ Come to the edge/ And we came/ And he pushed/ And we flew!
Guillaume Apollinaire
Does anyone have Video/sound files to demonstrate the different effects. Vallely describes the K thing as a "ch" which is a bit softer sounding than "k". Im new to the flute world.
One little thing that kind of irks me: when you make a K sound (such as when you make the "ku" sound when double- or triple-tonguing), it's not actually a glottal stop, but in fact a velar stop. A true glottal stop is what you hear in place of a "t" when someone with a Cockney accent says the word "bottle." The almost cough-like plosive sound favored by some Irish flute players is more likely a uvular or perhaps pharygeal stop (or possibly voiceless fricative, depending on whether you fully obstruct the airway or not when doing it...), but I seriously doubt if many flute players out there are really making any articulations that are genuinely glottal...
Tell us something.: I have a keen interest in wooden flutes (modern and antique), early music (Renaissance, Baroque), Romantic music and Irish Traditional Music of course! I also play the clarinet (my first instrument) and I've also started learning the cittern.
The Sporting Pitchfork wrote:The almost cough-like plosive sound favored by some Irish flute players is more likely a uvular or perhaps pharygeal stop (or possibly voiceless fricative, depending on whether you fully obstruct the airway or not when doing it...)
I don't want to sound pedantic, but it is physically impossible to articulate a pharyngeal stop.
My understanding was that constriction in the uvular/pharyngeal region was particularly harmful for the sound, on any woodwind
Putting whether it is "harmful to the sound " and the question of what the correct phonetic/physiological descriptive term may be aside (and I do think it is advantageous to use a correct description, which clearly "glottal" isn't), if one is seeking to explain, demonstrate or teach the technique used by many ITM players, or indeed just establish for one's own satisfaction what is going on, try the following:
Whistle - perfectly ordinary lip whistling - get a good sustained sound on one note going. Then put the tip of your thumb and forefinger gently to the sides of your "Adam's Apple". Now whistle a few different notes, perhaps part of a scale, not changing notes too quickly and trying not to "articulate" them at all. To do so and not just glissando you will have to use small diaphragm/abdomen "huffs" to stop and start or slightly accent the airstream: you should not feel anything at all with your finger and thumb. (Edit: concentrate on keeping the whole airway, especially low in the throat, open and relaxed.)
Now, if you can (it isn't easy without practicing), do the same thing separating the notes with conventional "t" tonguing - you'll have to do it very lightly (striking the forward part of the roof of the mouth about 1cm rearwards of the teeth) or you'll probably "lose" your whistle tone: still nothing to feel at the Adam's Apple (but observe the other physical sensations in your mouth, throat and whole air column).
Next, do the same again with "k" and/or "g" articulation (again analysing what your tongue is doing in relation to your whole mouth structure and the airstream) - you should still feel very little at the Adam's Apple - maybe just a few shock waves.
Finally, do what probably comes most naturally (and which may have been difficult NOT to do in Stage 1), repeat your note sequence with the little low-in-the-throat throat-clearing coughlet for articulation that is what is usually mistitled "glottal" articulation - do it very gently, but you should clearly feel movement, or the shock waves of local movement, with your finger and thumb. If you place your finger tips lower on your throat, below the gristly protrusion of the Adam's Apple where there is a bulge (still part of the "voice-box"), you should also feel these movements there. In both positions, still also analyse the direct sensations of what is going on in your throat.
Incidentally, the last kind of articulation can quite readily be done whilst generally maintaining a relaxedly open airway for the purposes of supporting a resonant tone - the closures of the vocal chords to interrupt the airstream need not involve permanent tension or constriction of the tubes.
Additionally when whistling, you can for fun try them all "on the suck" as well as "on the blow"! Then go try them on your flute ("blow" only!).
Although I am not a proponent of this throat articulation to the exclusion of tonguing in ITM, and rarely deliberately use it, I suspect (from trying to monitor my own playing) that I actually use it quite a bit (or at least, a gentle, non-percussive form of it) and have always done so without really knowing it, as a kind of carry-over from whistling.
Hope that little exercise may be useful/illuminating! I'll be interested in any feedback.
Anyone for flutter-tonguing whilst whistling?
EDIT: since I wrote the above early this evening, I've been experimenting whilst driving around at work - I've concluded that a lot of the time it is easier to feel what is going on in the relevant part of the throat by touching with the finger tips rather lower than I said above - just above the hollow of the throat, on the main bit of the voicebox/pharynx, rather than on the gristly protuberance of the Adam's Apple.
Also, for the assiduous, it is interesting to make similar observations about what is going on in the mouth and the aircolumn when using any other variations of tongued articulation - all the Baroque "too-roo", "diddle", "duh-guh" etc. possibilities.
It's also interesting to try the fingers-on the pharynx observations whilst singing!
Last edited by jemtheflute on Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
I respect people's privilege to hold their beliefs, whatever those may be (within reason), but respect the beliefs themselves? You gotta be kidding!
jemtheflute wrote:Hope that little exercise may be useful/illuminating! I'll be interested in any feedback.
Thanks, Jem, this is a really great explanation, and the exercises you suggest really help to differentiate what's happening physiologically. I never thought my simple question would yield so much interesting information.
Bob
Come to the edge/ It's too high/ Come to the edge/ We might fall/ Come to the edge/ And we came/ And he pushed/ And we flew!
Guillaume Apollinaire
The Sporting Pitchfork wrote:The almost cough-like plosive sound favored by some Irish flute players is more likely a uvular or perhaps pharygeal stop (or possibly voiceless fricative, depending on whether you fully obstruct the airway or not when doing it...)
I don't want to sound pedantic, but it is physically impossible to articulate a pharyngeal stop.
My understanding was that constriction in the uvular/pharyngeal region was particularly harmful for the sound, on any woodwind
Oops. Quite right. That's what I get for posting without my IPA chart in front of me...And yes, it doesn't make sense that people would be articulating much from below the velar region, but I was seized by doubt that maybe it could be. My mistake.
