Re: Re: Re: Single tongue speed


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Posted by Chris B on December 03, 2003 at 21:31:38:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Single tongue speed posted by Roger Lewis on December 03, 2003 at 08:42:58:

I have been genetically blessed with a very fast single toungue. My double tonguing sucks as a result because I almost never use it. Having read the idea here, I focused on what I did and I do just put my tongue in place then let the attack "blow" it out of the way. Maybe this will help. I don't know why my single is so quick. I have thought about it for a while and don't have any words of wisdom, other than the fact that I do what Roger suggests. I know I have experimented a lot with placement on minimizing movement and just using the tip to create the seal to keep the air stream back. For years I had my tongue between my teeth and I have moved it back a bit to improve the quality of the attack.

One thing to try. Can you easily flutter with just the tip? And have you tried vocalizing away from the horn what you are trying to do inside the mouthpiece. I find that by using a sounnd rather than whispering, it seems to feel more like what is needed when playing. The flutter thing also seems to train the tongue to relax enough to be free and then produces a faster single. Wiht just the whisper effect, I find the back of my throat constricting, which would not be good for playing. A low vocal sound kind of forces the throat to remain open. This is probably not a good thing to do while riding public tranportation unless you are trying to get people to give you a lot of room :).

In reading all the posts, there seems to be a thread of using notes in a duple pattern. I'm not convinced this is the best approach. I think 3 or 4 in a row are more realistic. One can easily get a good "bounce" with duples that disappears when 3 or more in a row are encounetered. You may wish to start with 3s instead of 2s here. Just a thought.


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