Tag: tonguing

Using Different Sounds as a Practice Motivator

Using different sounds is a great motivator for anyone who needs to run through something multiple times, but can’t get themselves to play something more than once. I know that I’m guilty of only playing through everything once!

What do I mean by using different sounds?

Depending on the instrument, you could think about it as experimenting with different ways of playing it – 8va, different tone colors, play loud, play quiet, etc.

I will give examples below for each instrument that I teach.

Electric Piano

It’s probably the easiest to change the sound on an electric piano. You just push a button and it sounds like an organ, a harpsichord, or even a brass band.

You should see the way kids light up when I tell them that they need to use their pieces to help them decide which sound effect they like the best. When they come back the next week, the parents tell me that they went through their pieces 3-7 times per day. Woohoo! Grown-ups can have that fun experience, too.

Acoustic Piano

When my oldest daughter started playing the piano, she loved to practice every piece in every octave on the keyboard.

She started with the bottom octave, moved up to the next octave and played the same piece. Moved up to the next octave. So on and so forth until she got to the top octave, then started over on the process with the next piece.

I’m not saying you have to be that meticulous, but you could do it a couple octaves down or a couple octaves up, just to hear the tone color change. That would be a grand total of three times through.

Flute

When I was in college, I was the piccolo player. I would practice everything on both instruments. My fingers were faster on the piccolo, so sometimes I’d work things out on that instrument then switch to the flute. That would be one option for using a different sound, if you have a piccolo. 🙂

Flutes can change our tone color at the drop of a hat. I wrote about that more in detail here. Why not use that to our advantage? You could try that rhaspy, airy tone that the Irish use on the flute for almost a percussive instrument. Try playing the piece in every tone color of the rainbow, one at a time, and decide which one you like.

All Instruments

Using different sounds as a practice motivator has a lot of different applications for any instrument. Here is a short list of different options, feel free to add to the list.

  • Volume – ff, f, mf, mp, p, pp
  • Emotion – try playing it sad, happy, angry, etc.
  • Articulation – staccato, legato, marcato, accented, etc.

Seriously

I’ve mentioned a few things that serious musicians do to create their own interpretation of the music – dynamics, tone color, emotion, and articulation. They experiment with how they want to play a phrase to get their message across in the best way.

Using different sounds might be a great practice motivator because it’s fun. It’s also serious work. If fun doesn’t motivate you, maybe discovering your interpretation of a piece will be motivating for you.

Conclusion

Everyone likes to experiment with different sounds on different pieces. It not only makes kids light up, it also has a really good purpose. Sometimes that purpose is to convince yourself to, “Play it again, Sam.” Sometimes it helps with your interpretation of the piece. However it helps, don’t be afraid to experiment. 🙂

The Basics of Tonguing

There are two common problems with tonguing – one for beginners and another for late-intermediate students. For the beginners, the lesson book says to say, “tu,” in order to tongue. That’s not always clear to everyone, especially the over-thinkers.

For the late-intermediate students, they find their tone fuzzing out here and there whenever they’re doing a lot of tonguing. Here’s an explanation that will help.

Everyone’s Anatomy is Slightly Different

Based on your personal anatomy, you might want to place your tongue in a different place in your mouth than someone else would for their tonguing. Everyone is different. You need to find the optimal place for your tone and ease of playing. It’s all about your personal choices and needs.

What Not To Do

There are three things that won’t work with anyone’s anatomy. They’re glottal tonguing, tongue curling, and the “TH” tongue.

The first incorrect tonguing technique is to do what’s called a glottal tongue. This is when you bring up the back of the tongue to make a seal at the back of the mouth. This a correct technique for double-tonguing, but not single tonguing. The back of the tongue doesn’t work as fast as the front of the tongue, so you’re holding yourself back by doing the glottal tongue. It also makes the mouth smaller at the beginning and the end of the note, which can fuzz out the tone.

Another incorrect tonguing technique is to curl your tongue back into your mouth. At the beginning of the note, the tongue blocks the airflow through the mouth and fuzzes out the tone as the tongue comes back down. Also, it’s a lot of extra work for the tongue, so it makes tonguing go slower.

The final incorrect tonguing technique is to do the “TH” tongue. This is to place the tongue at the bottom of the front teeth, creating a “th” sound. This creates a sloppy articulation sound and makes it impossible to make a nice, crisp staccato.

Unfortunately, your teacher can’t look inside your mouth to make sure you’re not doing these things. You may be so good at your preferred tonguing technique that your teacher can’t hear that you’re doing it incorrectly. This is why I made this short list of what not to do. I’ve encountered each of these issues over the years.

How to Find your Optimal Tonguing Spot

Step 1: Brace the sides of your tongue against your top molars. This seals the airflow to go forward, through the embouchure.

Step 2: Feel the roof of your mouth with your tongue. There will be a flat portion right behind the teeth, then it will curve up into a bowl shape.

Step 3: Place the tip of your tongue where the flat part meets the bowl. Play four quarter notes in a row, tonguing at that point.

Step 4: Place the tip of your tongue slightly forward from the point in step 3. Play four quarter notes. Is the tone better? How does it feel?

Step 5: Keep going forward, bit-by-bit, comparing your tone and feel with each spot, all the way so that your tongue goes between the lips (Marcel Moyse liked that spot for playing Bach).

Step 6: Choose which spot sounds and feels the best, and use it. The sound is more important than the feel. If it feels awkward, you’ll get used to it.

If you’re having a hard time doing the above steps, start with step one and two, then skip to tonguing between the lips as described in step 5, and go backwards through the different points in your mouth that are described in the steps.

Your first time going through this process, you may want to have someone listen to you and help you decide what sounds good. It’s a good idea to have an extra set of ears sometimes.

When to Do This

For a beginner, this process is for the over-thinkers of the world. Musicians tend to be just that, so it’s pretty common to go through this process with new musicians.

It’s also pretty common to go through this process in late high school or early college, as the first step to perfect your tonguing technique. If you went through this process as a beginner, you’ll still want to do it when it comes up later on in high school or college. Your embouchure has matured and your tonguing spot may have changed.

Conclusion

After I used this process (I was in the older category), there were a few spots that worked well for me because they provided different sounds and still had a good tone. It’s good to have options, and it’s also good to have a favorite spot – something automatic and reliable.

Work on your favorite spot first. Make it automatic and reliable. Use articulation studies and tongued scales. You can expand from there. It will serve you well.