“Starting” notes with the tongue

ByBret Pimentel

There’s a common misconception about woodwind articulation, that notes somehow “start” with the tongue. So, how do you start notes with your tongue? Does your tongue somehow strike the reed, making it vibrate? Try it, I’ll wait.

Hit that reed with your tongue as hard as you like, but I suspect nothing will happen until you add air. The truth of the matter is that air starts the vibration—the tongue actually stops it.

photo, Evan Long

So why use the tongue at the beginning of a note—why not just start the air? Try it as an experiment. Starting from zero air pressure, very gradually add air. You will probably hear air noise first, and then tone. Can you predict precisely when the tone will kick in? Using the tongue allows the note to be “released” after sufficient air pressure is in place, avoiding the airy and unpredictable note beginning.

Thinking in terms of the tongue releasing the note rather than kickstarting it leads to more efficient, controlled, and subtle articulation.

Similar Posts

  • Woodwind technique and conservation of energy

    ByBret Pimentel

    That people prefer to move in energetically optimal ways has been established for decades and now represents a central principle of movement science. … Energy optimization may also occur over the course of a lifetime, as years of experience could allow people to learn the optimal way to move in familiar situations and allow training to tune physiology to be more economical. An additional hypothesis—one that underpins many modern theories of motor control—is that people can adjust their movements to continuously optimize energetic cost.

    Selinger, Jessica C., Shawn M. O’Connor, Jeremy D. Wong, and J. Maxwell Donelan. “Humans can continuously optimize energetic cost during walking.” Current Biology 25, no. 18 (2015): 2452-2456.

    I certainly see this phenomenon in my own woodwind playing and teaching. How many times have you encountered these?

    • More resistant notes failing to respond because there’s just enough breath support for the less-resistant ones
    • Embouchures losing their shape, reverting to a neutral/normal mouth position
    • Voicing, such as the high, cold-air voicing needed for clarinet playing, or the low, warm-air one for flutes and double reeds, lapsing into a medium, luke-warm state that negatively affects tone, pitch, and response
    • Pitch sagging at ends of notes as breath support peters out

    These are often addressed by teachers as “habits,” which may be true, but they may also be fed by the brain’s capacity—and priority—to micro-optimize our muscle use to conserve energy. No wonder they are difficult to overcome! Patience and persistence are necessary to train our bodies to put the right amount of effort into playing our instruments.

    A factor in this is establishing a suitably high bar for success. For a beginner, the only question might be, “did a sound come out?” For a slightly more advanced student, it might become, “did the correct approximate pitch come out?” A more advanced player might examine the precision of the pitch, the quality of the tone, and the immediacy of the response, among many other factors. It takes a relatively low amount of energy to meet the beginner’s threshold of success, but potentially much more for the advanced player’s.

    Additionally, this intentional use of greater energy resources must be managed carefully to avoid its misapplication, which can result in excessive tension.

    I find that when I am playing at my best balance of efficiency and effort, an hour of playing a woodwind instrument leaves me feeling like I have done some light exercise; I’ll feel the mild and pleasant fatigue of having taken a walk or reorganized a bookshelf. Serious tiredness or soreness are warnings that I’m overusing my body. (Your results may vary depending on your physical capabilities.)

    Be in tune with your own body as you play, and teach your students to be in tune with theirs, so that you’re in the sweet spot of working hard enough but not harder.

  • Improvisation and doubling

    ByBret Pimentel

    An important factor in improvising fluently (such as in a jazz context) is a collection of vocabulary. Broadly defined, this could include rote-memorized “licks” plus all kinds of other material: scale- or arpeggio-oriented patterns, for example. With improvisation, you don’t have the luxury of practicing your solo note-for-note; instead you have to develop a large pool of available material, and learn it so well that you can mix and match it on the fly.

    Photo, fantail media
    Photo, fantail media

    If you double on multiple instruments, the vocabulary pool isn’t really portable. You can bring your improvisational ideas with you from instrument to instrument, but you won’t be able to execute them smoothly unless you have put in the practice hours on each instrument separately. If you are doubling, say, saxophone and flute, you might find that the fingerings are similar enough that you can make a few things work, but it’s too easy to paint yourself into a corner, or to catch yourself using “close enough” fingerings that really aren’t, or to play with unsatisfactory tone or intonation. To do it right, and have the colors of multiple instrumental voices available to you as an improviser, treat each instrument like it’s your only one.

  • Don’t say this to your beginning oboists

    ByBret Pimentel

    Here is a version of a handout I provided recently to graduate students at the American Band College, a summer program for school band directors.

    Band directors, don’t say this to your beginning oboists:

    • “Shh.” As a university oboe teacher, I routinely meet young oboists who play like they are terrified of making a sound. They often report that in their school band experience, every time they play the director gives them “the hand.” Playing softly on the oboe (or any woodwind) is an advanced technique. If you possibly can, encourage your beginning oboists to make big, resonant, confident sounds. Defend them from classmates who compare them unfavorably to waterfowl. It will pay off when you have a rock-star oboe soloist, with a glorious, ringing sound, for your high school wind ensemble.
    • “The oboe is really hard.” There’s a pointless myth that the oboe is at or near the top of the list of “hardest” instruments. Like any instrument, it has its own learning curve. But it’s quite manageable for a motivated student. Don’t give them unnecessary reasons to stress over it.
    • “Take this fingering chart home and figure it out.” Of course ideally all your students would be taking private lessons, right? But the oboe has a few unique quirks, like its fussy and delicate reeds, that really heighten the need for some specialist instruction. If you possibly can, get your beginning oboists in touch with qualified private teachers ASAP.
    • “Lip it up.” “Tighten your embouchure.” This is bad advice for any woodwind instrument. It’s a band-aid solution for flat pitch, buzzy tone, or squeaks. A good oboe embouchure is almost no embouchure at all—the lips remain pretty close to a neutral, non-oboe-playing position. (Do allow the corners of the mouth to come inward, and the lipstick part of the lips to roll in over the reed a bit.) Solve pitch, tone, and response problems with a relaxed, light embouchure, powerful breath support, correct voicing (low, “oh” vowel, warm air), and good reeds (preferably handmade and/or adjusted by the student’s private oboe teacher).
    • “Check out this oboe player on YouTube.” Listening and watching is a good thing, for sure. But be cautious about who you recommend: there are various “schools” of oboe playing in different parts of the world, that value different tone ideals and use differing posture, embouchure, and reeds. Generally the American-school players value a silky-smooth, relatively dark tone, and use a posture that keeps the oboe at around a 45° angle to the body. If you hear a livelier, brighter tone and see a more trumpet-like instrument position, that may not be the model you want for your young American oboists. (All the regional oboe sounds are lovely and valid, but oboe sounds from other locales should be presented with some context.)
    • “You can’t march it.” You’re absolutely right that oboes do not belong on the marching field, and your oboists should find some other way to get involved. But please encourage the oboe as a worthwhile pursuit for young musicians. It has a noble history and repertoire, is sought-after by university music department scholarship committees, and will bring something special to your concert ensembles.

  • Why doesn’t my new mouthpiece work?

    ByBret Pimentel

    So you bought a new mouthpiece! How exciting. But wait—it’s not playing as well as you hoped. Maybe it squeaks, or some (or all) notes don’t come out very well, or the tuning is weird. Let’s consider some possible reasons why:

    • First, it’s always a good idea to review the fundamentals of tone production: breath support, voicing, and embouchure. Those things probably didn’t really change when you got a new mouthpiece, but maybe the old one was more forgiving of some weaknesses in your technique, and the new one is revealing those issues.
    • A new mouthpiece is likely to require a different reed than the old mouthpiece. Try some harder or softer reeds and see if your results change. In general, a mouthpiece with a larger tip opening tends to like a softer reed, and a smaller opening works better with a harder reed. But it’s more complicated than that, and the only way to really know which strength, cut, brand, etc. will work best is to try them out. (Some mouthpiece makers do suggest reeds that go well with their mouthpieces, but your results may vary.)
    • Also: even if your new mouthpiece is compatible with the reeds you have been buying, ones that you previously used on the old mouthpiece may have kind of molded to the old mouthpiece. Try some fresh ones.
    • Not all mouthpieces are created equal, even mouthpieces of the same brand and model. This can be due to hand-finishing or other manufacturing variables. It’s possible that the one you got isn’t as good as the one that your friend or teacher or favorite professional player uses. If possible, it’s worth trying several before you pick one. And especially with older or used mouthpieces, they can warp or otherwise change shape in small ways, and that can change their playing characteristics and ability to mate well with a reed.
    • Let’s consider one more hard truth: if you bought a mouthpiece never having played on it (or at least one like it) before, you may have picked something that just isn’t going a good match for you. It’s easy to get caught up in the promises in advertising copy or on product websites, or to assume that your favorite player’s mouthpiece will be suited to your equipment and playing style. Some mouthpieces are made for extreme or unusual reed choices, embouchures, or playing situations, but most players benefit from a relatively middle-of-the-road mouthpiece. And, of course, some mouthpieces just aren’t as good as advertised at all. Your best bet might be to return or sell the new mouthpiece, and invest instead in lessons with a good teacher who can either guide you in a better-informed purchase, or help you get the results you want out of a mouthpiece you already have.

    A good rule of thumb is that a mouthpiece can’t give you skills, talent, or creativity. It can only remove, or add, obstacles to tone production. Pick a mouthpiece that makes it easier for you to do what you do, and get some help from a qualified teacher if needed. Good luck!

  • David Liebman on not doubling

    ByBret Pimentel

    Living jazz icon and soprano saxophonist David Liebman discusses his decision to abandon his doubles, even other saxophones:

    There comes a point in an artist’s life that he or she must be objective and identify the strongest aspects of their work. After the first flush of talent and success with all the dreams and desires accompanying that stage, there naturally comes a point in development where concentration of energy becomes necessary and one can see that with increased focus greater gains may be realized. … I realized that in a given set of an hour when I played all three instruments it resulted in very few actual moments spent on each horn. It had always been clear to me that one of the most important aspects for attaining a high level was achieved by pure and simple instrumental virtuosity. The only way that is accomplished is by the sheer amount of man hours spent with the horn in your mouth. And that means ONE horn, because though the tenor and soprano belong to the same family of instruments, they are different in many ways. It was clear that the only way for me to advance further was to concentrate energy on one or the other horn.

    Read the whole thing at Mr. Liebman’s website.

  • Should I buy something new?

    ByBret Pimentel

    Changing your instrument, mouthpiece, headjoint, reeds, etc. on a frequent basis isn’t productive, but sticking with the same equipment forever isn’t a virtue either. Here are some questions to ask yourself (or a trusted teacher or colleague) when you start feeling the itch to spend money on shiny new things:

    • Does this new equipment make it easier or more comfortable to do what I do? Or am I hoping it will magically endow me with abilities I didn’t have before?
    • Does this materially improve some concrete aspect of my playing, like intonation, response, dynamic range or finger movement? Is it an improvement that is more subjective, fleeting, or malleable, like tone quality? (Tone quality isn’t nothing when purchasing woodwind gear, but it’s not everything, either.)
    • Does this really change how I sound? Does it change how it feels to play, physically? Does it change how it feels to play, emotionally? (All of these can be valid reasons to change, but it’s worth sorting out what’s really changing.)
    • Is this new equipment appealing in some way that is more about appearance or cachet than playability? Is that worth the investment to me? Would I be sacrificing some playability for bling factor?
    • How did I come to desire this particular item? Was I influenced by advertising, celebrity endorsements, a commissioned salesperson, an internet stranger, or someone/something else that might have motivations separate from my success? Was I happy with my current setup before I learned of this product’s existence?

    If you’re currently a student, be sure to check in with your teacher before any new gear purchase!

2 Comments

  1. This article has me thinking regarding my playing. Guilty! Could you add diagrams (side view) to help me visualize where my tongue should be in the oral cavity at the beginning, middle and end of the note played.
    Also (big ask) could u add some recordings so we can hear contrast examples of the same note accented incorrectly (flat) then correctly accented.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments that take a negative or confrontational tone are subject to email and name verification before being approved. In other words: no anonymous trolls allowed—take responsibility for your words.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.