Beginner Tonguing Question

2548 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Pete Thomas, Jan 23, 2012

PaulGH

Discussion Starter · Sep 6, 2011

Hi everyone,

Since I can't see into people's mouths, maybe somebody can explain to me a tonguing problem I'm having. [Before we get into it, my first lesson is in 3 weeks. Until then, I'm trying on my own to get as much basic stuff as I can to at least a beginner level.]

On my baritone sax, the mouthpiece is big and it gets pretty deep into my mouth. To tongue it at all, I'm been anchoring my tongue to my bottom teeth and arching up to catch the reed tip. This also catches the roof of my mouth, and I know that I have the air pressure behind that tongue wall. When I do this, I can get a (relatively) clean start on demand across the range of the baritone.

This seems to be a lot "more tongue" than people call for. It completely stalls the airflow behind my tongue, but that seems to work. Yet, when I read or listen, everyone says that you don't need to seal off the saxophone. If I don't seal off the sax, however, I'll get that "breathing into a saxophone noise" and the tone starts whenever it feels like it.

Should I continue to use this tonguing method, as I suspect I should, or is there something I'm missing here? Do you hold the air column back with your tongue as you enter a note, or is there a timing issue I need to perfect to coordinate the arrival of the air column and the removal of my tongue perfectly?

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Pete Thomas

· #2 · Sep 6, 2011

PaulGH said:
Should I continue to use this tonguing method, as I suspect I should, or is there something I'm missing here?

I wouldn't do that. I would try taking in less mouthpiece so you can tongue the notes without arching or anchoring etc.

PaulGH said:
Do you hold the air column back with your tongue as you enter a note, or is there a timing issue I need to perfect to coordinate the arrival of the air column and the removal of my tongue perfectly?

The air pressure should be constant, it's only the tongue that stops it from entering the reed, like turning a tap on and off when there is a constant pressure in the water pipes.

The pressure of your lungs/diaphragm should be constant, and your throat should be open so there is actually nothing that possibly can stop it except your tongue.

Once you have developed a stronger diaphragm there are other techniques, but the above is wha is best for beginners, IMO.

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Pete Thomas

· #5 · Jan 17, 2012

brandenq188 said:
You never want to tongue an instrument with the fat, middle portion of your tongue. Always tongue with the very tip of your tongue,

Good advice, but not always possible to use the tip, depending on the size of tongue and architecture of your mouth, but at least try to get as close as possible to tip of tongue/tip of reed.

davinci said:
He also taught me to imagine that I have a very large neck with lots of airflow.

Yes, visualisation can play a very important role. Imagine your lungs being enormous as well.

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Pete Thomas

· #7 · Jan 23, 2012

PaulGH said:
First, I took my teacher's advice to heart and ignored tounging until I had (within reason) gotten my pitch stable and

I would not call that good advice. The rest is good.

PaulGH said:
My next battle is keeping the second octave G & G# stable (every other note from top to bottom is within 3 cents when I'm fresh, but G goes way sharp and then prefers to growl between octaves or jump to a higher harmonic. A harder reed immediately fixes that, but I'm still working on my chops for playing anything harder than a rico orange 2.5 consistently)

If a harder reed fixes this issue, then it's not a fix, just a shortcut. You shouldn't need to use a harder reed. I would try pushing the mouthpiece on a bit further and relaxing your embouchure. If you can play overtones, see how well they match up to the octaves, i.e. does low B overtone = B2?

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