[Elecmuso]

I've been working on Confirmation and Donna Lee - they are my first attempts at real bop tunes (I'm familiar with them since I play them on piano - well at least I used to).

They are great to test and improve my technique, but I am not up to speed yet.

So I was wondering, how can I use tonguing (or not tonguing) to help get the speed up? Should I tongue every second note, every note that starts a phrase, or avoid tonguing wherever possible if it helps? What about 'ghost tonguing' (saw mention of this in another thread).

Also are there other tricks / fingering etc. to help on these tunes? Actually I find Confirmation harder which surprised me because I considered that a less difficult tune on piano.

By the way I'm playing Tenor.

Cheers

 

[ekdowlin]

In bebop, you usually want to tongue on the off-beats

 

[Henry D]

Articulation- tonguing or not and how and where one effects it- is a stylistic choice*. On the off beat, on the beat, every note, starting a phrase, accentuating a change, hard, soft... you can listen to others and emulate them- perhaps, as many do, "copy" them. You can analyse and seek advice as to what the school solution is for how one ought to sound.

In the end though, you want to bring your own conception of the sound to your playing; to bring the sound in your head out of the horn. Where and how you tongue is part and parcel of that.



*(Double/triple tonguing is an exception to this, being a technique to allow clean articulation in rapid passages where single tonguing wouldn't be fast enough. The use would presume that you'd already made the choice to articulate all the notes and now it's just a question of being agile enough.)

 

[cosmosis]

I'd try no tongueing at all until you get the melodies down. Maybe just use tongue when you need it to keep the notes coming out (start of phrase). I can't think of much tongue needed on either of those heads anyway (mho)

 

[Pete Thomas]

It's fine to play bebop all legato, though a light tongue on the first note of a phrase is obviously a good thing. Also a little tongue to "kick" a final offbeat of a line (doobedoobedooDAT)

Slurring (legato) is preferable to sloppy tonguing, however if you find you can tongue a bebop tune, then bebop tonguing is definitely OK, though as I said, only at tempos where you can actually do it nicely.

I find the use of bebop tonguing (alternate offbeats) is handy, because you can get a swing feeling without having to exaggerate the triplet (long/short) feel of 1/8 notes (aka quavers). In this case you can still give the first note a tongue, and give the final offbeat note of a phrase an extra kick (accent and staccato possibly)

Ghost tonguing can be good, but only where it works, e.g. repeated notes

If playing a unison with another horn, of course it makes sense to decide on a plan to keep your tonguing the same or similar. having said that, a bit of looseness in this regard can work, but I think it's best to be able to be tight before opting for looseness.

 

[piwikiwi]

You tongue the down beats and accent all the relatively high notes in the phrases with an extra push of air, even if they are on the down beats.

This is how most people do it. Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon also ghost a lot of notes. You kind of dampen the reed with your tongue. I don't really know when they do it but you can slow down a recording of them playing it to hear it.

and then there is double tonguing, Johnny Griffin and Sal Nistico use that all the time.


Charlie Parker - confirmation
Dexter Gordon - confirmation
Johnny Griffin - mil dew

Also you mentioned ghost tonguing. It's kind of a mix between ghosting a note and tonguing it.

 

[Elecmuso]

Thanks all. Lots to consider.

 

[cosmosis]

disregard my post. played through them and I use a lot more tongue than I thought, light however. I never think about it I guess. Maybe just try to focus on the sound of the phrases coming out the horn. Good luck