resonance approach

[baileyman]

This thing I call "the resonance approach" may be best understood in contrast.

It all starts with changing partials. As I have written before, there seem to be three basic ways to change partials. To go up, add air, tighten chops, or tune the mouth cavity for the next partial. Please let me know if there are other basic ways!) It is easy to demonstrate this starting from 3rd partial F to 4th partial Bb. A puff of air will take me up. Squeezing my lips will, too. (It's worth trying those right now.) But third, shrinking the mouth cavity can prompt the change.

I think I can hear players of these different styles. Lou McGarrity sounds like an air player. More and more volume up to 12th partial Eb. Stu Williamson when playing trumpet, too. The chop strength player may be represented by the horn player linked on a previous thread where he described how he used to play (how does one find old stuff here?). And I think David Vining may have been that type player beforehand also. I put my old self in that camp, too. It is quite possible to play by adjusting tension for every note and volume, but it is like doing chin-ups all the time. (And I'll bet that chop strength is probably a very common way to play, perhaps the most common.) I suspect in the resonance camp you would have both Fontana and Rosolino, as the sound is there, and the flowing technique that clearly is not work for them seems to point in that direction. On my phone somewhere is a Fontana quartet piece where he plays for a good ten minutes! The only conclusion I can make about that is the guy could not have been working hard. It had to be easy.

Hearing/feeling this resonance can be done with variations on long tones. I suppose one could find the mouth and chops posture(s) that create the most resonance on a pitch with a standard long tone. But tones that change are better. Intervals, scale fragments, arpeggios, all slurred and glissed with no tonguing. Slow, squidging the parts around and listening. The changing pitch forces adjustments to mouth volume, and changing partials is especially valuable to guide the parts toward resonant relationships. When I say "feeling" I mean both the memory of the posture of all the parts that makes for most resonance, but I also mean the very strange tactile feel on the tongue of a vigorously vibrating mouth volume. When that shows up, it is emphatic and bloody obvious.

Hearing the resonance can be greatly improved by using a practice mute or earplugs. It seems to be true that the most vibrant open bell sound is the one that creates the most head noise, and that appears to be when the system of mouth parts is tuned to a partial on the horn. Mutes and plugs help one to focus on the head noise.

The whole point of this is that adjusting the posture of mouth parts for a resonant pitch selects that pitch from all possible pitches the horn can play. It does not make the pitch, it selects it.

[imsevimse]

This thing I call "the resonance approach" may be best understood in contrast.

It all starts with changing partials. As I have written before, there seem to be three basic ways to change partials. To go up, add air, tighten chops, or tune the mouth cavity for the next partial. Please let me know if there are other basic ways!)

I don't think it is three different methods to change partials successfully if we consider we also want a good sound and easy playing and not only a change of partial. I think it is the good balance of everything you named and probably more that makes the ideal resonant result, and to me only the ideal result is whats worth to strive for.

/Tom

[Basbasun]

I do agree with Tom.
One of the most sensible thing said on TTF is " all tips on embouchure and breathing can be followed to the letter and just make things worse". Maybe a little drastic, but not much. Also, do good players (and teachers) know exactly what they are doing when they are playing beautiful music? High range? or low range? I do asy, most of them don´t.
There are many advice on the net (and was on TTF) concernning the lips for one thing that may work, IF LOTS OF OTHER THINGS ALSO WORKED!. The same with tips on jaw, tongue. Why do you think you can know how other players do when playing?
No one can play with just air. Just tighten your chops wont work for anybody. Just tune your mouth cavity will not make you cange partial. It is all combinations. And actually with more then three things to combine. Play scales arpegios long tones and listen to your sound, and love it!

[baileyman]

Resonant Single Tonguing

I think what I will describe here is well known and old hat to some. If it is to you, please talk about it, as I have not heard it from anybody.

Okay.

Remember above I described what can be done with the note played by the totally relaxed embouchure. Well, this is about the tonguing that can be done with the totally relaxed tongue.

Starting from a tongue having cut off a note, the air is trying to flow through, and it does, pushing the tongue open. If the tongue is totally relaxed at that closed position, the blowing open of the tongue introduces a compression (or tension, maybe both!) in its flesh that then rebounds toward closing again (oh, sure okay, the rushing air also induces a Bernouli low pressure suck...geez). The air then blows it open again. The tongue then rebounds closed. Etc.

What results is a reciprocating tongue motion driven by airflow. It is also a harmonic motion that operates in strict time. It is similar to the lip buzz, driven by air, but may be different. (The lip buzz is certainly a Bernouli phenomenon driven by low pressure in the aperture. The tonguing though seems different, more like a mechanical resonance. Think of a flapper valve closed by spring pressure. (Flappers are on toilets, but also early engines.) The air can blow open the valve, but then pressure is released and the spring closes the valve. This seems to me like the "other" buzz. You know, there's the kind that comes from lips held close together with air passing through, and then there's the kind that happens at the "other" end." You know, that rude sound?).

This feels like not tonguing at all. It just happens. Subordinating oneself to the rhythm of this automatic tongue, playing scales and flexibilities becomes an entirely new experience. The resonance of the tongue is its own tempo. Play with that tempo.

Now, this is all interesting. I find that the tongue can resonate in this automatic fashion in the 65 to 85 bpm range with total control (YMMV). But of course, I want it to go faster! I have not stumbled on how to make it significantly faster, Though I have a theory, natch. The theory is that a flapper valve will resonate as a function of its mass and spring tension. So, for a tongue, the variables to raise bpm may be, remove mass (use less tongue), raise spring rate (increase tension in the tongue flapper fold area). Nevertheless, it feels like it happens at working tempos near 100 on stage, though in the practice room when it's all quiet, 65-85 is the space. Curious.

From the model, the flapper valve thing, it seems there should be technique for raising the spring tension in the tongue and/or shortening its length to raise its resonance to quite high bpm rates. But so far I fail to find that technique. (You can google "Wynton single tongue speed" and find discussion that may indicate he has cracked this problem.)

This kind of tongue makes a really lovely swing like a Fontana F G A C B A G F in treble clef staff.

Here's a connection to the tongue tuning talked about previously. For flexibilities, do some in single tongue in resonant tempo. Partials are determined by the tongue adjusting mouth volumes from one resonant partial to another, say F to Bb, but there is a tonguing layered onto the tuning. What it feels like to me is the articulation "rides" the tuning. So you can bop back and forth on partials by snap-adjusting mouth volumes with the tongue. The tongue operates here in time. It's all slurs. Then the tonguing articulation "rides" the tongue tuning. The snap motion of the tongue tuning seems to inform the tongue articulation of what the time is, and it just happens. Tongue tuning then can happen outside of my personal 65-85 bpm band and drag the tongue articulation alone with it.

But how to accelerate resonant tonguing speeds on a single note?, ain't' got that yet.

Okay, that's it for now.

[timothy42b]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram

?