Where is your tongue?

[Elow]

I just had a lesson and he asked me where i place my tongue when i play. When i say articulations like dut or dit my tongue is always pretty far behind my teeth, but when i play i find that i’m usually right behind my teeth. I’ve always had a trouble with double tonguing and i think that’s the reason. I’ve started say double tongue syllables with the tongue placed in the spot where i play and i’ve started to sound a lot better. I’ve also always wanted that articulation that sounds like a water drop, so i’m wondering if tongue placement effects that. I’ll try and find an example of that because i know water droplet articulation is a weird description of it but i don’t know how else to describe it. I’m also curious of where everyone’s tongue is placed and if there’s a video of you playing somewhere i would love to compare articulations. I’ve also found that when i play below the staff my tongue gets closer and closer to the middle of my teeth as i get lower, more on euphonium than anything else though.

[BGuttman]

I remember Alan Raph giving a session describing that as he got lower his tongue moved closer to between his teeth.

I tend to tongue on the hard palate just above my teeth, but that is subject to change as the pitch changes. And I don't spend all my time thinking about it.

[Elow]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6v0liv5fazf7 ... XX8Ua?dl=0 There’s a couple examples, i think it’s really noticeable on the guy playing night in tunisia and marshall gilkes

[LeTromboniste]

Tongue placement is about a lot more than articulations. What you do with the middle and back of your tongue, where it you tongue "rests" between articulations and whether it actually rests at all or stays actively involved are probably more important questions than where the tip hits for articulation. Your tongue allows you to control the amount of space in your oral cavity, which affects your airspeed and the color or your sound.

[imsevimse]

When I tounge within the staff and above the tounge is behind the teeth. For different articulations the strike is at different places. For very smooth legato the tip touches the roof in the middle of the mouth. My legato is what has improved most during the last ten years. For sharp attacks it is more close to the teeth. When I play lower on the trigger it gets more and more between the teeth. When I play pedals it is always between the teeth.

My opinion is the tounge should not be heard. I don't want a "pop" before the sound starts.

The tounge is doing a lot of other things that I know very little about and I do not bother to find out. I just listen and try to get the best sound I can. I do some articulations that no one has taught me. I had to come up with something that was fast enough. I discovered my own best way to tounge fast. I have not found it in any book.

/Tom

[Basbasun]

We have different lips. teeth, jaws and tounges. Because of that there are many ways of tounging. Many bass trombonists do tounge between the teeth when playing low pedals. No. not all, but many. Actually there many myths about what the tongue should do. You can take some lessons, scanses are that the teacher just want you to do what he/she does, and it is not sur that it fits you physicle settup. Or you can by your self try different places, listen carefully how it sound.

[AndrewMeronek]

I’ve also found that when i play below the staff my tongue gets closer and closer to the middle of my teeth as i get lower, more on euphonium than anything else though.

This is true for me, too, and for me I think it has more to do with what else is going on in my mouth than just where the tip strikes. The oral cavity naturally gets bigger when playing lower - think of the vowels oooo for low, eeee for high, which means the tongue is lowering. As the tongue lowers in the middle of my mouth to change that vowel, the tip has nowhere to go but forward. I can't draw my entire tongue backwards into my throat as I change vowels.

Another thing that is worth experimenting with: minimizing diphthongs when playing. Because vowels change with range, it means that any extra vowel changes when not changing range may make the sound more unstable, and by definition, a diphthong is a change in vowel. So - articluate "taaa", not "tyaaaa" or "taaaaee" and so on. For me, I think that this is part of what makes double-tonguing tough in extreme ranges, as I naturally tend to change my vowel slightly with the "k" half of double-tonguing.

[Doug Elliott]

Speaking of double tonging, practicing a VERY slow double and triple, and just a "G" articulation, can help to minimize the amount of tongue motion to get it smooth and efficient. Use D and G, not T and K, and try to make them closer together, not far apart, both in the physical placement and in sound.

[AndrewMeronek]

Speaking of double tonging, practicing a VERY slow double and triple, and just a "G" articulation, can help to minimize the amount of tongue motion to get it smooth and efficient. Use D and G, not T and K, and try to make them closer together, not far apart, both in the physical placement and in sound.

Speaking of tongue placements and trying to describe all this stuff in terms of resulting speech, I'm wondering if advanced brass pedagogy should include diction training. Not necessarily for "proper" speech (My Fair Lady style nonsense) but to learn how to control all of these sounds and to help narrow down just which are best to use when playing. I know that there are many combinations that feel very weird to me due to their lack in my midwest-American accent, which may be helpful on trombone.

[harrisonreed]

Inside of my mouth

[BGuttman]

Inside of my mouth

Damn! I knew I was doing something wrong!

[Burgerbob]

Inside of my mouth

Yuck. Enough of this sick behavior

[harrisonreed]

Inside of my mouth

Yuck. Enough of this sick behavior

Now I'm bleeding pretty bad. Gonna pass out

[timothy42b]

Speaking of double tonging, practicing a VERY slow double and triple, and just a "G" articulation, can help to minimize the amount of tongue motion to get it smooth and efficient. Use D and G, not T and K, and try to make them closer together, not far apart, both in the physical placement and in sound.

Speaking of tongue placements and trying to describe all this stuff in terms of resulting speech, I'm wondering if advanced brass pedagogy should include diction training.

On the COVID thread, someone posted a video of a person saying the alphabet while the direction of their breath was tracked with some kind of photography.

The air puffs and spray was totally different for different speech sounds. That suggests to me some impact of air direction on the lips when we play. Just speculating.

[Wilktone]

Speaking of tongue placements and trying to describe all this stuff in terms of resulting speech, I'm wondering if advanced brass pedagogy should include diction training. Not necessarily for "proper" speech (My Fair Lady style nonsense) but to learn how to control all of these sounds and to help narrow down just which are best to use when playing. I know that there are many combinations that feel very weird to me due to their lack in my midwest-American accent, which may be helpful on trombone.

That's an interesting idea, Andrew, but I suspect it would be more of a challenge to really be more effective. Like other aspects of brass technique, the way each player uses the tongue is going to be different. Players have different sized oral cavities, tongues, tooth structure, etc. A phonetic sound for one musician might be spot on while for another it might be too far or not enough in one direction.

Dave

[AndrewMeronek]

That's an interesting idea, Andrew, but I suspect it would be more of a challenge to really be more effective. Like other aspects of brass technique, the way each player uses the tongue is going to be different. Players have different sized oral cavities, tongues, tooth structure, etc. A phonetic sound for one musician might be spot on while for another it might be too far or not enough in one direction.

Dave

Yes, that is why I was thinking full-on diction, learning all the sounds, not just a favorite few.