Markus’ recent quotation about Veillon’s tongue placement recommendations made me think about my own tongue position. I put the tip of my tongue exactly between the low teeth and the gum. Apparently that’s ok; however, I find that I tend to push slightly my tongue against my teeth. Therefore, I hardly can move the tongue. I’ve played 7 years like this and as a result I can’t tongue at all. When I try I lose my embouchure completely and a poor fluffy tone goes out. This does not happen when playing whistles.
I’m not particularly fond of excessive tongueing, but it might enhance some passages or ornaments. Would you recommend any exercise to enable my tongue freely when playing flute witout weakening my tone?
Sylvester, maybe what I’m goig to say is just nonsense, but with regard to tonguing, in the most decent, pure, virtuous and chaste sense of the term, what we have here is a mere phonetic matter. In Spanish “t” and “d”, which are the sounds we are told to articulate to tongue notes, are dental sounds, that is, the tip of the tongue touches the upper teeth to produce them, whereas in English these sounds are palatal and the tip of the tongue is placed against the alveolar ridge. Maybe you are already aware of this fact but I just wanted to mention it here in case you weren’t. I find the palatal “t” more effective.
Un saludo (with dental “d” of course),
Okay, if we’re getting serious discussion on this, I’ll put in my two cents. (I’m no good at finding emoticons.)
Here’s what I’ve been told by somebody who plays way better than me:
Your tongue should be held up towards your upper teeth, rather than down, as you’re playing. That way it’s ready to create the stop-air action that makes the tonguing sound.
Is this right? If I really analyze what’s going on, my tongue is momentarily blocking the space the air comes out, by filling up the palatal-dental area.
This is way different from all the technique I developed as a clarinetist, where I had to get my tongue to touch the reed and stop its vibrations. I still have the tendency to thrust the tongue forward, as opposed to up. My tonguing on flute sounds terrible.
I insist, I think this is something that has to do with the language the flutist speaks. Serafín, your description of the way you tongue when you attack a note, makes me think of the position the tongue takes when pronouncing for example the “d” in the word “saludo”. When I tongue a note with “t” or “d”, I think I’m doing it the way English speaking flutists would do it. As I have already said, the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge. All this is just a supposition and I may be completly wrong, but it’s been a pleasure to comment this with you anyway.
Saludos,
well fwiw, i feel my tongue moving about sometimes, but i pay no attention to it.
I just make sure my jaw is dropped and that i’m getting a nice, loud clear tone.
[quote=“Jennie”]
Is this right? If I really analyze what’s going on, my tongue is momentarily blocking the space the air comes out, by filling up the palatal-dental area.
Xaquin, note that this is MY NORMAL position, not only atacking the note, but playing legato as well, hence the weird thing. I don´t know another person playing in that way.
Un saludote!
Serafin.
But are there some bad habits that it would be worth unlearning?
I think that (besides native language, which may have some bearing) the tongue position may be related to swallowing habits, so fairly ingrained. I’m learning a lot from my daughter’s orthodontist here – there are those who thrust the tongue forward to swallow and those who swallow by lifting the tongue. In the former category, they actually install preventative hardware in the mouth to help kids learn new swallowing habits.
Does your tongue position in swallowing parallel your tongue position in music?
What works for me is dropping my jaw, it also works with singing. But i don’t think my tongue position when swallowing is parallel with playing flute, how could it be? Anyway, my tongue is moving about all the time.
My teacher told me to try and “open my throat” by which he meant put my tongue down against the bottom of my mouth and try and make the cavity at the back of my throat bigger. It does seem to help my tone.
