....and other oboists.

When you tongue the reed, which part of the reed does your tongue touch?

How does your tongue lie in your mouth, e.g. mainly flat with the last 2 cm sticking up, or half the tongue up?

If you imagine tonguing without the reed there, which part of the upper palate will you touch? ie exactly on the ridge behind the teeth, a cm behind ..etc?

I know we all have different mouths and some people can touch their noses with their tongue..etc but I'm interested in how you do it. I tongue on the tip, but it just doesn't feel right to me. It's the one place the teacher can't see! Well not yet anyway. I'm sure it's only a matter of time!

Steve

That's too difficult a question for this time of the morning!

I *think* my tongue stays pretty flat, and just darts back and forth to touch the tip of the reed. Like a snake (!). I don't think it touches my palate at all.

Why do you ask?

Ah, but we're an hour ahead here!

Plus, I've just had my first coffee!

Steve

PS I didn't say you touch the palate. I asked which part would your tongue touch IF the reed wasn't there.

OOH EEER

Bit early for this but here goes

when I use the tongue I touch the reed with the section of my tongue about a centimetre back from the tip. I suppose if my tongue touches the palette (which I suppose it must) it would be just behind the upper front teeth..its hard to describe really I have always just done it I was taught so many many years ago that it happens without me havng to think about it...let alone analyse it... There is also the diaphragm element in stacatto tonging..mine works quiet hard when I am playing stacatto. I think that the tip of my tongue raises slightly behind my lower front teeth and touches the reed as I said about a centimetre back from the tip just before and very briefly touching the upper front part of the palette...

I cant quite make sense of what I am trying to say and I may have another bash at this after practice...I know my tongue remains very fluid and flexible and soft...it is all very minimal as I just want enough of a touch to momentarily interupt the vibration of the reed and not to stop it dead in its tracks...its all about feel and sensitivity, knowing how much is enough...keeping the air flowing etc and just interupting it with the tongue..

Time for more Tea to gather my senses...I'll come back to this after Albinoni...am looking for a second player for the F maj double concerto if anyone is interested...

Steven, a question which you may think strange but I will explain why in a minute.
Are you having oboe lessons with an Italian teacher this year?

I had exactly the same questions as you to which my teacher failed to give me a satisfactory answer - basically he was telling me that my tongue was in the wrong place and to say "t", which is what I thought I was doing. Last year I started teaching an English phonetics course which includes articulatory phonetics and I discovered that the tongue is not in the same place to say a "t" when you speak English and when you speak French and I think it might well be the same thing in Italian. In English your tongue is more or less on the ridge of your upper teeth, in French the tongue is much lower and almost touching the bottom of your top teeth. Having made this discovery I then went to my oboe lesson and asked him where his tongue was when he said "t" and for him saying "t" does mean having your tongue more or less flat and aiming for the teeth rather than the ridge. He was as surprised as I had been to discover that "t" is different in the two languages - you tend to think of the vowels or the "r" as being very different.

He went on to say that the tongue ought to be as flat as possible since you want minimum disruption to the air-flow. Another difference in the pronunciation is that the "t" is more forceful in English than in French and again I think the French "t" is probably better as it involves less effort and therefore less interruption to the air-stream.

Anyway, to get to the point. I stopped thinking about saying "t" and tried thinking more of "th" (this theoretically means the tongue is slightly too low, although contrary to popular opinion the tongue is not between the teeth, instead the top is touching the very bottom of the top teeth). Not only does this mean that the tongue is lower and flatter but it is also a fricative which means that you can produce a continuous air stream while articulating the consonant.

I hope this makes some sense to Steven and apologies to monolingual English oboists to whom this probably seems like utter nonsense.

Thanks for all the advice!

Yes, I've started lessons again after a break of 11 months. I only had about 3 or 4 double lessons in the months before Christmas 2007 but the teacher clearly had enough of travelling to a music school so far away. The lessons were erratic and he always seemed stressed and in a hurry.

I've just found somebody else, much closer, and have had 2 amazing lessons so far. This guy is more experienced, older, calmer, and far more attentive to small details. The difference he's made to my embouchure, hand position and playing in 2 weeks is phenomenal! He also gave me one of his reeds that not only sounds good, but seems to play itself!

We still haven't addressed tonguing, so I wanted to hear how others do it before I mention it. At present I touch the tip, but it seems to make rapid tonguing quite difficult. Perhaps it's just a matter of practice...practice..etc

The italian T is closer to the english than french. I love the french way of saying it. The name Thomas sounds so sweet when a french person says it.

I tend to use either d or t to start a phrase, but now you've said that, I'll try experimenting a bit more with 'th' 'dh' and the french T, and try Andrew's method as well.

Steve

Steven having gathered my senses may I suggest you simply try a scale of Fmj and tongue it as lightly as possible both up and down..then use a dotted rythm...eg t TA...t TA and so on and so forth then reverse is...dont rush take it slowly (not a snails pace) but a sensible pace...then repeat each note of the scale so ......F.f G.g A.a Bb.bb C.c you can play it straight then dot it again...just anything to get your tongue and fingers working in harmony...Keep the tongue as light as possible there is nothig worse than a heavy tongue when it is not required...keep it very minimal...amaze your friends with the delicate touch you have mastered etc etc..Subtlty in everything make it just enough to mark the accent of the required note. Aim for about half a centimetre to a centimetre from the tip of your tongue and gently touch the tip of your reed but for Gawds sake keep the air flowing or the reed will grind to a halt..

I hope this is what you are after...if I have misunderstood your question please let me know...

Regards

Andrew


OOOH yes as an after thought when you have got the tongue moving work on the speed, again in a scale repeat each note four times as you go through the scale...work with a metronome and aim to increase the speed by a few beats per minute per week..practice does make perfect and it will come...all to be done as single tounging...double tonguing comes a bit later...then triple and flutter (not that I can do either of the latter) its a pipe dream...I truth you shouldn't need to do more than double tounging at a push and single should suffice for every eventuality..I have a freind who'se single tounging is so fast it defies belief...neither I or her husband are speaking to her anymore...You can go right of a person

Never say I can't always say I will..

I've just started working on double tonguing. It's not good (yet).

Thanks for the tips Andrew. I wanted so much to get home yesterday to try out all the advice you and Kerioboe gave me, but we had an important meeting at the school and- silly me - I'd promised to give someone a lift, so I couldn't back out. Got home much later than expected. Sooo frustrating. Never mind, the weekend soon!



Yes, been there, got the teashirt etc. The pressure from the abdomen is something the new teacher stresses and my playing has improved as a result. Of course, the reed still grinds to a halt sometime!
Something else I have to work on! He does remind me that the little marks above the stave indicate where to take a breath, NOT where to turn a deep red and have an out-of body experience while the room spins!

Hope the Albinoni went well.

Steve

I think your out-of-body experience is a result of not breathing out rather not taking a breath at all. What I found useful at the beginning was to have two different marks - the usual "tick" to breath in and a "cross" to breath out. Without the cross I tended to go into "automatic" mode and just breath in all the time as if I was playing the recorder.

You'll have to explain that to me. Shouldn't they be the same thing...ie breath out , then in?

Steve

Well yes they should be the other way round, first a cross to say breathe out, then a tick to say breathe in but they don't necessarily have to be in the same place. If you haven't already done so then do try: breathe out, carry on playing for another couple of bars and then breathe in. As a beginner this provides the "proof" that the problem is too much air. When you get more advanced it becomes a way of snatching a breath in a fast piece where there is no time to do both.

Getting back to my original idea even when you breathe out and then in in the same place, I found having the two marks side by side reminded me to breathe out properly and breathing out properly stopped the dizziness.

The turning-red you may just have to live with - it is a problem for fair-skinned oboists (presumably not for your olive-skinned Italian teacher).

Hardcore. I've tried but never made it sound anything like acceptable!

Oh gosh, thanks for that! I never even knew about doing it this way. I always assumed you had to quickly breath out and in whenever there was a rest.

Looks like my weekend is going to be busy now!

Just have to avoid my wife and her long list of 'things that need doing around the house'!

Steve

I use o for out and a tick for in, and I still write in both even having played umpteen years. I find it useful to be able to differentiate - most of the time will be an out-in, but as Keri says, sometimes it's useful to do an out, play a bit more, and then an in. And if I've only put a tick, I know to do a quick in without an out first.



Same here, but my teacher wants me to learn it now. It's getting slowly better - you have to get the 'k' in exactly the right place in your mouth, I've found.

I like the reply asking about the Italian teacher. We teach oboists to tongue with a 't' sound, without realising that 't' is a different sound in different languages. I onften hear English 't's described as wet (in relation to singing in different forms of Latin) whereas Italianate 't's are -drier', and therefore, I guess, use different parts of the mouth.

Personally, I 't' and teach pupils to think of the tongue hitting the ridge nehind the front teeth.