Beginning to Tongue

When you are tonguing does your tongue actually touch the reed or is it touching the roof of your mouth...my instrutor tells me it should be touching the reed but when I play I don't feel like it does, and my instructor is a trumpet player so advice from a fellow clarinet player would be nice.

-Clarinet

Well, I have some good and bad news for you. Bad news: your tongue SHOULD be touching the reed to create any type of articulation. Good news: your teacher knows what he is talking about! Well, thats my horrible attempt at a joke. Anyways, back to business. Tonguing is something that I have had some trouble with in past. I didn't actually start using my tongue until later in high school. It was a very difficult learning process to retrain my tongue.

The first golden rule to tonguing the reed is, "the tip of the tongue touches the tip of the reed." If you are learning how to do something you want to make sure you learn the right way the first time because changing bad habits are very difficult to do. At first this is going to be a very awkward action, it was for me. It is also very important to remember that when your tongue touches the reed you are stopping the sound, when you release your tongue you create a sound. Its easy to get the two confused.

Secondly, you tongue is at home while it is touching the reed. The creation of tone always starts with the tongue touching the reed then when you release your tongue the sound will follow. You do not want your tonguing to seem violent and harsh which is why I like to think of tonging as releasing the tongue off of the reed versus attacking or hitting the reed.

I know you already have a million things to think about but you must also make sure your air is supported, constant, and very quick. Think of a garen hose: when you turn on the hose, water flows out. If you stop the water with you hand the pressure builds up in the hose. The water never actually stops flowing you are simply preventing water from escaping. Finally, when you move your hand the water rushes out. If you've never seen this happen go try it...... or just trust me. Well, the same thing should happen with your air when tonguing. The air NEVER stops. One day, just hold out an open G, then place the tip of the tongue on the tip of the reed, stopping the sound. DO NOT STOP BLOWING. Some times you will hear air leaking out of the sides of your mouth, that is a good thing at first (you can work on getting rid of that later). Then simply remove your tongue and the sound will start again. If it sounds like crap the first few times its okay, thats why we practice.

I am pretty sure I talk about the "OFF, ON" exercise in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBUHwvZBDuQ. Check it out. Its a great one to get you started on tonguing.

Hope this helps,

Greg