Bandmasters Review - December 2019

Texas Bandmasters Association Bandmasters Review • December 2019 11 Art iculat ion It is best to wait until the students can consistently produce a characteristic sound on several notes before attempting to introduce articulation. A step-by-step approach will help ensure the students are successful in learning to articulate correctly. 1 . Have the students say their articulation syllable (de, dah, doe, tah, etc.) with a hand on their jaw to make sure it does not move. Initially, I would start the first note without using the tongue, because this allows the airstream to be established prior to the tongue being used. Example: ah…..dah…..dah…..dah 2 . Have the students blow air through their embouchure and let the tongue move as if saying the articulation syllable. The tongue should not stop the air, but only briefly interrupt it – much like a finger flicking side to side through a stream of water from a sink faucet. The students can hold their palm in front of their mouth to feel the airstream as the tongue touches the roof of the mouth. 3 . Have the students say their articulation syllable with the mouthpiece/barrel-neck in the mouth. 4. Have the students blow air through the mouthpiece/barrel- neck without making a tone and let the tongue move as if saying the articulation syllable. Aspects to stress: • The tongue touches the same place with the same strength each time. • Touch the reed with one taste bud of the tongue. To demonstrate this, I usually have the students stick their tongue out and I touch the reed (assembled to the mouthpiece) to their tongue with a quick, light motion in the correct place. • The tongue motion should be up and down and not back and forth. • The top of the tip of the tongue should touch the tip of the reed from the bottom. Saxophones will need to touch the reed farther back on the tongue since the mouthpiece is farther in the mouth. • The tongue should be down 99% of the time and only briefly touch the reed. The tongue should move like a snake striking or someone touching a hot stove with their finger. 5 . Have the students start a sound on the mouthpiece/barrel-neck with- out the tongue and then start articulating after a steady sound is achieved. Aspects to stress: • Articulate the sound and not the reed. • No extraneous sounds caused by the tongue touching too hard or too much tongue being used. • The articulation should not change the sound in any way. • The articulation will lack clarity and/or produce a pitch drop if the tongue touches below the tip of the reed. Due to the angle of the saxophone mouthpiece, and most bass clarinet mouthpieces, the student must keep the tip of the tongue down, so they do not get a “slap” tongue (touching with too much tongue surface). Also stress the importance of the tongue touching the center of the reed. If the students touch to the left or right of center, it often causes a squeak and/or lack of clarity. The vibrations need to be interrupted equally left to right across the tip of the reed. See Warm Up #1 on the TBA website which pertains to introducing articulation. Single Reed Success ( Part 2 ) Greg Countryman This is Part 2 of an article titled “Single Reed Success”. Part 1, which covered hand position, embouchure and tone production, was published in the September issue of the Bandmasters Review. The handouts referenced in this article can be found on the TBA website: www.texasbandmasters.org . Select Resources / Publication Archives / Convention Handouts (on the left hand side) / “Single Reed Success”. This entire article, Parts 1 and 2, will also be archived on the website under Resources/Bandmasters Review.

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