Faster Tonguing in Two Weeks: WEEK ONE

Hi everyone! Welcome to our first two week intensive for 2025, I'm so excited to be back! I wish you all a very happy new year!

To start things off, we are looking at articulation speed and I have a video for you where I explain the tasks for the next two weeks, which can be summed up in three words: consistency, consistency, consistency.

But seriously: as long as you can find 5-10 minutes every day to work on your tonguing, you will start to see results in the next two weeks. We're all going to be learning the same study by Reginald Kell, which you can download and print out here. 

You have three jobs this week:

1. Watch the video

2. Start to learn the study and post a video of your current top speed (only needs to be the first line or two!) - bonus: tell us about your tonguing speed goals!

3. Consistently practice the study every day for 5-10 minutes

Bonus job: watch Michael Wayne's fantastic course on air and articulation! 

Any questions don't hesitate to write them in the forum, I'll be checking in every day to help out! 

 

At the end of the challenge we're also going to have a Zoom check-in. That will be on Friday the 31st of January at 6pm GMT (10am PT). Everyone is welcome! We can talk all things tonguing, share our struggles and successes for the week and if anyone's feeling brave we can also play for each other! 

 

If you enjoy this TWI and you'd like to work with me more closely 1-to-1, you should also check out tonebase's new coaching programme! We'll tailor your coaching programme to match your individual needs and you'll get a ton of personalized feedback and lessons from me. 

6 replies

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    • Katherine_Carleton
    • 1 mth ago
    • Reported - view

    Well, this was revelatory. The subito piano shows precisely whst happens to my air support! Haha! Current tempo is in the 100 bpm zone (I think); 112 is doable, and I’d love to get this up to 132 while sounding fleet and nimble, not panicked and thwacky. 

    Track 23
      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 1 mth ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Katherine, this is great! I know what you mean about that subito piano - Kell also definitely knew what he was doing when he wrote those in haha

      It's not a bad idea - and maybe I should have said this in the video - to hold off worrying about dynamics for a bit while you're working on upping your speeds - but being aware with it is definitely the main thing, and sounds like you are!

      Fleet and nimble sounds good - deep breaths and slow down again if you start feelingpanicked and thwacky - it's a marathon, not a sprint :) 

    • Rebecca_Sefton
    • 1 mth ago
    • Reported - view

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      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 1 mth ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Rebecca - thanks for sharing, this sounds really good! I'm wondering if you've tried my trick of going back and forth between playing a really smooth legato and then playing the same passage tongued? It sounds a little bit like the air might be stopping a little bit on the eighth notes (but forgive me if not, not everything is perfectly clear on videos!). At any rate I hope you can get a faster tempo by the end of next week :) 

    • Donald_Lurye
    • 1 mth ago
    • Reported - view

    Here I present the first four lines of the Kell exercise @Heather gave us.  One is at quarter note = 115 and the other at 120.  I think they came out well, but I have a couple of things for which I'd appreciate getting feedback from all of you and from Heather.  I have a metronome coming into my earbuds, and I think I kept up pretty well, but it doesn't sound like staccato to me.  If I try to make the notes shorter, I rapidly get "tongue fatigue" and cant keep up.  I know there are a couple of schools of thought on this - one is to try for shorter notes, and the other is to "fool" the audience by going a bit faster with longer notes that will be percieved as staccato.  Bottom line - not that I'm likely ever to play the Corigliano Concerto, but I believe at one spot it has 128 fast staccato notes in a row.  How does any Earthling do that?  What are your thoughts?  BTW, I see now I didn't really staccato the eighth notes!

      • Head of Clarinet
      • Heather
      • 1 mth ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Donald -

      I know what you mean - the eighth notes aren't that short. It doesn't really matter with the sixteenths because they're going by so quickly. Right?

       

      So in order to get a staccato eighth you're just missing having the tongue stop the note - you're using the tongue to start all of them, but rather than a 'ta' sound, you need a 'tut' sound to have the tongue stop the note. But I think you already know this - and this is what's leading to the tongue fatigue, right? I'd be curious to know how much you can do before you get the dreaded fatigue - are we talking 2 measures or 16? If it's 16 then actually I'd say that's pretty good! I also get tongue fatigue by that point. 

       

      At any rate, in terms of the plan for this intensive I'd say this is pretty fantastic work, you're right, you are keeping up - I'd be keen to know what your metronome mark is by the end of this week! 

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