Flutter Tongue Exercises

The Flutter tongue

Hey everyone, first off the obvious plug. I wrote a book about flutter tonguing, it is a systematic approach it is available in a digital edition from Qpress

This post though is a supplement to the book, and has some thoughts you can apply right away to start either learning to flutter tongue, or improve the control you already have.

Exercise 1 - The foundation

This exercise is all about learning to flutter. Work without the horn and focus on air. For details on how this works watch the video below. A quick outline is that we work to create tongue motion with an emphasis on air flow by working on holding the tip of the tongue in place at the contact point of the articulation stroke as we blow emphatic air against it.

The view outlines it better than I could write it here breifly.

Exercise 2 - Into the resistance

The greatest challenge for fluttering is learning to work with the added resistance and perceived lack of space that is created when we flutter. To do this we play flutter tones on the horn. Flutter tones are made by fluttering without a buzz on the horn creating a super low pitch.

Once you have the flutter tone try to slowly bring the embouchure into focus until pitch is created. This, like long tones from air teach us to find and control the initial point of vibration. This is called control.

Exercise 3 - The transition

As flutter has become more and more common our need to control it at many dynamics has grown. As well another common application is to move either from a flutter to straight sound or vice verse. The exercise here is to learn to do that, to disengage the tongue without stopping the sound.

Practice this by starting a note with a flutter and then trying to retract the tongue back into the vowel part of your articulation (the Ah, of TA for example) without causing the sound to stop. It sounds easy but fluttering creates some crazy things inside your mouth around the air… so take some time and learn to control it.

Happy Practicing.

Check out the Youtube channel, subscribe, or pick up a copy of “Flutter Tongue”

Fingers and Flexibility with a dose of the low range

Today I thought I would go the opposite of last week. Last week I outlined a high range flexibility session using lots of lip. Today, low range and the fingers.

The Routine

• Breathing - Flow studies and air patterns (use some song you like and rock out)

• Caruso - 6 note drill. (I use the Flexus Book by Laurie Frink, I do no.1 and no.2)

• Caruso - 6 note lower octave

• Flexus - Flexibility One - 1 - 4 (down the octave from written, and as written)

• Flexus - Flexibility Two - Flexando 1 (Use all the notes of the horn’s harmonic series, all F-horn side)

• Flexus - Flexibility Four - 1 (as high as you can)

• Brophy Technical Studies book - Low range nos.3 and 5.

• Low range scales - various rhythms and articulations. Repeated on each note. Pick several scales and several patterns. Spend time getting in and out of that range.

• Low range flutter scales - Quarter notes, slurred, with flutter tongue. From the top, and the bottom of the scale, 1 octave.

• Spiders - Pick a couple (Flexus book has these) (The Dufrense Routine does as well, exercise no.3 The difference between these is that the Flexus approach is chromatic from a pivot as the Dufrense is scale based.)

• Farkas Book - Low range (First half, and extend it all the way down to F123 (harm 2) repeat this 3 times with a short rest 30 - 45 seconds in between.

• Kopprasch Pick one, down the octave.

That is it.

Comment, share, like, and see you next time.

Practice session - General morning

Today’s session is another mixed bag. It isn’t based around anyone book, it is “practice aid heavy” but that is alright. It is also going to be a pretty quick one, so lets go.

The Session

• Breathing exercises (5 min)

  • Inhalation with a Triflo

    • 4 reps with each ball

  • Peak flow meter 8 reps going for target

• Long Tones (pick 4 pitches, do them in all octaves with hairpins)

  • Do these with a tuner or pitch visualizer for stability

• Scales numbers are scale degrees

  • 1-5-1-5-1-9-5-9-5-9-1-3-5-8-10-12-10-8-5-3-1 (in 16th notes, various articulations, pick several scales)

  • Major Pentatonic scales over 3 octaves

  • Whole tone scale from G over the entire range of the horn slurred and tongued

  • 1 octave descending scales with flutter tongue, going over the break

• Lip slurs (recorded and reviewed.)

  • Farkas style

    • Play the quarter note version that starts on middle C (or Harm 5 of whatever valve combo you are using) complete the exercise. Take a deep breath and do the 8th note version from the bottom (harm 2)

• Etude

  • Kopprasch no.13 with repeats

    • As written and down the ocatve.

That is it, another quick and focused one, the next post will be some insight into why I don’t have a set routine. So until then, happy horning.

A peek at a new project - Drone studies

This is a quick post but I wanted to share an example of something I am working on called… Drone studies. I encourage my students often to practice with drones. Which can manifest in many ways, this is an idea I have been thinking about for a while and have finally started.

Here is a peek at the first half of exercise no.1 - 2nds.

Open the pdf, grab a drone and get to work.

EXERCISE PDF LINK

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Through frustration comes a simple fingering chart

I am sure this is something that has faced many teachers, especially those of us that do clinics, or work with beginners. Why is there no simple fingering chart? Now I am sure there is one out there, in theory, but I really haven’t encountered one.

When I was developing my student horn book a major point of focus for me was an approach that was straight forward, since that is how fundamentals should be, simple and effective. Something I encounter more times than I want to admit is showing up to work with students and being faced with frustration over being able to pitch notes from written middle C to the first G in the treble clef. When they start playing I am sadly never surprised to find Fs being played on the open F horn, Gs on F horn 1st valve, and so on. You know, using B horn fingerings without using the thumb.

When I notice this, the first thing I ask is about a fingering chart, either they don’t have one, or they have one of several method books, I am always amazed with all of these method books that the fingering charts are never great. They never make an effort to differentiate between what fingering is for what horn, or it’s inconsistent. It must be rocket science. So I submit to the horn world the fingering chart from my Student horn book. A simple, no options approach to fingering. It is based around standard conventions, and doesn't give several options for each note. Though in time it is important that the horn player learns all the fingerings, but let’s keep the horse in front of the carriage.

The student Horn Book

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Just SLOW DOWN

I am happy to have finally released my student horn book, this book took me about a year of work. I was fortunate to get to "test run" the project with several schools, and a wide variety of settings/skills. In the end I feel I was able to get things to a place where it would serve as a positive tool for students in developing the fundamental aspects of their playing. 

Get yours here! (only $5.99 CAD) (will open a new window)

Now, for this post, if there was one lesson I could share it is as follows:

SLOW DOWN

In my time teaching and working with students I always liked to listen to how students warmed up (as well as professionals, of course) and the biggest difference I noticed is how fast people jump into "hard for them" stuff, and how much time is spent on the basics of tone production. Younger players, in general tended to grab their horns and just jump right into it, trying to play through scales, etc. and generally running into problems, then going back and forth over them. 

Let's take a moment and break down an example of this. Let's consider the following scenario: you are/you have/you are teaching a student that is having a hard time getting all the pitches in a C major (F concert scale). Here is how it manifests itself. The player starts playing, they get success on the first few notes, then as the ascend the scale (usually tonguing) the pitches start to get away from them, the sound starts to diffuse, and the ability to get the right pitches, at the right time goes away. Sound familiar? This is a very common scenario I see, I usually show up and am told that the student can't play pitches above a certain note, and has a hard time pitching. My first step when this happens to me, or to someone/a group I am teaching is the first question, what do you usually do to warm up. This is based on a presumption that scales form a large part of band method (which it usually does). The usual answer I get is along these lines:

I start buzzing a bit, then play some scales, and get to music. Sounds good right? So I ask the students to go through this process, take their time, etc. Generally this means a few seconds of a buzz, scrambling around a scale (trying to play it really fast) and that's it... all done in under a minute. Now we have to assume the teachers presence will cause them to rush things, so I give the benefit of the doubt and try to get them to repeat it, and just slow down and take more time, slur their scales (just a few notes at a time), and find a nice sound. I was always surprised to be met with the following responses.

1. We never practice sluring.
2. We have to play our scales at 8th notes at 100bpm (usually in grade 7 or so)

For consistency, I generally observed these same things when observing large groups of students warming up: fast, tongued, and random (not in a "wow! they are improvising a scale exercise" or something similar)

The take away from this is as follows, SLOW DOWN, slur things, focus on a narrow range of comfortable pitches to start, and allow it to expand from that core. Band method can force people into the extremes pretty quickly, so the duty to teach simple and effective exercises that don't overwhelm the students can end up falling to us, the teacher. Finally, practice slurs, just between two notes... it can open up the entire world. 

In my experience professionals, and students that are achieving more consistent results start their day out slow. Single tones, relaxed, efficient, and focused on getting the simple stuff in order. After that those positive habits are stretched out into the other areas of playing. 

If you have seen my student horn book you will notice right away that one of the key approaches is to create a simple sound, and then reach out with it. As the exercises move forward, this approach is expanded in several ways. At the end of the day, in my experience, if we want results, we need to make sure we SLOW DOWN and make sure the sounds we make are the ones we mean to, and want to.