PSA: Tonguing is the Answer

The Public Service Announcement of the weekend is on the topic of tonguing. There is a lot of dogma on tonguing out there to cut through which seems to me, overall, to be driven by perceptions and what sounds good on paper rather than on reality. On the horn tonguing is really a big key to everything, especially accuracy. I have two major suggestions of things to consider.

1. Look at older sources that are pretty independent from the line of thought given by Farkas. Two quotes I like a lot as they open up new ways of thinking about it all are this one from Milan Yancich,

I then demonstrate different kinds of articulation: placing the tongue out very far between the teeth for heavy, marcato or hammered playing; placing it behind the upper teeth for legato playing; putting to tongue to the roof of the mouth to give an even more legato articulation; and finally placing the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth, using the flat of the tongue against the roof of the mouth to produce even another attack. The student then understands that the tongue, very much like the bow on a stringed instrument, can be used for many different types of articulation.

and this one from Anton Horner, which is the closest description I can find in print of the way I tongue,

Attack each note with your tongue as though you had a small hair or tiny piece of thread on the end of your tongue and wanted to force it out of your mouth.

2. Be very wary tonguing advice from players of other brass instruments. Realize that the way a teacher of any other brass instrument than the horn says to tongue is probably different than we would employ on the horn. The way we need to tongue is in general different but closest to that employed on the tuba. Back in April I posted,

One aside I want to explore further this summer; I found that I can articulate a tuba. The tongue stroke I use for low horn transfers over pretty well. When I play trombone or trumpet, however, my default tonguing sounds overly harsh, even blatty. There is something about the slower response of the horn and tuba that requires a more active tongue stroke.

As to what to practice, nothing really beats Kopprash in the mid range. For more suggestions as to what to play this post is a good place to start.