On Playing Short Notes

Yesterday I quoted from a book excerpt in the Pip Eastop horn site. He has a number of very interesting articles in his site and among them is a reprint of “The Tongue Cut Off!” which was published in The Horn, Vol. 5 No. 2 (Summer 1997). This is the publication of the British Horn Society and is probably not very familiar to many of our readers.

Pip has reprinted the entire article in his site (read it all) but this portion I think gives his main point. After an exercise looking at the last movement of Mozart 4 he notes,

What I hope I have proved to you by putting this little excerpt under what is, in effect, an aural microscope, is that during fast staccato tonguing you stop each note with your tongue, Actually, there is no other way, at high speed, to get the little silences between the notes which produce the staccato effect, so rest assured you are doing the right thing by tonguing off at high speed. Incase you had not noticed this before, you have been breaking one of the fundamental laws of modern horn technique, “NEVER END A NOTE WITH THE TONGUE!”. Good for you, I say it was a pretty daft rule anyway. If, by this point, you are still with me and haven’t skipped in disgust to the brass-rubbings, there are, in the light of this revelation, several things to do. The first is to work out why such a rule exists and is so pervasive in horn playing. Then, having admitted to yourself that you really do, at least sometimes, end notes with the tongue, work out what can be gained from such a discovery .

So, why does this rule exist? Primarily to get novice horn players out of the habit of ending each and every note abruptly, which is the easy thing to do, and to encourage them instead to”tail-off” musically the ends of notes or phrases which is very difficult.

Amen on what he says about the “rule” to never cut off notes with the tongue; it has led many players into tonguing problems. This article is one everyone working on tonguing should read as he speaks very well to the physiological realities of horn playing and to playing on horns of different lengths. Toward the end he also notes, in the form of a final disclaimer,

However, while I definitely advocate the use of the tongue to begin notes and phrases I must make it clear that it is not my intention to encourage the use of the tongue-stop in general playing this would be awful. I only hope to illuminate its specific usefulness as a technical practice aid. As such I have found it to be very useful in my own playing as have many of my students in theirs.

This article is but one of many very good ones in his site. If you have never visited it, do check out his site. The article he posted yesterday on “Infection and sickness, the horn, its drains, sanitation and bacteria” contains words to live by!

Also, for a favorite article of mine on this topic from Bruce Hembd please check out Tut Tut Tonguing, it gets at this important topic from another angle. Truly there are many musical instances where you must cut off notes with the tongue and surely the teachers who say they don’t cut off notes with the tongue are in fact making use of this valid technique.