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Staccato tonguing is a problem for many horn students. In part I of this article Farkas and Schuller laid out their approaches to teaching this, approaches that sound right on paper but in reality are confusing to many readers. The problem being that they ignore a a physiological reality of staccato on the horn that will hopefully become clearer by the end of this article, with quotes from three somewhat more recent sources
How do you stop a note?
Fred Fox in Essentials of Brass Playing weighs in on the topic of how to stop a note. While not presented specifically in the context of staccato playing, his discussion of this closely related topic is most relevant.
How should a note be stopped? There are several possibilities, such as sticking up the tongue to block the air column like the last “t” in the “tut,” pressing the lips together to completely stop the vibration, closing the throat, and pulling the mouthpiece off the lips suddenly, etc. The most common error is stopping the note with the tongue. The end of the note sounds chopped off, abrupt. It proves to be more musical if the note is stopped by relaxing the diaphragm quickly. If the diaphragm relaxes slowly then the end of the note has too great a taper to it and it sounds spongy. When done quickly there is a musical, rounded finish to the note.
But Fox also very importantly notes that the tongue can be used to stop notes in certain situations.
When playing a series of fast sixteenth notes only the tongue is used to start and stop the notes, since now, with the notes following each other so quickly, the hard tongue stop cannot be heard.
In a staccato situation the tongue stops notes
In A Creative Approach to the French Horn Harry Berv would allow the tongue be used to stop the sound in all staccato situations.
The staccato note ends almost as soon as it starts by the abrupt stoppage of air, which is responsible for the so-called “dry” sound.” The tongue acts as a valve in starting and stopping the flow of air; never try to end the note by constricting the throat.
Berv would seem to be aware of the approach advocated by Farkas but has rejected it.
Give tut-tut-tut a try
Finally, Douglas Hill recommends practicing the full variety of articulations in Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance. In relation to very short articulations he specifically recommends practice of staccato eighth notes with “the most compressed tut possible.”
Didn’t Farkas say to never use the articulation “tut?” What Hill says is absolutely the opposite of Farkas but really his instruction to use “the most compressed tut possible” is in my experience absolutely correct and physiologically accurate. It is an instruction that will solve the problem in some musical situations.
Consider Kopprasch 10
In for example something like Kopprasch 10 you will certainly not get the notes short enough if your articulation really is “tuh” of the type that some students try to produce based on what they were told or read in a book.
The reason I mention Kopprasch 10 is that is in ways one of the most critical of his etudes; as an exercise you need to be able to play it with a highly compressed, short, aggressive staccato. It is not the default you want to use in all music, but you need to be able to do it. Because, “you never know how short some idiot, I mean conductor, will want you to play it.”
In short, on the horn some situations really do require a tongue cut off done well forward in the mouth, which can be managed very naturally as just one of the many ways you can play a note.
This final point is borne out by the MRI video studies; the glottis does reset at essentially the same time that the tongue might or can be cutting off the note. As players we automatically shade the cut off one way or another to achieve a musical result. Thus, for very short staccato notes we do cut off the notes with the tongue. For more normal, rounded endings the glottis takes the lead.
We are not done with tonguing yet! When we return the topic will be multiple tonguing.
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