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A questioner asks:
I’m a freshman in high school, and Im playing Mozart horn concerto no 2 in e flat major k. 417 for an audition and there are some lip trills in it. I have never played a lip trill in my life, but I’ve played a regular trill. Is there any advice or some pointers you can give me to help?
And (unrelated to the previous topic), what are some ways I can help speed up my tonguing?
Lip trills are one of those techniques that gets used only once in a while and (at least at first) they require some regular, dedicated practice.
Tonguing is another topic entirely but it is also something that requires regular practice.
The power of the internet
Instead of addressing these questions outright I would like to offer some tips on how to easily find this information online yourself.
With the advent of search engines, information like this is fairly easy to find and independently researching these topics online is something that young students should get used to. There can be great personal satisfaction and reward to be gained from doing the research and trying to teach yourself.
Using a search engine
There are a number of lip trill methods and techniques to consider and in looking for tips online, using a search engine like Google is a good place to start. The results at this link offer a lot of information to look at and sort through.
Another search engine to use is the one right here at Horn Matters. It is located at the very top left of our web site. Typing in the term “trills” produces three pages of results.
Among those results are two specific articles that would be of interest:
For tips on tonguing, the research methods are more-or-less the same: check with Google and use the Horn Matters search engine.
With our internal site search engine, there are a number of articles to look through.
Among the dozens of pages of results:
- Hornmasters on Rapid Tonguing, Part I: Quotes and a Video
- Hornmasters on Rapid Tonguing, Part II: Brophy
- An Inside Look at Double and Triple Tonguing
- Hornmasters on Double and Triple Tonguing. Part I: Schuller and Farkas
- Hornmasters on Double and Triple Tonguing. Part II: Yancich, Fox, and Berv
- Hornmasters on Double and Triple Tonguing. Part III: Brophy, Tuckwell, and Reynolds
- Scale Goals: High School
Do your research, reap the personal rewards
Earnest questions are, of course, always welcome here at Horn Matters and we certainly try our best to provide answers.
This being said, a good practice for young students to adopt early on is to seek online information and do physical research first, before asking another human being (other than your personal music teacher). Preliminary research helps in multiple ways, including how to ask better, more incisive questions.
In preparation for the future – high school, college and adult life – this is a very useful and practical ethic to adopt.
A serious music student should aspire to be self-motivated, curious and hungry for new information and the internet offers a virtual smorgasbord of information to satisfy that hunger. All it takes is the motivation to pick up a utensil and to start spoon-feeding yourself.
