The clarinet warmups for March are concerned with developing greater speed and clarity with the use of the single-tongue approach. The exercises shown below are based on techniques referred to as “Stopped-Tongue” and/or “Fingers Ahead.” These approaches to tonguing were popularized by the great Daniel Bonade, master clarinetist and teacher of the finest American orchestral clarinetists in the mid-20th Century. (Bonade, himself, learned these from his mentor, Henri Lefèbvre.)
Often, one hears the phrase “tip of the tongue to the tip of the reed” when discussing articulated notes. However, if one takes that phrase literally, I believe it can lead to a distortion of what is actually occurring. I believe the easiest way to think of the tongue/reed relationship is to consider using the area of the tongue just below the tip and the area of the reed just below its tip. While these areas will differ from player to player, my experience as a player and teacher has proven that semantics are important and that if one carefully examines the factors at hand, just below the tip areas is what we essentially are employing when articulating.
Exercise A: The clarinetist is asked to begin the first note by closing the top of the reed against the mouthpiece with the tongue while beginning to blow air. Air pressure will be building up but no sound will be heard at this point. Then, as soon as the tongue is released and the pitch emitted, the player is asked to move the tongue immediately back onto the reed, closing it against the mouthpiece. Make sure that you keep blowing air even after the tongue has stopped the sound. In other words, during the eighth-note rests, one is still blowing air even though no pitch is heard and the tongue remains on the reed. Continue this process throughout the length of the exercise.
Exercise B: This notation shows what the actual length of the notes in Exercise A will actually sound like when employing Bonade’s “stop-tongue” technique. It will help in developing a short, crisp articulation. The esteemed clarinetist Mitchell Lurie stated that “the stop-tongue technique was just a slow motion way of setting yourself up for a fast staccato.”
Exercise C: The player is asked to move his/her fingers quickly to the following note in parentheses while playing the previous note in the scale but do not allow the pitch of the new note to be heard. This is accomplished by the stop-tongue technique described above. The tongue must beat the fingers here. For example, when starting at the top of the exercise on “F”, as soon as you play that note you are asked to move to the “E” directly below it. BUT, if your tongue was able to return to the reed and close it, you will not hear the “E” sounding. Your tongue got back to close the reed before your finger fingered “E”. That is the “fingers-ahead” concept being integrated with the stop-tongue technique. If you hear a blip in the sound, that usually means that your fingers beat your tongue and you were hearing part of the note in parentheses. This is an exercise that demands time, attention, and patience. However, the benefits are great not only with an improved speed and clarity of articulation, but also in the resultant tone.
Exercise D: This is excerpted from Klosé’s Celebrated Method. It makes use of the combined “stopped-tongue” and “fingers-ahead” approaches discussed above while working with larger intervalic groupings. There are two ways to practice this. First, as in Exercise C, end each note with a stopped-tongue while moving your finger to the succeeding note the minute you release your tongue from the reed. Remember, the tongue must get back to the reed before the new fingering is attained! Eventually, you will be able to play this type of exercise with greater speed and will feel more at ease with all types of lengths of articulation while gaining an improved coordination between the tongue and fingers. This exercise should also be played from beginning to end as written without stopping as a litmus test for the progress one has made in attaining greater speed and clarity with your tongue. Play this exercise in many keys as well.
*After attaining fluency in these techniques, consider practicing these etudes as well: Rose 40 Studies #6; Langenus Complete Method Part III, Study #13; Thurston Passage Studies Book 2, #7