Horn Matters | A French Horn and Brass Site and Resource | John Ericson and Bruce Hembd

To conclude this series on double and triple tonguing, we turn to William R. Brophy, who suggests in his Technical Studies for Solving Special Problems on the Horn to focus on cutting off the ends of the syllables with the tongue as an aid to double tonguing.

Making the “K” better is a key element

The first step is to focus on the K syllable with cut offs. For a group of four sixteenth notes followed by an eighth note and a rest this could be represented as Kuk-Kuk-Kuk-Kuk-Kooh. He notes

In actuality the “k” which ends one note is the same “K” which starts the next; the consonant is simply opened to allow a short puff of compressed air (blown firmly) into the instrument. Try to make the “K” attacks sound as much as possible like “T” attacks….

Many teachers advocate, and many students find it easier to end each syllable with a breath release. Step No. 1 would then become “Kooh Kooh Kooh Kooh Kooh,” stopping each note with a breath release….

The main draw-back to this approach (using the breath release) comes when speed is increased. There comes a point at which it is no longer possible to make the breath releases. At this speed one must shift into “high gear,” blow a steady air stream and stop each note with the consonant which begins the next.

The second step extends this to double tonguing which in our same example could be represented as Tuk-Kut-Tuk-Kut-Tooh. At a slow tempo “this will sound a bit crude,” but Brophy notes that “since the ultimate speed desired for double tonguing precludes the possibility of breath releases it is wise to start the routine in the same way that it will eventually have to be done when speed is acquired.”

The third step Brophy suggests is to make T and K sound as nearly identical as possible and the final step is to “try to move the ‘T’ and ‘K’ closer together in the mouth—the ‘T’ as far back as possible and the ‘K’ far forward.”

Toward getting more even articulations

Barry Tuckwell in Playing the Horn feels that for triple tonguing TTK is “generally better, as it gives more force and balance” and suggest that the best way to learn double and triple tonguing is to

…play the tonally straightforward études of Kopprasch, Kling, or Gallay, using double or triple rather than single tonguing. It will be found that many of the difficult notes fall on the weak articulation; this is the best practice for getting all the notes to sound even.

Single tonguing is more important

Verne Reynolds in The Horn Handbook states that “horn players need to develop a reliable, steady, strong, fast, single tongue in all registers and dynamics.” He continues,

Practicing multiple tonguing by slowly articulating “tu ku,” or “tu tu ku” probably does no great harm. Like all slow practice, it assures us that we can do the procedure slowly. We are still faced with the necessity of rapidly articulating “tu ku,” or “tu tu ku.”

His basic context is that “A fast, reliable single tongue is more necessary on the horn than on the trumpet,” a viewpoint that very likely many horn players would agree with but few have expressed in print.

A brief note from the MRI studies

I believe the MRI studies bear out the correctness of the idea that you want to keep the double (and triple) tonguing motion forward in the mouth.

An aside from my own studies, and a challenge to horn teachers

Finally, as readers may know from prior articles, I studied with the late Verne Reynolds for my masters degree. In that time we worked on a wide variety of challenging works on a high level but the topic of multiple tonguing actually never came up in lessons. The fact being that he very much wanted his students to develop a very fast single tongue, which I did have coming in and further developed as his student. But I could not multiple tongue worth beans. I finally learned how in the period right after my MM studying with other teachers and working on audition excerpts, with Eli Epstein having perhaps the most direct influence on my approach to double and triple tonguing.

Where I am going with the above digression is that really I should have learned it sooner. Ever notice how children can learn multiple languages easily and with no accent? But adults learning a new language have an accent? I have never truth be known ever been really happy with my multiple tonguing and I blame it on learning the technique too late. If you are a younger student reading this or are a teacher that works with younger students, don’t wait! The sooner you start working on multiple tonguing the better you will ultimately be able to multiple tongue. Which is why I included multiple tonguing exercises in my publication Ultimate Horn Technique, which is out of print but I still use it with my students for this very reason.

This series on tonguing is done! Onward!

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Return Week 8 of Pedagogy Course

In part I Schuller and Farkas ultimately come across as not being big advocates of multiple tonguing. Today we turn a corner however and arrive at sources a bit more committed to learning the skill.

Q is worth trying

Milan Yancich in A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing has a section of exercises to develop triple and double tonguing. While he notes that the most common syllables used to describe triple tonguing are “Tu Tu Ku, Ta Ta Ta, Ti Ti Ki”

I ask my students to use Tu Tu Q. The Ku or Q must be stressed with a breath accent…. To attain speed one must begin the patterns slowly, gradually, increasing the speed to the point where the tonguing begins to sound “galloping”, stuttering, or just plain uneven. At that point return to the original slow tempo and begin again.

He goes far beyond the printed description of this idea in the audio recording that goes along with A Practical Guide. Originally on two LP records and currently available on two CD’s, in the recording he explains that this approach was learned from the virtuoso cornet soloist Bohumir Kryl, who was the grandfather of his wife. I highly recommend listening to the audio version of A Practical Guide for the insights found there. And the printed exercises in A Practical Guide are great ones for working on the skill as well; I don’t believe any horn resource published prior to A Practical Guide has exercises for multiple tonguing.

And more on this necessary skill

Fred Fox suggests the syllables “ta” and “ka” in Essentials of Brass Playing, and especially recommends developing the “ka” attack well (“Practice playing scales using the ‘ka’ attack only”).

Harry Berv in A Creative Approach to the French Horn feels that the mastery of double and triple tonguing “is an absolute necessity on the horn.”

Every horn player, no matter how quickly he can tongue, will many times in his playing career encounter passages that will necessitate either double- or triple-tonguing. Mastering this art is not as difficult as are the hours of tedious and laborious practice. As with most techniques on the horn, it will be easier for some than for others….

For double tonguing Berv recommends “TU-KU.” To develop the KU he suggests practicing scales with the KU articulations.

The speed of double-tonguing must be controlled so it can be used at any tempo. You must perfect it so that it can be used in a single-tongue passage undetected. A good horn player should be able to accent double-tonguing to produce whatever effect he might find written in the music; for example, he might find he is able to play a triplet passage more easily double-tongued than triple-tongued….

For triple tonguing he suggests TU TU KU as standard and TU KU TU as the alternate method. “Control of speed is a prime requisite” he noted. “A horn player must never be caught having to play a passage that is too slow for him to double- or triple-tongue and too fast for him to single-tongue.”

When the series returns, we will have a few more helpful notes on multiple tonguing.

Continue in Hornmasters Series to Part III

While long considered an essential skill for the trumpet player, double and triple tonguing was not so essential that it was included in The Art of French Horn Playing. But it is addressed in a number of horn publications.

Arban is a major influence

Most commonly brass teachers suggest the syllables “tu” and “ku” for multiple tonguing, a concept drawn from Arban in his cornet method. There is an important thing to note with this; Arban was a French speaker. Say “tu” and “ku” first as you would in English, then try with your best imitation of a French accent. Depending on your English accent there may be a huge difference, you need to say them more like French to multiple tongue well. Keep this in mind as you see the suggestions of syllables as you read on in this series

The “Tah-Kah” approach

Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique introduces the topic of double and triple tonguing as follows.

Some players are gifted with extremely fast-moving and agile tongue muscles. Others are more sluggish in this respect…. In many cases no amount of practicing will compensate completely for a ‘slow tongue’. In fast tongued passages, many players therefore have to resort to what is known as ‘double tonguing’ and triple tonguing’. This is an ingenious method in which notes produced by means of the normal tongue movements of ‘tah’ and ‘dah’ alternate with notes produced by the syllable ‘kah’, thus giving us in combination ‘tah-kah tah-kah’ or, in triple tonguing ‘tah-tah-kah’ or ‘tah-kah-tah’. When first practising this tonguing, the attack produced by ‘kah’ will be very rough. This is because in the syllable ‘kah’, there is no direct contact between the tongue and the teeth.

Schuller suggests learning to make the “kah” very strong and to start practicing double tonguing very slowly. He notes

Although at first discouraging, clean attacks can eventually be attained. I have not known a single student who, once he had put in the necessary amount of practice, could not master double or triple tonguing.

“Kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty”

While not covered in The Art of French Horn Playing, Farkas addressed at some length the topic of multiple tonguing in The Art of Brass Playing, presenting it as an alternate used only in specific situations.

When a tongued passage occurs which is too fast to be single-tongued, the brass player can always resort to double- or triple-tonguing. I use the word “resort” purposely because, in my opinion, these two types of tonguing should only be used as a last resort. Not that there is anything wrong or cowardly about their use, but…. resolve only to use them when the tempo absolutely cannot be handled by single-tonguing.

Farkas recommends the syllables “too-koo,” “tih-kih,” and “dih-gih” noting that

This principle can be easily grasped by reversing the syllables and saying rapidly a phrase we have all used at some time, “(Here) kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty.” If you can say this rapidly, you can double tongue….

After a discussion of how to build up the “K” syllable he notes

Strangely enough, many students, when first studying double-tonguing, can attain great speed, although it is usually quite uncontrolled. So it is essential when learning both double- and triple-tonguing to play very slowly and evenly. The unevenness, so difficult to prevent, is much more pronounced at a slow speed and can thus be corrected more satisfactorily.

Conventional wisdom on triple tonguing

Farkas presents that most brass players visualize triple tonguing as a T-T-K motion (“tih-tih-kih” or “dih-dih-gih”) but then notes that

Occasionally, brass players get into heated discussions with flute players, who contend that the proper articulation for triple-tonguing is “tih-kih-tih-tih-kih-tih-tih-kih-tih”, with the “K” attack in the middle of each group of three. But this is splitting hairs, for a glance at the figure will show that this series, once started, continues to repeat two “T’s” and one “K” just as the brass player’s articulation does.

Farkas also notes that “many players will solve certain triplet passages with double-tonguing, emphasizing the proper notes.” In other words, double tonguing with accents in triplets is another way to produce triple tonguing (and an approach I use often). Farkas advocates learning double tonguing first and to then when mastered learn triple tonguing.

There are better resources…

I don’t think most of the syllables suggested above are ideal, and Schuller and Farkas ultimately come across as not being big advocates of multiple tonguing. Read on for some newer takes on the topic

Continue in Hornmasters Series to Part II

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.

Continue in Hornmasters Series