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

Gunther Schuller in Horn Technique has a rather different take on the tongue and tonguing than Farkas.

Introducing the concept of varying the contact point

He certainly does not agree with the up and down idea of a tongue stroke and offers an alternate approach to tonguing.

The tongue during a note, i.e. after the attack, pulls back into a relatively relaxed suspended position, arched slightly towards the roof of the mouth. For a high note the tongue must be arched high in the mouth, while for a low note the tongue can lie more along the bottom of the mouth. Actually the tongue’s position is directly related to the position of the jaw and lower teeth, since the base of the tongue is connected to the pharynx….

The tongue’s role in the attack of a note is somewhat controversial. I have encountered excellent players who believe that the tip of the tongue must never touch the teeth, but instead should hit the gums on the roof of the mouth. Others think of the tongue’s movement as a ‘forward’ motion; still others think of it as a ‘snapping back’ kind of movement. Strangely enough I have found that, given enough talent and/or hard practice, reasonably clean attacks can be attained with all these different methods.

I personally feel, however, that the approach described below is the most direct and easiest to control. As in the case of tone production, the relative height or level of the tongue is again very important. For high notes the tip of the tongue, which should be pointed (not wide or flat), should produce the syllable ‘tah’ on the teeth. The higher the note, the higher the contact point on the teeth. High notes like high f2 (concert), in fact, are attacked at the edge of the teeth and gum line. By the same token, for low notes the tongue, now a little less pointed, may reach out as far as the inner curve of the upper lip. Between the lowest and highest notes the tongue will adopt correspondingly graded lower or higher positions, as the case may be….

As for the direction of the tongue movement, I believe in a compromise of the ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ positions alluded to above…. Basically I consider both movements to be inseparable parts of one action.

Schuller among other points allows that the tongue can be in a much more forward position than that described by Farkas.

The air factor

Schuller had one other major point on average tonguing, that of the air.

A subtle point often neglected in the study of attacks is that of the air stream must follow immediately to sustain the tone. Even the slightest, physically almost imperceptible delay, will cause a ‘poppy’ attach, or one with a slight ‘bubble’ on it. The cleanest attacks will be those that have a full stream of air to back them up. This means that the air must be ready to go.

More perspective on the variety of approaches to tonguing

Milan Yancich was in an interesting position in relation to the discussion of tonguing. He had performed with Farkas in the Chicago symphony and respected him greatly. They were even associated as business partners with Wind Music, Inc. However, Yancich recognized clearly that the approach presented as correct by Farkas was not the only correct approach to tonguing on the horn. He begins his discussion of the topic in A Practical Guide to French Horn Playing as follows.

There is a great deal of argument concerning the use of the tongue in brass playing. Having been taught to tongue behind my teeth in my early years on the horn and later to tongue between the teeth, I have concluded from both experiences that there is no one-and-only way to articulate. Tonguing is an individual matter depending on the formation of the teeth and jaw. The tongue, its thickness and length, the size of the oral cavity, the bite of the teeth, all these contribute to articulating with the tongue. I usually instruct my beginning students to tongue slightly between the teeth.

Didn’t Farkas say that “One of the most common faults is the method of tonguing forward and backward into the lip opening?” Wouldn’t that be between the teeth? Continuing with Yancich,

It is my opinion, that to produce a precise and pointed attack, a French horn player must use more tongue in his articulation. The reason for this is that unlike the trumpet, trombone, and tuba, the French horn is an instrument slower to respond, and it is also the only instrument of the brass family whose sound is reflected….

Yes! He continues with an illustration of how he goes about first teaching a student how start notes.

In explaining how to produce a good attack, I first ask a student to point his tongue out between the lips, spit, and blow. After several repetitions I ask him to hold his lips tightly together and blow. Naturally, with no opening in the lips no air passes. Then I ask him to purse his lips tightly together again, but this time forcibly to blow the lips apart. I call this “blowing the lips open” and I warn that this is the wrong way to attack, but that it is quite often heard and causes a “splat” or “splash” attack….

At this point I try to draw a word-picture of an attack. As an analogy I liken the tongue to a plug in a tub of water. When the plug is pulled back or out, the water rushes out. The air we take into our lungs is like the water in the tub, and when the tongue is pulled back or released, the air rushes out like the water from the tub when the plug is pulled.

Developing a wide range of articulations

After further discussion of developing a concept of a release Yancich makes it clear that we have to develop a wide range of articulations on the horn and that those articulations are driven in large part by the placement and action of the tongue.

I then demonstrate different kinds of articulation: placing the tongue out very far between the teeth for heavy, marcato or hammered playing; placing it behind the upper teeth for legato playing; putting to tongue to the roof of the mouth to give an even more legato articulation; and finally placing the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth, using the flat of the tongue against the roof of the mouth to produce even another attack. The student then understands that the tongue, very much like the bow on a stringed instrument, can be used for many different types of articulation. At the beginning, however, a firm, bell-like attack is best for setting the notes into the lip.

The concepts described by Yancich were key ones for me when I hit a personal crisis and had to rethink my tonguing.

Continue in Hornmasters series

Every method book on the horn has something to say on the topic of tonguing, with some of it being contradictory. And it is a really important topic to sort out. As such, this part of the Hornmasters series will be broken up into five parts, moving chronologically through Classic horn publications that address the topic.

Key point #1: the tongue motion is oblique

In my recent podcast interview with Peter Iltis (MRI horn studies) he describes the motion of the tongue in tonguing as being oblique. It really is neither up and down or forward and backward. How that physical reality is described by the authors of the following quotations from classic horn publications gives insight into their thinking on the topic along with insights into how to address tonguing problems in general.

Simple, but accurate instruction is the best

To begin I would like to go back to 1939, before the Farkas book, and start with a quote from Anton Horner.

Attack each note with your tongue as though you had a small hair or tiny piece of thread on the end of your tongue and wanted to force it out of your mouth.

As noted in a prior article, this quote is from page 4 of Primary Studies for the French Horn, where it may be found right before study No. 1. Why this quote is important is that Horner was the teacher of a generation of the best horn players in the United States. Anton Horner (1877-1971) was principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1904-30 and a member of the orchestra until 1946, and he was also on the faculty of the Curtis Institute from its founding in 1924 until 1942. Big name players he taught included James Chambers, the Berv brothers, and Mason Jones. He left few publications but his influence was wide and significant.

So before reading on, just try to do what he says in the quote. Effective instruction is simple and clear and also gets the desired result. It really worked in his teaching, and it would pay off to keep this little statement in your mind as a filter to put other subsequent quotations through, as for many players this simple approach works beautifully. For a slightly longer discussion of the Horner tonguing approach please read my earlier article, which quotes Kendall Betts.

Farkas didn’t get it right in the “Bible”

Being the “Bible” of horn playing for several generations of horn students, for many players working on tonguing the first stop for years has been the Farkas book. Farkas began his description of an average or general style of tonguing in The Art of French Horn Playing by describing what he felt was a common fault.

One of the most common faults is the method of tonguing forward and backward into the lip opening. In this method, not only is the tongue fighting against the air stream, which is going in the opposite direction, but the entire tongue, a rather heavy organ, is required to move. No wonder that players who use this faulty manner of tonguing complain of sluggishness and lack of speed in rapid staccato!

Now go back an read Horner again. For those players influenced by Horner their tongue motion much more closely resembles the above description of how not to tongue than the description of the Farkas tonguing method that follows.

Keep the main body of the tongue motionless and well down in the bottom of the mouth. The curl the tip of it upward until it resembles the point of a ski. Touch this tip to the gum line where the back of the upper front teeth enter the gums. The tongue is now in a position to be helped in its attack by the air, which will tend to push it in a downward direction. It is this up-down action of the tongue which should be induced….. Move only the tip of the tongue and that no farther than absolutely necessary to open and close the flow of air. The shorter the up and down stroke of the tongue can be made, the faster it can repeat.

Sorry, the tongue does not move up and down

Before I add any comments we have more to read. In The Art of Brass Playing Farkas expands upon his concept of tonguing. He believes that an attack is best thought of as a “pulling away of the tip of the tongue” and that the tongue moves in an up and down motion. Expanding on this idea,

One might think of a series of tongued notes as simply a long note which is cut into separate segments by the tongue. When one thinks in this way, the logic of moving the tip of the tongue in a up-and-down direction becomes apparent. So many players have the mistaken idea that the tongue should move back-and-forth—piston-like. …Correct tonguing is an up-and-down motion, but when the tongue is placed between the teeth, the only direction it can move for the attack is backward.

Going back to the simple quote from Anton Horner that we started with, it really does not line up at all with the approach presented by Farkas. In fact you get a pretty clear sense that Farkas thought the Horner approach to be wrong.

Horner was on the right track

If you want to be diplomatic you could say that Horner and Farkas presented two different ends of a spectrum of ways to think about tonguing. If you want to be real technical about it, both are probably wrong.

If however you look at an X-Ray video of tonguing (for example here) you will see that Horner was on the right track toward something that was physiologically accurate and Farkas was a bit off in his descriptions. As we proceed in this series readers will see varied approaches presented, and when combined with a bit of critical thinking will hopefully also come to new clarity about their own best approach to tonguing and teaching tonguing.

Continue in Hornmasters Series