Saxophone, Flute, Anchor Tonguing, Oh My!

[PhoneSax]

My name is Eric and I'm a jazz saxophone player. I double on clarinet and flute, and I've been trying to improve my doubling skills as much as possible for college. I have been teaching myself flute for about a year now. I use a book by Trevor Wye for tone (it's practically my flute bible). When I practice flute, almost all of my practice time goes to long tones and tone exercises because a lot of the technique I already know (as a saxophone player). This week I played flute and piccolo for the show Cinderella and I'm also in a show band for which I do a lot of doubling. At this point, I am extremely happy with my tone. It is full and beautiful. My articulation isn't as great however, and I recently discovered why. I developed a habit called "anchor tonguing" where I use my tongue to make up for the support I haven't yet developed in my lower lip! This helps support the tone but I can't use my tongue for articulation because it's too busy holding my lower lip! What is the best way to fix this habit? Are there any books or videos available or exercises I can do?

Thank you so much!
Eric

[littlemanbighorn]

Anchor Tonguing isn't necessarily a bad thing. I use it and my clarinet teacher said I have one of the fastest single-tongues he's ever heard.

[thejoyofsax]

Sounds like maybe you're just too tense in the embouchure area. Your lower lip should actually be fairly relaxed when playing flute, more or less lying on the lip plate and covering a third of the hole. Thus, you shouldn't need a whole lot of support at your mouth, as your hands create the points of balance and hold the instrument up.

When I play flute, I rely more on what they would call "French" tonguing, which is sticking the tip of the tongue between the lips, sometimes slightly out of the mouth.

I anchor tongue on saxophone, though, and cannot avoid it. Like littlemanbighorn, I think it is the result of my fast single tongue on reed instruments.

[AltoRuth]

Could someone please explain exactly what "anchor tonguing is". I've seen the term used here, but don't know to what it refers. Thanks!
Ruth

[CountSpatula]

Can someone help me out here I'm confused..."correct" tonguing is when you use the tip of your tongue to touch the reed right? That did wonders for me when I found out I was anchor tonguing which I thought was when you use more the middle of your tongue? The way he explained it to me sounds like hes using his tongue to hold up his lower lip?? Help this poor confused child :(

[daigle65]

The proper tonguing technique on flute is with the tip of the tongue touching the area just above the gums. The lower you are in the register the closer the tongue will be to the teeth (never touching the teeth or the lips), the higher you are in the register the closer the tongue will be to the roof of the mouth.
This is also relative to the dynamics;
The louder you play = closer to the teeth
The softer you play = closer to the roof

If you're playing fff staccato in the lower register, you can tongue on the gums.
If you want to attack a note at ppp in the 3rd octave, you can use a "puh" articulation which is done with the lips.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "anchor tonguing" but if you are supporting your lower lip with the tongue:? you are way off, your tongue should not be touching your lower lip at all.
My advice is to take a couple of lessons with a competent flute teacher.
ps...I have a BA in classical flute, I'm not guessing.

[thejoyofsax]

Anchor tonguing is fixing the tip of the tongue on the backs of the bottom teeth or the bottom gumline area and using the middle (and not the tip - actually, you should avoid ever using the very tip of the tongue to articulate) of the tongue to articulate. The tip is thus anchored.

Really, I am not that big of a "traditional technique" pusher. If a method works for a person, sounds good, and won't inhibit playing or learning down the line, I say go for it.

Also daigle -- I am right about French tonguing, no? BME in Music Ed on the way, so I'm not guessing either. I remember a flute prof addressing the method.

[daigle65]

Really, I am not that big of a "traditional technique" pusher. If a method works for a person, sounds good, and won't inhibit playing or learning down the line, I say go for it.
The way he describes it, his tonguing technique is certainly going to cause him problems down the road, better correct it now than later, in fact he probably needs to start from scratch.



Also daigle -- I am right about French tonguing, no? BME in Music Ed on the way, so I'm not guessing either. I remember a flute prof addressing the method.
Sorry but I have never heard of what you describe as "french tonguing" and I'm french-speaking;)
Unless you're going for some contemporary music technique, the tongue should almost never touch below the gum line, the exception being on the lowest notes where it may touch the lips but without protruding from the mouth as this will disturb the embouchure.

[MRC01]

Anchor tonguing is considered "incorrect" form by every flutist and teacher I know. One observation I've made with beginners is they tend to place the lip plate too high on the lip, rolled in too far, and press or squish it into the lip too hard. This last part may be what makes it feel necessary to push back or support the lower lip with the tongue. Obviously we can't know whether PhoneSax is doing that, but it may be a useful tip.

In short, experiment to find the lip position and orientation that enables you to finger low C and play all 7 or 8 of the overtones with a big, clear tone. You may find that pulling the lip plate downward, rolling out and pressing less hard makes it easier. This may help eliminate the anchor tonguing.

[PhoneSax]

Apparently there was some confusion too- I don't anchor tongue on clarinet or sax. I use the tip to tip method and always have.

I just anchor tongue on flute and it is not working for me so I need to change it.

I've been doing long tones all day and it's helping but the tone is still much more airy than normal. Hoping that will go away...

Thanks!
Eric

[thejoyofsax]

The way he describes it, his tonguing technique is certainly going to cause him problems down the road, better correct it now than later, in fact he probably needs to start from scratch.

Absolutely agree with you here. I guess I was thinking more about myself "anchoring" on saxophone when I wrote that sentence.

"#2. French tonguing is tonguing between the teeth or between the lips, instead of striking the roof of the mouth behind the roots of the
front teeth.

It is a good technique for certain types of music, but will not allow you to double or triple tongue---so you must use it only when it's called for and use 'regular' tonguing the rest of the time."

From this lady's website:
http://www.jennifercluff.com/articu1.htm

[Razzy]

I have decided to revive this topic because I have noticed something recently, and I honestly cannot believe that I never noticed this before. I do not "anchor tongue" as described in this thread, but on reed instruments, I do pretty much always brush my tongue against my lower lip when articulating. It sort of bounces off of my lip after each tongue stroke. This doesn't seem to affect speed at all, and in fact, the way I would have to contort my jaw/embouchure to allow this not to happen causes my tone to suffer greatly. After several weeks practicing both ways, I have concluded that this has nothing to do with speed or facility, it's just a strange habit that happens when I articulate regularly on a saxophone or a clarinet.

My question is, might this be a result of playing the flute? The very different configuration of articulating on the flute might have affected how I articulate on my reeds, but I'm not sure, and was wondering if this might be some kind of side effect...

[Gordon (NZ)]

I don't think so, because for flute, the tip of the tongue is active against the roof of the mouth, which is a lot further from the lower lip than the position of the tip of the tongue against a reed.

If you are "bouncing" the tip of the tongue off the lip then it may actually enable you to tongue faster. :-) Bouncing is faster than slowing down, stopping, then speeding up again.

[DanPerezSax]

That's why it's faster to beat the crap out of a guy than to shadowbox!

[Razzy]

Good call... and that's true Gordon, about the flute... maybe that accounts for the fact that I can consistently tongue pretty fast on the reeds, even though I never practiced it that much. :| And could also explain why the flute is slowest for me: nothing to bounce off of! Dusty Gazongas!!