[Music playing]

ROWENA WATTS: Hi. My name is Rowena, and I'm one of the instrumental tutors at The Arts Unit, and I play the clarinet. Today, I'm going to be talking to you about how to use your air when you play your instrument, and then I'm also going to talk a little bit about phrasing, and then how to articulate or tongue on the clarinet. Now, obviously, because I am a clarinet player, I will be referring specifically to this instrument, but you might find that some of these concepts, that I speak about, can also be applied to other instruments that you might play, particularly, if it's a wind or brass instrument, so please stay tuned.

So, first up, I'm going to discuss how we need to use our air when we play the clarinet, and I'm going to demonstrate how a lot of students play the clarinet when they first start playing.

[Music - 'Mary Had a Little Lamb']

So, what you might have noticed is that I was blowing a different bit of air, a different breath of air, for every note that I played then. Now, that is very hard work for one thing, but it also means that we're more likely to get a little bit of a squeak in our sound as well. So, what we actually need to do, when we're playing the clarinet, is we need to use one breath of air for each musical phrase. Now, you might be wondering, 'What is a phrase?' Well, it's basically a musical sentence. That's how I like to describe it to my students.

So, every piece that we play, and every piece that you will ever play, is broken up into small phrases, or musical sentences, that are 2 to 4 bars long, usually. So, just like when we say normal sentences, we don't use a different breath of air for each word, we also have to do the same thing when we're playing a musical sentence. So, we take 1 breath in, and then we play all of the notes in our musical sentence or our musical phrase, just as we take 1 breath before we say our sentence, and then we breathe again.

So, I'm going to demonstrate that now for you. So, I'm going to play the same tune for you, but I'm going to take 1 breath at the start of the phrase, and then I'm going to play all of my notes, just using my fingers to change the notes, before I breathe again.

[Music - 'Mary Had a Little Lamb']

Now, you might have noticed, when I did play, that my air was nice and strong, but I wasn't actually able to separate the notes that have to be played in that tune. So, what I'm going to talk to you about now is how we separate notes when we play, even when we're keeping our air nice and strong. So, we actually have to learn how to articulate, or 'tongue.' So, you might have heard your teacher talking about this with you already.

So, basically, what is articulating? It's just using the very tip of our tongue on the very tip of the reed at the start of each note, and it sounds like this.

[Music - 'Mary Had a Little Lamb']

Now, you might have noticed that when I played the tune that time, I was still able to keep my air nice and strong for the whole phrase. So, I just used 1 breath of air for the whole time, but I was able to separate the notes by using the very tip of the tongue on the very tip of the reed at the start of each note. So, when I'm first teaching students how to articulate on the clarinet, what I do is I ask them to say the word 'ta'.

So, let's try that together. 'Ta, ta, ta, ta.' Now, when you say the word 'ta', you'll notice that the very tip of the tongue hits the roof of your mouth, and it's very light. So, very light movement of the tongue. And, when we actually do tongue on the clarinet, we have to keep our tongueing nice and light as well, so that it doesn't interrupt the start of the note too much, and so we don't squeak either.

So now, let's move on to tongueing on the clarinet. So, when I'm first teaching students how to start tongueing on the clarinet, because it feels a little bit funny, what I do is I get them to start just on an open G. So a G with no fingers down, because it's one of the more friendly notes to play on the clarinet. And then, what we do is we start with the very tip of the tongue - so pretend this is my tongue - on the very tip of the reed.

And, when you press your tongue on the reed, what happens is it will stop the sound from coming out, but you can actually start your air without any sound coming out. So, you can probably see that I'm pushing my air, and my air is ready to go, and then what happens is when you release the tongue, because you want the note to start, the sound will come out. So, the best way to start articulating on the clarinet is we start with the tip of the tongue on the tip of the reed, get your air ready, and then push that air. Then, when you want the note to sound, just take the tongue off the reed.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to start with some semibreves. Just on a 4 beat note. So, if you want to grab your clarinet, now would be a really good time, and I've also got these exercises that I've written out for you as well. I'm also going to use my metronome, so that I can count and keep in time, and I'm going to set that to crotchet equals 72, so you can play along at home as well.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to start with our semibreve open Gs, and then what we're going to do is we're going to have a bar of rest in between those notes, so that we can put the tongue back on the reed, but keep that air pushing. Now, try to breathe every 2 bars, so that we're working on our phrasing as well. All right, so after 4 counts, I'm going to demonstrate the exercise with you, and let's give it a go.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

OK? So, hopefully, you could then feel the tip of the tongue starting each note for you, but you were keeping your air nice and strong. So, now what we'll do is we'll just play 4 bars of that note, without the rest in between. So, remember to keep your air nice and strong, and breathe at the end of the note if you need to.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

Now, if you're feeling comfortable with that, what we're going to do is we're going to then move on to playing minims, so 2 beat notes. And, the first exercise that you will see is that we, again, play a minim, and then have a 2 beat rest, then play a minim and have a 2 beat rest, so that we're working on using our tongue on the tip of the reed, taking the tongue off to let the sound come out, and then putting that tongue back on the reed, but keeping our air pushing for our phrase. So, this is, again, on crotchet equals 72, and I'll give you 4 counts in.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

OK? So, hopefully, you're finding that a little bit helpful at home. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to do constant minims as well, like we did with our 4 beat notes. So again, keep your air pushing all the way through the phrases, and breathe at the end of the phrase if you need to.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

OK? Now that we've been doing our tonguing on some semibreves and some minims, hopefully, you're feeling a little bit more comfortable with touching the tip of the tongue on the tip of the reed, and thinking about 'ta, ta, ta.' So, think about that movement when you're playing the clarinet. So now, we're going to move on to crotchets. So, we're going to do the same exercise that we've done for our semibreves and our minims. So, we're going to play a crotchet, then a rest, a crotchet, then a rest.

So remember, in the rest, we put the tongue back on the reed, but keep our air nice and strong for our phrase.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

Now, that one was a little bit more tricky, because it's a little bit faster, but what we're now going to try to do - and you can play these exercises as many times as you like - just pause the video until you are feeling comfortable. So, now, what we're going to do is we're going to play constant crotchets, for 4 bars, OK? So, remember to keep your air pushing all of the time, and it's just broken up with the tongue.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

OK? So, hopefully that's feeling a little bit more comfortable. Now, you can also try all of those exercises on different notes. Keep them on single notes, but try them on other notes so that you really feel comfortable with just the feeling of having to use the tongue and keeping that air pushing. Now, for a bit of a challenge, we're now going to play some quavers.

What we're going to do, though, is instead of having the rest, we're just going to try to play some consistent quavers. So, this is a little bit of a challenge. The really important thing is that, as the tongue has to move faster, the air has to really support the tongue as well, so keep that air pushing forward, and it almost propels the tongue as we play. So, let's give this one a go.

[Metronome ticking]

[Clarinet playing]

OK? Now, that one might have been even more of a challenge, but keep practising it, because it gets easier the more you practise. So practise your tonguing every day, and then you eventually don't need to really even think about it. It just becomes a habit, when you're playing your instrument. So, to finish off today's exercises, what I'd like you to now try to do, if you're feeling more comfortable with playing single notes with the tongue, we're going to try to play the tune that I played at the start of the video as well. So, let's play that one together, and it's just the first line.

[Metronome ticking]

[Music - 'Mary Had a Little Lamb']

Now, that might have felt quite different, because we have to then coordinate our fingers moving, with our tongue hitting the start of the reed. So, you might want to just practise that first line a few times until you're feeling comfortable, and you can slow it down as well. So hopefully, you will have a metronome that you play with at home, and if you need to slow it down to a slower speed, just so that you feel comfortable, that's OK. Now, let's try to play the whole exercise together. So, we'll play the whole tune using our tongueing that we've learned today.

[Metronome ticking]

[Music - 'Mary Had a Little Lamb']

So, thank you for joining me today. I hope that that has helped to explain articulation and tongueing for all of those budding clarinet students out there. It is one of the trickier things to learn, but as I said earlier, the more you practise, and the more you remember to keep your air pushing, really focus on that air and the phrasing, and then using the tongue just very lightly to start each note. Those are the most important things to remember. So, good luck with your practice, and thank you for joining me today.