Posted by Gary Press on January 07, 2002 at 09:37:25:
In Reply to: Re: Double tonguing posted by John S on January 07, 2002 at 09:02:13:
I've noticed that with most of my students, it tends not so much to be an issue of where their tongue hits, rather an issue of how the air moves or in this case ceases to move. This same problem seems to crop up when working on vibrato.
When single-tonguing, the object is to keep the air moving steadily regardless of the tongue. The tongue merely "interrupts" the airstream momentarily, sealing to create a clean articulation. When beginning multiple tonguing, there is a tendency to stop moving the air with the same "controlled relentlessness", as I like to call it. Choose your articulation sound based on what sounds best. Keep the air moving regardless of the articulation sounds you choose (e.g. tah-kah, dah-gah, too-koo, doo-goo, etc). Like in so many other areas, we want the emphasis to be on the product and not the method (to quote Arnold Jacobs).
I also think the suggestion made earlier about practicing the "k" sound alone can be very helpful, since this is a new sound that is being introduced. If you can whistle, trying whistling with a "k" sound to start the sound and blow through the notes. This trick helped me quite a bit.
Best of luck!