Staccato tonguing on the saxophone
Jack (trumpet) and Brad (tenor sax) both started playing a couple of years back. They meet, one day each week, after work and play duets together. It’s mainly jazzy stuff and some of it is quite difficult. They kind of gel and play well together.
This week they’ve been asked to rehearse with a local rock band. The band wants some funky horn lines on one of their songs.
“This will be a piece of cake”, says JacK as they enter the rehearsal.
“Yeah, rock stuff is easy”, says Brad.
They look through the music and take in an eight bar intro and then a few simple 1/16-note riffs. No problem.
The band starts up - and are they are tight? Jack and Brad come in bang on time, but quickly fall apart on the 1/16th-notes. The band stops.
“It ain’t tight enough guys” says the drummer. He raps out the riff, machine gun like, on the snare.
“It’s gotta sound just like that. Both of you dead together” he says.
Brad and Jack have a few more shots at it but they can’t get the staccato tonguing together. After a while they give up.
“Sorry guys, but we’ve got to work on this” says Jacco and they leave feeling slightly less confident than when they arrived.
A few tips on staccato tonguing
It’s a common problem. Many people find staccato tonguing difficult. Clean execution of tongued staccato passages depends on perfect synchronization with the fingers and requires considerable practice.
A rapid staccato is governed by the speed with which the tongue returns to the reed, ready to play the next note. Eventually the action of the tongue will become automatic. But the tongue and fingers must work together.
Try pronouncing “daht”. Release the tongue from the reed with quite an explosive, almost violent, click.
Practice on one note, slowly at first, in a strict rhythm. Every note must be stopped short - by returning the tongue to the reed - until the next attack. Gradually speed up the process and add simple runs to synchronize the fingers.
