I try to find interesting ways to practice, ways that keep me engaged and improving on various facets of my playing. I got fairly good at double and triple tonguing early on in my euphonium playing, but I struggled to be able to slur rapidly and cleanly between notes of the same valve fingering, i.e., starting on a tuning concert Bb on the top of the staff to a concert D above that. Then going up to the B natural and slurring up to the concert D with valve combo 1&2. Then going up to concert C and slurring up to concert Eb with the valve combo 1. And so on.
So, I started to practice the slurs as triplet patterns, like this: Bb-D-Bb, D-Bb-D, Bb-D-Bb, D-Bb-D and so on. I would start slowly and put emphasis on the first note of each triplet figure, so I would emphasize Bb and then play the next two notes, then emphasize E and play the next two notes, and so on. I found that I could get the slur better this way, rather than just going from Bb to D then Bb then D in a kind of "two note" at a time approach. And when I was able to speed up the triplet pattern, it would sound just like an ordinary slur between two notes without the triplet emphasis. I got pretty fast at this.
So in my never ending search to find new ideas and ways to practice, I started putting the triple tonguing together with the slurring and found a pretty neat and fun way to work on both. I start at a relatively normal triple tonguing speed, following that with the triplet feel slurring, then as I go up and down chromatically, I speed up each pairing of tonguing and slurring. When my tongue is "on" (i.e., when I don't have any canker sores on my tongue or inside lip!), I can really get sailing. This is a great warmup exercise to see if you can tongue faster or slur faster. I seem to be able to slur whatever speed I can tongue. Not sure the opposite is true. Get good at this and try it when you are warming up before band rehearsal (if we ever have another band rehearsal!), and you will have untold numbers of eyeballs heading your way. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, mostly good probably. I actually warmup in a corner away from the crowd, it is "my time".
Here is a brief sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2Su9hjibk
Edit: Yikes, I had written the wrong notes in the first and second paragraph. I meant slurring from open Bb to "D", not "E". That must not have made a bit of sense before. I corrected it today, 10/2/2020.
So, I started to practice the slurs as triplet patterns, like this: Bb-D-Bb, D-Bb-D, Bb-D-Bb, D-Bb-D and so on. I would start slowly and put emphasis on the first note of each triplet figure, so I would emphasize Bb and then play the next two notes, then emphasize E and play the next two notes, and so on. I found that I could get the slur better this way, rather than just going from Bb to D then Bb then D in a kind of "two note" at a time approach. And when I was able to speed up the triplet pattern, it would sound just like an ordinary slur between two notes without the triplet emphasis. I got pretty fast at this.
So in my never ending search to find new ideas and ways to practice, I started putting the triple tonguing together with the slurring and found a pretty neat and fun way to work on both. I start at a relatively normal triple tonguing speed, following that with the triplet feel slurring, then as I go up and down chromatically, I speed up each pairing of tonguing and slurring. When my tongue is "on" (i.e., when I don't have any canker sores on my tongue or inside lip!), I can really get sailing. This is a great warmup exercise to see if you can tongue faster or slur faster. I seem to be able to slur whatever speed I can tongue. Not sure the opposite is true. Get good at this and try it when you are warming up before band rehearsal (if we ever have another band rehearsal!), and you will have untold numbers of eyeballs heading your way. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, mostly good probably. I actually warmup in a corner away from the crowd, it is "my time".
Here is a brief sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2Su9hjibk
Edit: Yikes, I had written the wrong notes in the first and second paragraph. I meant slurring from open Bb to "D", not "E". That must not have made a bit of sense before. I corrected it today, 10/2/2020.
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