This Trumpet Topic page is the fourth of a series of postings related to improving one's
single tonguing. Like so many of our trumpet techniques, great improvement can be seen in
our single-tonguing if we simply discipline ourselves to devoting just a few minutes every
single day to the development or maintenence of this technique.
I hope that you have incorporated the basic exercises from my past three web pages of this series into your daily practice routine. I suggest that you first go through your own warm-up routine, then play these tonguing exercises before you procede with the rest of your practicing. Be sure that you always practice these tonguing exercises with a metronome.
Use a fast tongue motion and get the tongue in and out of the airstream quickly, so the tongue doesn't stop the air flow. Strive to maintain a very steady stream of air on the sixteenth notes and simply "dent" the airstream with your tongue.
The following exercise is similar to the exercise on the preceding page, but the tempo is slightly faster and some finger/tongue coordination is required:
Rest briefly, then continue with the following exercise. The tempo has now been increased to mm=136.
Take another brief rest then continue with the following exercise based on opening excerpt from Ravel's Piano Concerto in G:
