Tongue Arch & Hiss

mer

Whistle the first exercise of an Irons flexibility study.
This is the same movement that your tongue should use as we play.
吹口哨是铁人柔韧练习的第一步。这和我们演奏时的舌头的动作是相同的。

It is like using Haa for low notes Hoo in the mid range and Hee a little higher. As we arch the tongue higher in the center; the front of the tongue also raises a little making a more focused airstream. The more focused the stream the less lip mass we excite and the higher we play.
就是说演奏低音时用Haa，中音时用Hoo，Hee时更高一些。当我们高拱起舌头中部，舌头前部也稍稍抬起，产生更集中的气流。气流越集中，越能降低嘴唇紧张负荷，也能演奏更高音。

This is what it looks like.
如下图


The arch stops helping when we get to the high register.
See all of the room at the front of the mouth for the air to spread out. It can only focus the stream to a certain point.


At Bb or High C switch to a Hiss.

This is a forward arch of the tongue and it rolls forward and pushes up to the top teeth and roof of the mouth in the double high register. It is like saying Sissss. For some the tongue anchors at the bottom teeth and others it anchors at the edge of the top teeth. This makes the air stream much more focused and even less lip mass is engaged.

Notice where the tongue anchors. In the past many teachers taught a concept called anchor tonguing. That would cause this action to happen naturally.

Think about a guitar string. When we strum the string a note is played as the entire mass of the string vibrates. When we place a finger in the middle of the string and strum then only half of the mass can vibrate and the note sounded is an octave higher.

Our lips are not shaped in a linear fashion like the string. There is much more meat in the center so we don't vibrate exactly half to change an octave but the idea is similar.

.

Hiss at High C.


As you go higher the hiss gets more pronounced.

Hiss at Double High C.



We all knew that arching the tongue made the air speed up because of the Bernoulli Principle; but based on Newton抯 second law that doesn抰 give us any more energy because the mass (space occupied is less). We also know that because it makes a smaller oral cavity it helps us maintain pressure.
A study in Japan in 2000 proved that this arching movement also made us make slight adjustments to the jaw. These movements make changes to the angle that the lips align at (affecting the point of vibration) and to the lips tension/compression.

In 1962 Dr. Robert Weast did some studies with a machine that blew pressurized air through rubber lips that were under tension.

His machine played a D with:
14 oz of air @ 1 oz of tension,
12 oz of air @ 5 oz of tension,
5 oz of air @ 8 oz of tension.

In his experiment: He had NO way to add lip compression. He could make the hole bigger and smaller by tension alone.

That meant less lip mass CAN be excited with less air. IF we use a bigger lip mass we can get the same note BUT it takes much more air pressure to excite the extra mass.

In 1976 Brian Wadsworth did some experiments proving that the lips touch when they vibrate (high speed movie played back super slow). He also proved that given the same air pressure a small width of air played a higher note than a big width of air (again using an artificial machine.)

Putting all of these together.

As we arch the tongue higher in the center; the front of the tongue also raises a little making a more focused air stream. The more focused the stream the less lip mass we excite and the higher we play. (This explains why we CAN play high without tongue arch but lots of stomach support and we can also play high with tongue arch needing less stomach support of the air.) It has been this problem of BOTH groups being able to play well that has led to some heated debates. There is a mathematical reason why both ideas work. But for me I feel that the arch makes things easier.

It works for MANY reasons that all seem to add together.

Faster air speed, smaller oral cavity (those 2 go hand in hand),
directing a smaller air stream to the lips (making a smaller portion of the lip surface vibrate),
slight jaw realignments (caused by the tongue motion which realigns the air stream AND changes the lip tension.

Which is the most important? They are not in agreement on this. But it is generally felt that all of those contribute to increased range by changing tongue levels.

I hope this helps explain it.

Pops

There is currently yet another debate on if the arch helps or not.
I believe that this is lead by someone who was never shown how to do it correctly.

The first person to work with me on this was horrible at explaining it yet he was a DMA. It took me 3 years to catch on.

The method I use averages 10-20 minutes to teach good use of tongue arch.

Here is a sound file of me teaching a comeback player to use tongue arch.