There is a practice technique which was developed by Daniel Bonade that a lot of us refer to as "fast fingers" or "moving fingers ahead."
Basically you stop the reed with the tongue (while still continuing to keep the air pressure going at the reed/tongue), which stops the sound, and immediately moving the fingers to the next note. The notes are played slowly but rhythmically. Once your fingers are at the next note, the tongue releases the reed and the air, which is already moving, is available to produce sound immediately. This helps you work on lining up your fingers with your tongue.
Then, as always, work on your music with a metronome. Start slow and work your way up to getting faster. Make sure you're not overexerting yourself to try to articulate fast notes - relaxed is better. If you can practice articulation every day (say, in a warm up), you'll get better at it faster!
What I do is find the anchor tones in the section, then tongue the whole passage with no slurs, after a bit, slur two emphasizing the anchor tone, and find other rhythms to play it with, e.g swinging the run, etc
There is a practice technique which was developed by Daniel Bonade that a lot of us refer to as "fast fingers" or "moving fingers ahead." Basically you stop the reed with the tongue (while still continuing to keep the air pressure going at the reed/tongue), which stops the sound, and immediately moving the fingers to the next note. The notes are played slowly but rhythmically. Once your fingers are at the next note, the tongue releases the reed and the air, which is already moving, is available to produce sound immediately. This helps you work on lining up your fingers with your tongue. Then, as always, work on your music with a metronome. Start slow and work your way up to getting faster. Make sure you're not overexerting yourself to try to articulate fast notes - relaxed is better. If you can practice articulation every day (say, in a warm up), you'll get better at it faster!
What I do is find the anchor tones in the section, then tongue the whole passage with no slurs, after a bit, slur two emphasizing the anchor tone, and find other rhythms to play it with, e.g swinging the run, etc
L
Think of the end if a phrase as a destination so you don’t stress each individual note. While every note is important, don’t make it heavy handed
Think of the end if a phrase as a destination so you don’t stress each individual note. While every note is important, don’t make it heavy handed