Re: tongue block (resend with subject)

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew wrote:
>
>Pat,
>Don't be so sensitive. 

It was a tongue in cheek comment. 

Jimmy said that really good players make different embouchures have
different tones. I claim to be able to make both my main embouchures
sound the same. Therefore I am not a really good player... <insert
smiley here>

>I recall you said in an earlier post that you 
>like all of your embouchures to sound the same (or pretty much the 
>same) otherwise it isn't musical. 

No, that's not what I said. I said that I didn't want my tone to
change automatically whenever I change embouchures. I want to have
control over my tone, not to have it dictated by the method I use to
select notes on the instrument. 

>Then why bother varying your embouchure? 

For the simple reason that there are some things I can do well whilst
puckering that I find much harder to do whilst tongue blocking and
there are some thing that I do with TB that are impossible without TB.

>Personally, I get a different sound out of different 
>embouchures - I think it makes things more interesting tonally - 
>creates different dynamics etc. YMMV.

Absolutely - I like to get a wide range of tones with both of my
embouchures. I can think of few things more boring that someone
playing with exactly the same timbre all the time. 

>In any case, I'd like to hear a pure pucker player get that percussive 
>"thwap" of a tongue blocked note. You can get it with a U-block (great 
>for the two draw, especially rhythm stuff) but a pure pucker player is 
>going to sound like he's slurring most every note (in my not so humble 
>opinion).

There are a few players who can do pretty good "fake tongue slaps" and
the like. David Barrett springs quickly to mind.

 -- Pat.