To Anchor Tongue or not to Anchor Tongue - That is the Question
On a recent evening, my phone vibrated with a message from a colleague. He was reaching out to several of his trusted friends with a serious problem -
“Help! I have a 9th grade private clarinet student who is a great player, but he anchor tongues and it’s the biggest hurdle holding him back. Does anyone have any tips for fixing this?”
Fully expecting my colleagues to jump in with all kinds of cures, I watched in surprise as, one by one, we all gave similar advice -
“If his tongue speed is good and he’s not planning to be a music major, it’s generally not worth fixing.”
Gasp! But…how could a group chat of professional players and teachers, including multiple tenured and retired university clarinet professors, say this? Isn’t anchor tonguing a cardinal sin of clarinet playing???
Well…not really. It’s not the actual method of tonguing that’s the problem, it’s the symptoms that matter.
Clarinet articulation
Clarinetists have been instructed from time immemorial to articulate the same way: “Tip of the tongue to the tip of the reed”. When performed properly, this creates a light, agile, and versatile articulation that encourages the back of the tongue to be high, increasing air speed and focusing the sound and intonation.
But, for some students, they find this to be unnatural and instead choose to “anchor” the tip of their tongue behind the bottom of the lower teeth, touching the middle portion of the tongue to the tip of the reed. This is usually not a conscious decision made by the student but rather the way their body decides is most natural!
Anchor tonguing - the pros and cons
Believe it or not, there are actually several advantages to this method of articulation over the traditional tip-to-tip method, including -
A more stable, consistent tongue position for young students that otherwise struggle to keep the tip of the tongue close to, but not on, the reed while playing.
Faster articulation (thanks to the stability of the tongue created by firmly planting the tip behind the lower teeth, limiting excess tongue motion)
The negative symptoms associated with this style of tonguing can include -
An unfocused sound.
Flat pitch.
“Thuddy” sound while articulating (caused by too much surface area of the tongue touching the reed).
Making anchor tonguing work
While the traditional tip of the tongue to tip of the reed approach should be the ultimate goal for advanced students and professionals, the process of converting a student from anchor tonguing to tip-to-tip articulation is a difficult one, as the student must go back to square one and completely relearn how to articulate.
For many students, this is simply not practical - they don’t have the hours to commit to relearning articulation. For band directors, you also risk having one of your students essentially out of commission for weeks, if not months, relearning how to articulate.
Instead, identifying your anchor tonguers and encouraging them to minimize the negative symptoms above may prove a more practical approach.
Identifying your anchor tonguers
The process of identifying a student who is anchor tonguing is a simple one. Sometimes, just asking a student where they place the tip of the tongue is enough.
For students who can’t tell where their tongue is, put a small amount of brightly colored non-toxic marker on the tip of the reed (probably not a concert reed!) and have the student articulate. Where the marker ends up on their tongue is where they’re tonguing. Anchor tonguers will have marker towards the middle of their tongue as opposed to the tip.
Minimize the negatives
Although many students who anchor tongue drop the back of the tongue (leading to an unfocused sound and flat pitch), it doesn’t need to be that way. Encourage students to keep the back of the tongue high (think of a cat hissing or saying the syllable E), regardless of where the tip of their tongue falls.
Thuddy articulation can be minimized by either encouraging the students to use less surface area of the tongue to articulate, or by encouraging them to articulate towards one side of the reed. This will lighten the articulation and more closely imitate the tip-to-tip style of tonguing
Final thoughts
As with everything in life, balancing practicality with the ideal is crucial when teaching students to articulate. If students have already learned to anchor tongue and have been doing so for several years, the work involved to correct this habit is time intensive and difficult. If the steps listed above help produce an acceptable result (and the student is not planning to pursue music at the collegiate level or beyond), it is the opinion of myself and several of my colleagues not to correct the habit, and rather let the student do what is most natural for them.
Zachary West is a professional educator and performer based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. He is the proud owner of the DMV Clarinet Shop, a local affiliate of Lisa’s Clarinet Shop. For more information visit www.zacharywestclarinet.com.
Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2024 edition of School Band and Orchestra Directors magazine. To view the original version, click here.