When I tongue moderately quickly, my chin wobbles. A few tutors have called this 'chewing', and said I have to get rid of it. One problem: I have no idea what causes it, or how I'm supposed to lose it!

Any tips? I've assumed it's some kind of embouchure problem (not being tense enough, or something like that) but I'm ignorant and clueless so I would love some advice on how to set about solving my problem.

I would also appreciate some tips on how to master double-tonguing. Thanks!

Of course you ask the easdy questions - - - NOT.

What have your 'tutors' suggested you do to eliminate this 'chewing'?
I wouldn't worry about your embouchure, I doubt it is the casue of your chewing. Chewing is usually caused by trying to use your jaw to move your tongue. I suggest trying to keep your bottom jaw steady, grounded and low. Try to keep your tongue in the back/bottom of your mouth cavity. Then instead of pushing your tongue forward think about snapping it like a frog grabbing a fly. Do this slowly until you feel it becoming more natural then you can speed it up.

Double-tonguing.Let me see if I have an exercise I can send you rather than trying to narate a complete dessertation.

Thank you very much! That was very helpful!

<Added>

My tutors, although wonderful people, have been extremely unhelpful in this matter.

It is amazing how many people don't know what they're doing. And I don't mean that to sound mean. Lots of talented people just do it. And when they are asked why or how they often give one of two answers. Either they say what they read once in a famous persons book, or they say what they think they are doing when in fact they are doing something entirely different.

There are few teachers or tutors out there that really understand what is happening inside our bodies when we play. Glad I could help you a little I haven't forgotten about the double tonguing and hope to have something for you by weeks end.

When we open a tight jar lid, what do we do with our face? We grimace. Does it make us any stronger to grimace? No. Does the grimace help us open the jar lid? No. But we do it. Why do we do it? I dunno, but everyone grimaces when they strain their arms, legs, back, or almost any other muscle group in the body. There's no logical reason to grimace when we strain your muscles, but still we do it. Why?

Here's a similar example. Take off you shoes. Try to wiggle your middle toe without moving your other toes. I'm sure you can't do it if you have worn shoes most of your life. There's no anatomical reason for you to move all your toes when you only want to move one, but still you do it. Why?

Here's another one: Hold you hands palms up in front of you. Tightly curl ONLY you pinky fingers of each hand. What happens to the ring fingers right next to the pinky fingers? In most people, they move too. Some people can move the pinky finger w/o moving the ring finger, but many can not. Some people can do it with one hand, but not the other. There's no anatomical reason. These fingers each have their own tendons & nerve supply to the brain, yet most of us are powerless to move them independently. Why?

Here's why: Whenever we frequently or always move two or more muscle groups together, such as our toes inside shoes, or our last two fingers, or our faces when we strain muscles, our brain eventually "wires" these actions together into one signal to save energy so part of the brain can be used for other activities. In other words, the brain consolidates two different action signals into one signal to save brain space 7 energy. It's an efficiency thing. Some people's brains have a greater tendency towards efficient consolidation than other. In your case your brain is signaling your chin to move with your double tonguing.

So now what? Can we break the consolidation? YES! You can make your brain undo it because you made it do it in the first place, even if you didn't realize you were.

What it will take is very, VERY slow practicing with a very relaxed mind set. A strong emotional state encourages brain consolidation. When we play horn, we often are filled with strong desire to MAKE it happen. We need to kick back, and start playing our horns like children play with toys.... just relax and have fun with it. Easier to say than do, but, it's possible even under competitive circumstances.

I've don't have time to write more about it now, but I'll follow up with more information about this later. I promise. I've been through all this stuff and I've over come it, too. Hopefully I can help you.

Later.

In the mean time, you might want to look up Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz's book, "The Brain.." It explains these things in great detail. It was very helpful to me in overcoming similar problems.

Valerie

When we have more than one muscle group working together under consolidated signals, it's important to find the one muscle group that's the trigger for the others. While you notice your tongue and chin moving together, it's probably not one of these two that are triggering the unwanted motion. It's often from elsewhere, like along your neck or spine or in your shoulders. Often the trigger is from tension in one or those areas when they are tensed. So here's what I'd suggest you try.

When you sit to practice, before you place your horn to you lips, make sure your neck, spine, back, jaw & shoulders are relaxed. Focus your mind on getting them to relax. Use whatever tricks you can to do this... visual imagery of something you love, thinking about happy thoughts, fuzzy puppies, kitties ... whatever. Deep breath several times feeling a deeper & deeper state of relaxation with each exhalation. Then put your horn to your lips. If you feel tension returning, repeat a few deep breathes & focus your mind on relaxing your spine, neck, back, etc. Try to clear your mind of whatever might be bothering you by replacing disturbing thoughts with pleasant thoughts. It's not easy at first, but as you work with it, you will improve. It's also time consuming at first, but with practice the relaxed state can become as automatic a the tensed state was.

For working on the double tonguing/chin thing, break it down into tiny parts, one baby step at a time... very slowly. Tah -- rest -- kah -- rest -- tah -- rest -- kah -- rest. As you do this very slowly keep focusing your attention on keeping your neck, spine, shoulders, jaw relaxed. Work with a metronome, only increasing the tempo as you can do it w/o the chin wiggle or feeling any tension in trigger areas.

I had to do this to prepare for a concert playing first horn on Beethoeven's 7th. I was pretty freaked out about the gig, because I hadn't played first horn in years & this is a really high part with lots of fast tonguing in it. When I tried it in practicing, it was totally garbled, my tongue stiffened to the point that I couldn't tongue at all and sometimes my whole embouchure wobbled. It took me weeks to get it up to tempo playing with a relaxed tongue and no unwanted motion anywhere in my embouchure. But I broke it down into baby steps starting very slowly, only increasing the tempo when I could do it w/o tension. It took patience, but, I did it and I'm so proud!

Whenever you play your horn, try to avoid any extremes of emotions, anger, happiness, excitement, etc. Too much of any emotion, positive or negative, when you are working on these issues can make it worse. Try to make your body feel as if you haven't a care in the world. Of course, you do have cares, you want to be a good horn player, you want to be the best possible, but you have to trick you body into feeling like you don't care if you clam, miss a note, reach your goals, etc. Your intense feelings and desires will always be there, but they don't have to take over your body & make it tense. Tension is your enemy!

Don't try to force your chin to be still. That will not help, and could even make it worse by causing more tension & emotional distress. You must focus you mind on relaxing your neck, spine, shoulders as you slowly & gently tongue the Kah then the Tah, etc.

(Some of what I've written here is from Alexander Technique, which helped me.)

There are a few dietary maneuvers that can help. Avoid caffiene because it can make it worse. Take a zinc supplement. Eat red meat which is a good source of zinc. Zinc deficiency is widespread and can trigger mild to severe neurological anomalies & consolidation. (I take large doses of zinc every day & it has helped me quite a bit.)

Another thing that helps is theanine, a dietary supplement that helps relax w/o causing drowsiness. I especially like a product called Theanine Serene, which contains other ingredients that enhance the action of theanine.

A capsule of gingko a day is also helpful.

That's probably all I can & should suggest now. Overcoming these kinds of issues takes time. You must be patient and allow your brain to rewire according to its own time table. It can't be forced. The more often you are able to double tongue slowly, one syllable at a time, without moving your chin, the stronger you will get the message to your brain that the tongue & the chin are supposed to move independently. THis is how to break up the consolidation.

Good luck. You can and will beat this thing.

Valerie Wells
The Balanced Embouchure Method
http://bebabe.wordpress.com/
http://www.beforhorn.blogspot.com/

DUH! I mush apologize. I was so rushed when I responded, I read the original post wrong. You didn't say double tonguing triggers the chin motion, you said rapid tonguing triggers it.

The "treatment" for either is the same: relaxation and slow, gentle baby steps.

Also learning double tonguing is similar to what I explained. Slow & easy does it, first "tah" then "kah". Putting a rest between them will help you learn to clearly articulate each.

Why some people develop these involuntary movements when others don't is not clear. Dr. Schwartz thinks perhaps our brains are genetically programmed for consolidation at certain timed intervals between repetitions. Some believe it's due to type A personalities. Some believe it's due to biochemical or genetic origins such as: zinc deficiency, copper overload (copper can be absorbed by the hands when handling brass instruments), or faulty production of GABA or dopamine (search DRD). (BTW, zinc is used to reduce copper overload & also used for GABA and dopamine production.) It's probably different for each individual.

Valerie Wells
The Balanced Embouchure Method
http://bebabe.wordpress.com/
http://www.beforhorn.blogspot.com/

Opus - here is some simple Double tonguing info.
THE BASIC INFO
1- AIR. to get the best results you need to be sure you have enough air and air support to handle the quirky 2nd tongue effect.
2- LITTLE OR NO MOVEMENT. The more movement(s) you have the longer it takes to complete the action. So the less movement you have the quicker you will be able to compelte the action.
3-STACCATTO. How you play staccattos will directly influence your ability to double tongue.
4-SLOW PROGRESS. You want to learn the technique slowly. Because if you learn a bad habit you may never break yourself of that bad habit.

APPLYING THE INFO
1-AIR. before doing any double tonguing lets check your air. I preach that you breathe in while actually saying the word 'how'. This should allow your shoulders and back to raise slightly but not squeeze or pinch your neck. Three more steps one-Take any given etude from a book and play it as written. two- play the same etude completely slurred (breathe in with 'how'. three - play the etude a third time as written but with the same feel as though you are slurring. When one, two, and three match and sound pretty much the same you are using correct air.
2-MOVEMENT. Many beginers are taught to use TAH-KAH. This pushes the tongue forward and up and then pulls downward and away on the TAH before pulling the tongue al the way back and up only to come down and away again for the KAH. Like a long leisurely swing on a swing set. That's a lot of area to cover. Don't think that the KAH has to be a hard gutteral Arabic like sound. The tongue is only interrupting the air stream momentarily. Try using the vowels TOO-KOO or even DOO-GOO. This moves the tongue back and forth like a piston on the same level, a much shorter distance than the long arcing swing. (You still want to keep the tongue low for maximum air flow.
3-STACCATTO. If you leave your tongue against your teeth when you play short staccatto notes you will have difficulties in all tonguing. Try playing short notes without using the tongue to cut them off. Try playing scales without tonguing and without slurring. USe the sylablle 'HA' for a complete scale to start and stop all notes up and down.
4-SLOW PROGRESS. Now. breathe in with 'how' and slowly play a given note (G 2nd line treble clef) too-too-too (8th, 8th, half), then slowly koo-koo-koo (8th, 8th, half). Remember to use lots of air and not so much tongue on the koo's. Practice this slowly for a week on different notes. On week Two switch to slowly doing too-koo-too-koo-too.
One week three try scales too-too-too, koo-koo-koo. etc. On week four do scales slowly using too-koo-too-koo-too-koo.

"DOO-GOO" I like that, and what John says makes TOTAL sense. Although T and K are the consonate sounds generally recommended in the method books, in practice I believe that most people who successfully double tongue actually articulate something closer to Doo-Goo.

Slow & easy & make sure your tongue, jaw, neck are always relaxed. Don't increase tempo or complexity until you can execute it in a relaxed fashion. If your tongue gets stiff and sore from double tonguing, you're increasing the tempo before you're ready. Back off the tempo and the duration of your double tongue exercises.

It's also a good idea to practice these syllables OFF the horn.

Valerie Wells
The Balanced Embouchure Method
http://bebabe.wordpress.com/
http://www.beforhorn.blogspot.com/