The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #139687 Message #3208144
Posted By: Tootler
14-Aug-11 - 05:51 PM
Thread Name: flute advice sought
Subject: RE: flute advice sought
The only distinction that phoneticists make between "t" and "d" is that the "t" is "unvoiced" and a "d" Is "voiced" (your vocal cords rattle a bit with the "d"). The mouth configuration and the tongue motions are identical for both - for most people.
As Jack says, there is a difference between "t" and "d" tonguing and it has to with the position of the tongue.
With a "t" tonguing, the tongue is placed directly behind the teeth - actually touching them whereas with a "d" tonguing, the tongue is placed on the hard palate in the roof of the mouth and is not touching the back of the teeth. The result is that a "t" tonguing gives a sharper attack than a "d". An even softer tonguing is to use "r" which again uses the roof of the mouth but you don't get the slight explosion of sound at all (I believe linguistics experts call "d" and "t" sounds "plosives" which is a good description) and so gives a softer attack still.
"g" and "k" sounds bring the back of the tongue in contact with the roof of the mouth and are usually used in double and triple tonguing to enable effective rapid tonguing of groups of notes of short duration.
Quantz is still considered to be the best authority on tonguing of flutes and his techniques are as much used by recorder players as by flautists so if Jack has a copy of Quantz, he will be spot on.
The point about different languages is a valid one as the consonants suggested for the different tonguings do vary from language to language but d, t, r, k & g are the main ones I have come across from being given tonguing advice in English.