The double tongue-stroke
The double tongue-stroke, also called double-tonguing, is the fastest way of attacking notes on a wind instrument. A double-tongue stroke is composed of two syllables instead of one, as discussed in the previous chapter. In the sixteenth century, we can recognize three varieties. They were called ‘the three principal tonguings’. Dalla Casa describes them as follows:[1]
1. Reversed tongueing (lingua riversa): ler-er, der-ler or ter-ler
2. Te-re te-re te-re te (good for eight and sixteenth notes)
3. Te-che te-che te
Fig.8 Dalla Casa excerpt from Il vero modo di diminuir explaining different ways of articulation on the cornetto.
It is important to point out that the first two kinds of principal tonguings as described above are produced by placing the tongue on different places on the palete. The third variety te-che te-che is executed by placing the tongue behind the teeth for the te, however the che is formed in the back of the mouth as in ticking.
If, because of technical inability of the player, the three principal tongue-strokes are not an option, the alternative is slurring, meaning no use of the tongue at all, except for the first note of the slurred passage. Sylvestro Ganassi[2] writes in chapter 8 of his treatise, after he describes the three principal tonguings, “there is a tonguing in which no syllable at all is pronounced. Its movement is from one lip to the other.”[3]
The next time slurring[4] is mentioned, is over a century later by Marin Mersenne in 1636[5] and by Bartolomeo Bismantova in his treatise Compendia Musicale in 1677.
According to Dalla Casa double-tongue strokes can be executed on the cornetto in three basic different ways. In his Il vero modo di diminuir he states:
“Lingua Riversa […] is extremely fast, and difficult to control. Its beating (striking point) is on the palate, and it and it proffers itself in three ways. Ler, ler, ler, derler; Ter, ler, terler. […]
The second tonguing is this: tere tere, tere tere. […] [This tonguing is] good for examples of croma and semicroma, being naturally controlled. […]
The third tonguing is this: Teche, teche, teche, teche. This tonguing is articulated in the palate close to the teeth, and is a crude [hard] tonguing for players who want give an effect of terror.[6]”
When we try to use this information on a reed instrument, we find that the lingua riversa is hard to perform, because the reed gets in the way of the tongue. The tongue has to move back and forth, from right behind the teeth to a little farther in, and back. It works when the tongue moves back and forth over the palete, but the reed blocks this movement.
The second tongue-stroke, te-re te-re, does work on the dulcian and bassoon, but only in moderate speed. On the recorder or the cornetto, the air pushes the tongue back to the front of the mouth. The reed is in the way and makes this air-controlled movement of the tongue to the front of the mouth, impossible.
The third tonguing Dalla Casa mentions, te-che te-che (the che in Italian is pronounced as k), is the most successful and useful one on the dulcian and the bassoon.
Fig.9 Excerpt form Dalla Casa, Il vero modo di diminuir (1584)
This technique is similar to what we now call double-tonguing on the modern bassoon, although we might want to use du-gu or dou-gou rather than te-ke. Dou-gou syllables give a smoother attack and are very well suited for diminutions, since they still sound slightly paired. When truly mastered, this tongue-stroke can sound as flexible as on the cornetto when it is executed well.
Dalla Casa describes the te-che te-che tonguing as ‘harsh and crude’, however, we should not forget that he focusses on the cornetto. An instrument without a reed is much more sensitive for minuscule differences in attack. On a double reed instrument, we have to make a strong attack in the back of the mouth near the uvula (k or g) to get the reed to vibrate. An articulation that may sound crude and harsh on one instrument, does not necessarily have to sound the same on another.
It is remarkable that Bismantova points out in his treatise[7] that articulations on the recorder should be performed softer compared to how you would do it on the cornetto. Tongue-stroke on the recorder will sound more direct than on a cornetto, since there is no embouchure (buzzing of the lips) in the way. Bismantova provides identical musical examples for the two instruments, however using t tonguing for the cornetto, whereas he uses the softer d tonguing for the recorder.
Cornetto Recorder
Cornetto Recorder
Fig.10 Bismantova examples from Compendium Musicale (1677)
It is interesting to see how pragmatic Bismantova is in his approach to articulation. It shows that he considers the sounding result of greater importance than which technical action performed. In my opinion, this is an attitude that double-reed players should embrace when performing music from the pre-bassoon-method era.
[1] For more information about these articulations see Il vero modo di diminuir (1584)
[2]Opera Intitulata Fontegara. (Venice, 1535)
[3] Dickey and Tarr discuss the different possibilities this vague description could mean. It seems that slurring is the most convincing possibility. Dickey, Bruce and Edward Tarr. Footnote 7 in Articulation in Early Wind Music (Amadeus Verlag, 2007), 45
[4] in wind instrument articulation.
[5] Marin Mersenne. Harmonie universelle (1636) 274-275
[6] Rosenberg, Jesse. “Il vero modo di diminuir” Historical Brass Society Journal (1989) 109-114
[7] Compendium Musicale (1677)
