ARBAN spoke French!

[chronolith]

Now I am wondering of theremin players from New York City sound different than elsewhere in the world.

[PMeuph]

There is no K in French. Period.

What is the sound at the end of this word?

http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/french/attaque" target="_blank

[louish_006]

To settle things. My mother tongue is French and there is a K sound in French. It doesn't usually come under the form of a K per say, but most often than not in the form of a -que-(as in attaque) or in the form of a -Ca-co- as in (cadeau-gift).

But honestly, does it really matter where you tongue. I'm only a young 25 year tuba player, but I have seen a few very good players and I can tell you that none of them tongue in the same place. Some tongue in between the teeth where, supposedly, we should never tongue and sound extremely good. The most important is how it sounds when it comes out of the bell. It is the same question as how should our embouchures should be placed. Some peple say you should have it as equal as possible throughout the register, but many professional player's embouchures are all over the place. I guess the most important is how does it sound when it comes out of the mouthpiece and how is your airstream. Otherwise, we encounter the question of paralysis by analysis(watch the Bobo DVD for an example). Anyways, I don't really know why we should discuss so much about where to place the tongue as it is an extremely personal thing and we should never mess with a players placement of the articulation or embouchure if it sounds good. And if it doesn't sound good, go back to the first pages of the Arban and sing and buzz absolutely everything in as many different ways possible always using your imagination to produce the sound.

Personally, I think we wonder way too much about all the stuff when we should just think about beautiful sounds. It all goes back to Jacobs -song and wind- Ask the best players how they do it and you always get the same answers(good air and good buzz).

Just my 2 cents.

[Amilcare]

You're missing the point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

French has a HARD C!!!!!!!!!!

That's why they also have "ç" This retains an "S" sound when used with "a" or "u"

Get out your French dictionary. There is ONE PAGE of K words.

K IS NOT PART OF THE ORIGINAL FRENCH ALPHABET!!!!!!!!!!

Let me re-explain. When French flute teachers at the beginning of the nineteenth century were trying to explain the sound produced by an anchor tongue, they chose the "foreign" letter "K" to suggest this sound, that actually exists in no language.

Arban copied them. Read his introduction.

This is nearly a century before linguistics or speech pathology or speech therapy.

Look at a pronouncing dictionary. Linguists have their own alphabet to explain the sounds of words. There is even a second alphabet for whispering.

So, the "K" in this context is not the hard "C" that has that sound or as you so nobly point out in "attaque." It is an initial sound formed by touching the tip of the tongue to the lower teeth and articulating the air against the upper teeth slightly behind the tip. The movement is less than 1/32 of an inch, minuscule by any standard. Done well, there is no change in the resulting note.

Please believe me in this. It is very important. I have studio of 13 college euph majors. I work them intensively using Ligner's materials. At all levels of ability and endeavor, they produce clear, round notes with amazing quality of sound.

We have misunderstood for too long the real history of our art. And this is why I wish Wes had gone a bit further than correcting the egregious errors in Carl Fischer.

In all, nearly 20 students have been put through this. Much of it reinforces what we've all learned from Arnold Jacobs, because articulating well requires lots of air. All of the petty tricks students have will not work here.

[Amilcare]

The "K" was used as it was not part of the French alphabet.

These men did not write "TU-CU" which would have achieved what you wrote.

I would hope that as a francophone you might help me here.

BTW, a family name is Nussear, a corruption of LeSeur;-)

[Dutch]

The phrase TU-CU, with cu pronounced sharply as in attaque, would not survive in any French method or textbook as it would sound like TU-Q which is an obscenity in French. Tu means you and “Q” , due to its shape, refers to the anus (as in “Les salariés de Quick en ont ras-le-Q !”). In France, TU-CU may be in the mind of a student, but never in the mouth.
In Cajun country this may be different, I just don’t know.

Meanwhile, I wonder if Arban ever travelled abroad and picked up the English “K” like in knickers or kneedrops, that would put T-K in a new perspective.

[Michael Bush]

The "K" was used as it was not part of the French alphabet.

Are you saying it was just a random symbol for an unrelated sound?

Why don't you try writing out a representation of this mysterious sound phonetically. That might help.

[Amilcare]

It's an "anchor tongue." When hummed or "whooshed" there is a hint of a "hard-C" sound.

It must be taught by tongue placement as no spoken language has this sound.

[Michael Bush]

Le francais est ma langue maternelle. Il y a un anglicisme très evident dans vos formulations et dans votre manque de conjugation du mot lire (lis).

I been reading back through what I might of missed in this thread about how to make the sound under discussion, and was amused by this. I never talked nothing but English for a lot of my life, but I done messed up a lot of verbs anyway. I should of been more careful!

It's an "anchor tongue." When hummed or "whooshed" there is a hint of a "hard-C" sound.

It must be taught by tongue placement as no spoken language has this sound.

Okay. I'll play around with it, because I'm curious and will try anything once or twice, but it's probably rather late in the day.

[ghmerrill]

I been reading back through what I might of missed in this thread about how to make the sound under discussion, and was amused by this. I never talked nothing but English for a lot of my life, but I done messed up a lot of verbs anyway. I should of been more careful!

Verbs are over-rated. You've got the prepositions nailed.

[Dutch]

Let’s hope that nobody swallowed his tongue, in an attempt to demonstrate the habits of generations of English-speaking followers of Arban, all misled by their ignorance of the French K.

One wonders if Thomas Leleu (different thread) is a TaKa or a Daga player.
Probably he would think of this discussion as “un caca boudin”.

[JB]

...Thomas Leleu (different thread) ... Probably he would think of this discussion as “un caca boudin”.

+1


(Or would that be ka-ka ?)

[Biggs]

That K is found in NO LANGUAGE AT ALL!

What about Hawaiian?

[Donn]

That K is found in NO LANGUAGE AT ALL!

What about Hawaiian?

Could very well be, especially if we could go back a couple hundred years and get good data on a lot of local dialects. I guess the question is whether `free variation' between K and T includes some intermediate sounds, or really just K or T. Other Polynesian languages likewise, I think, including Tahitian, i.e., French Polynesia ... hm ... coincidence? Could Arban have sailed to Tahiti as Gauguin did a few years later, and there discovered the K that is not really a K?

[Amilcare]

Y'all are missing the point. Those French flute teachers were trying to find a notation for a sound produced when humming or "whooshing" using an anchor tongue.

I have a diagram used by speech pathologists for assisting their work. There is no indicated point at the lower teeth. An anchor tongue consists of placing the tip of the tongue on the lower teeth. The articulation is made against the upper teeth with a point just behind the "anchored" contact point. There is an entire school of sax players that do all their articulation this way. Sigurd Rascher seems to be the founder of this approach.

The back of the tongue has NEVER been used in real brass pedagogy for an articulation.

[Michael Bush]

Y'all are missing the point. Those French flute teachers were trying to find a notation for a sound produced when humming or "whooshing" using an anchor tongue.

That's what I was asking the other day. So you are confirming that the letter K is just a shape in this instance, a random character picked up and pressed into use for this because those particular teachers' native language didn't use that character to denote a sound?

The articulation is made against the upper teeth with a point just behind the "anchored" contact point.

This is a useful description, thank you.

The back of the tongue has NEVER been used in real brass pedagogy for an articulation.

In that case, the list of fake brass teachers is very long and highly distinguished. In fact, it would seem to include pretty much every brass teacher who has worked in living memory. You seem to have an interesting item to add to the tool bag, but let's not get carried away.

[Michael Bush]

oh good... ' going again

Might as well. Many threads that have far less potential than this go on and on and on.

I'm just glad there aren't four or five different threads about this.

[PMeuph]

In that case, the list of fake brass teachers is very long and highly distinguished. In fact, it would seem to include pretty much every brass teacher who has worked in living memory. You seem to have an interesting item to add to the tool bag, but let's not get carried away.

+1

[ralphbsz]

Now I am wondering of theremin players from New York City sound different than elsewhere in the world.

That probably depends on where they get their hands manicured. I could even see fingernail polish affecting the articulation on the theremin (I fooled around with one a long time ago, and found that I had no ability to control it at all).

I'll be quiet now and go back to playing piano. There you just have to press a button, and it either sounds good, or you call a technician to fix it.

[bububassboner]

I really find it interesting that people are looking back to 19th century flute methods for current day brass playing. Anchoring the tongue, to me, sounds similiar to ideas like pushing with the diaphragm. Why would you worry about this stuff? The body is so complex why would you worry about controlling every little bit. Don't control the meat to control the music, control the music to control the meat. We have come a long way since that time. If you really want to study people who knew what they were talking about study Arnold Jacobs. That, in my humble opinion, would be a much better use of your time than worrying about how Mr. Arban talked.