Wind Articulations

So, I'm in the process of writing a wind quintet (standard: flute/oboe/Bb clarinet/horn/bassoon), and I've had very little experience with the the winds. My current comp teacher has brought up that my pieces tend to completely lack articulation, and he's right, and it's a problem. So, I need to know how to articulate winds. I mean, I know the basics--slurs mean you don't tongue it, unslurred means a separate tonguing for each note. But I don't know further than that: what differentiates a staccato from a tenuto-staccato? A tenuto from an accent (of the > variety)? What does slurring over staccatos produce? And most importantly: I don't know what any of this sounds like. So if any of you wonderful wonderful people would give me detailed descriptions, that would be wonderful, but also, a video/audio recording of just what the hell tongued versus slurred notes sound like, all that stuff... that'd be mad awesome.

...Also, what are glissandos like on the different winds? (Are they actually slides? Just really fast chromatic scales? Are there ranges on certain instruments where you should NOT write gliss's on pain of death? Stuff like that.)

Oh gosh, that's a big question. A good orchestration book will tell you all the specifics (I recommend Blatter's Orchestration), but I'll try and fill you in on a bit of this stuff...

Articulations in general are very subjective. An accent in one piece might not be the same as an accent in another piece. Likewise, a staccato mark can mean short, or it could just mean light (there is not a huge difference there, but you get the idea).

What is generally accepted is that articulations span the gap between slur and staccatissimo (that wedge-lookin thing if you haven't heard of it). Here's a chart from the Blatter book:

Most Conected- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Most Seperated

The Legatos: slur, slured tenuto, slurred tenuto with dot, slurred stacco

Non-Legatos: tenuto, normal, tenuto with dot

Stacctos: stacco, staccatissimo

That's the basic idea. When writing your piece, ask yourself, "What do I want here?"

Articulations ultimately serve as a way of communicating the style of the piece, or the style of the notes to be played. If you want a note held full value, use a tenuto. It's still going to be tongued lightly, but the performer should hold it out. If you want it held out, but attacked, use a tenuto-accent. If you want it legato, with some stress, use a slurred tenuto. Legato with perceptible separation? Use a slurred-staccato.

You really just need to decide what you want from those notes, then try and explain it with these symbols. Ask your composition teacher if you were clear, ask performers if they understand exactly what you want,and never be afraid to write in direct instructions.

That's how I concern myself with Articulations. There are probably a million things I missed, so I still recommend an orchestration book.

In terms of glissandos...again an orchestration book would help a LOT. Only a trombone can give you an honest-to-goodness gliss, but all the other instruments have their own unique way of dealing with it.

For brass instruments it can be half-valved (where the tone is bent up or down using only your lips, and the valves pressed halfway down), valved (which entails sloppily moving fingers at random), or follow the overtone series. These techniques can be combined to create whats called a "rip"

For a woodwind, they use embouchure and air column changes while moving the fingers chromatically to get a nice even gliss (see:rhapsody in blue).

And both groups can bend pitches down or up using their embouchure to give microtonal pitches, or glissandos over small intervals.

Heres a good demonstration of brass glissandos,

YouTube - Clarinet Glissando - How To

And heres a clarinet.

Trombones are different stories, cause of the slide. I'm pretty sure there's a chart somewhere around this site that shows all possible gliss's, its pretty sweet. They can also combine slide glissandos with overtone glissandos and give a pretty good gliss just about anywhere.

Phew.....thats a lot of stuff...but should get you somewhere

I dug up what I could on YouTube. Sorry about the first one, I find the lady annoying. However, she is good at explaining how the flautist technically plays certain articulations. You'll hear her play things like slur two-tongue two, tongue two-slur two, double tongue all, tongue four-slur four, and a few more. These are at a very quick tempo. Generally the tongued notes here at such a tempo would probably be written with dots/staccati, although this isn't necessary.

Flute Articulations (Nina Perlove)

This next vid is trumpet, but the principles are applied identically to horn as well.

Trumpet Tongued (Brandt 2)

Trumpet Tongued and Slurred (Brandt 19)

Those probably aren't the best things for demonstrating the differences, but it's hard to find videos that really isolate certain techniques off hand. If I run across something better, I'll post it.

Flute is pretty well covered in the video. I couldn't find anything for clarinet, or oboe, or horn, or bassoon, in particular, because people suck at playing their instruments. Clarinet, oboe, and bassoon are all reed instruments, clarinet's a single reed, the other are double. Because of these, they're tonguing capabilities are rather similar. They generally aren't asked to tongue very very fast passages like the trumpet or flute (or to some extent the horn), because they aren't generally effective at double tonguing. With clarinet a common pattern is to slur two notes and tongue two. It sounds exactly how you would expect it to, there's really no magic going on. This goes for all instruments.

You can slur notes, which means there's no break, just a continuous line.

You can tongue them (no marked articulation), which means each will be attacked, but not short

You can staccato them, which means they'll be on the short side

You can accent them, which simply means they'll be hit a little harder

You can sFz them, or sforzando. Most effect on brass, and to some extent flute and single reeds. This is when the note is hit REALLY loud, and then the player immediately makes it very quiet, and crescendos back up to loud again. Stunning effect and shouldn't be used often, but very cool if done right.

There is also staccatissimo, which we don't use much. It's just a really extra short note that's hardly even there because it's so short. Whereas this is the short side, slurred notes are the longest side. Then there are the ones in between. You can put a tenuto (line) mark notes - they will be tongued but carefully NOT staccato, just sustained for full value (don't over use). Then you can put a dot and tenuto together and you have a sort of short notes, but not as short as staccato. You can also put staccatos on notes under a slur, and this generally means about the same thing, though possibly more slurred and meaning the tonguing is light and delicate.

As for glissandi, all winds can do it to some extent in their own ways. Trombone is the only one that can truly 'slide' through notes. When other brass instruments gliss, they just hit random notes from point A to point B, it's not generally chromatic, or a specific scale, it's just a direction of notes. Clarinet is a very good instrument at gliss. It can do a more refined gliss, which usually is a run diatonically (usually C major, or a closely related scale or sometimes chromatic if there is enough time) from point A to B, or it can do this long drawn out New Orleans jazzy DRAAAG from bottom to top like in Rhapsody in Blue. If you want that, don't do it over the break, which occurs at written Bb and B above middle C. The fingered, "refined" gliss, is done just like a flute would do it, and can go over the break. It's just a quick run of notes, generally not chromatic, but sorta diatonic in nature. Again, specific notes usually don't matter much in most cases. Oboe and bassoon can do this kind of gliss, and can sometimes bend from one note to the other. I haven't really tried gliss on bassoon much, I'll get back to you on that. I don't play oboe, so I can't really vouch for that.

One general comment - don't over use articulations. Especially compound ones like tenutos with accents and staccatos unless it's something like an ostinato or moto perpetuo. Also, listen to music. Find scores. Anything you can get a hold of. Just figure out for yourself what these all sound like and use them as you see fit to express the style of music you want to write.

Anyways, hope that clarifies anything if possible.

About the glissando.

On the flute: you can, but only to the each C notes. It's hard to make a bigger glissando, because the next note has a quite different fingering. (You must have a flute with holes, not with keys of course). You shouldn't write glissando for the oboe and the bassoon. You can write for the Horn, it's easy to play, and the clarinet too, because they can do it just with mouth, not with an other fingering. On the flute, you can play quarter- or maximum half-note glissando just with blow-changing.

If you're interested in the extended techniques, write PM or something :) I write music for flute about 2 years, so I know everything, although I can't play the flute :P My father plays the horn, so I can ask him if I don't know something. My grandfather had an orchestra (and an art school too :) ), so we have friends who play the oboe, the clarinet and the bassoon too on a professional level. Feel free to ask :)

Use tongue-pizzicato!

Tongue pizza-cato... I have to do that regularly on tuba. People are always asking us to imitate a double bass. Well dammit, get a double bass, I don't need to be producing all this tuba byproduct carbon dioxide! :happy: