Tone Slurring down octaves.

[mpjbiker]

Is this actually possible to do cleanly, without soft tonguing? I know this has been mentioned before, but I'm blowed if I can crack it. Its even harder on bari than tenor or alto, and the faster the passage, the more difficult it is. I'm talking about the octaves that necessitate the use of the octave key, of course! Anyone brave enough to put up a video demo?

 

[Colin the Bear]

The octave key is a helper and not an essential. Practice playing without it.
Slurring through the break is difficult.

 

[mizmar]

Do you mean dropping down an octave? Or going from like D, C#, C?

 

[mpjbiker]

Yes, dropping down octaves-not just octaves, actually, but any large interval across the break. I realised how bad I was while doing a Greg Fishman exercise using major 7ths round the circle of fourths i.e high B down to C, middle E down to F, and so on.

 

[mizmar]

IMHO, Colin is spot on.
Try practicing going from low-high-low-high-low without the octave key - a la overtones - from top to bottom. It'll engage your embouchure, voicing, breath etc.
The octave key is (at least for me) often one-way. Press it and go up, release and do nothing else... Stay up.

 

[Guenne]

Greg Fishman exercise using major 7ths round the circle

Are you familiar with Greg's video "The Donkey"
It's about that -but it's only available for members.

What I tell my students is that a slur will only work well if the FIRST note is where it should be.
So when you play a note in the octave without getting the right resonance the low note will not or speak, or at least not cleanly.

Cheers, Guenne

 

[turf3]

Lots and lots of interval practice.

Of course playing with a looser embouchure and more open-feeling voicing will help a lot.

Sometimes you just have to cheat. D to D, for example, I'll often use the palm D instead.