Tongue posture and articulation

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As we explored in the article Blowing an ocarina correctly, when we play the ocarina we control the airflow into the instrument using the tongue. Let's take a bit of time to study the anatomy of the mouth so we can understand more deeply how this works.

Step 1: exploring the anatomy of your mouth

To begin, feel around the whole of the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue. In a rim around the edge you'll feel your teeth, and the space in-between is shaped like a dome, much like the shape of a lemon that's been cut in half and juiced.

Next, touch the rear of your upper front teeth with your tongue. Slide it backwards along the roof of your mouth, and you'll feel that there is a ridge about 1 cm behind your teeth. This is called the alveolar ridge.

Alveolar ridge

Base of side teeth

Step 2: identifying the parts of your tongue

The tongue is an extremely flexible muscle which can take many forms. If you pay attention to what your tongue is doing while saying the following syllables, you'll notice that different parts of your tongue are moving:

Say 'tu'
Say 'ki'
Say 'goh'

While pronouncing those sounds, you'll notice a different part of your tongue coming into contact with the roof of your mouth:

Saying 'Tu', the front of your tongue touches it,
with 'Goh' it's the rear of your tongue,
and with 'Ki' it's the middle of the tongue.

Once you can feel which part of the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth, wiggle each part of your tongue between touching the roof of the mouth, and resting at the base of the mouth.

Goh

Also, notice the shape formed by the whole tongue and consciously reproduce the same tongue position without voicing the sound. We can use these as a starting point and put the tongue into shapes beyond those of the standard vocal sounds:

The 'ki' sound leaves the tongue in the shape of an inverted 'u'. The middle of the tongue is raised, and the tip and rear rest at the bottom of your mouth. Try reversing it, with the middle down and the tip and rear of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth.
See how far forwards you can move the tip of your tongue, and how far backwards you can move the rear of your tongue.
Start with your tongue in the 'tu' contact point, and then roll the contact point back to the rear of your mouth (Goh), and forward again.

Step 3: articulating notes

What we are doing when we articulate notes on the ocarina is using the tongue to start and stop the airflow, much like the tap (faucet) on a sink controls the water. There is always water pressure in the plumbing, and the tap controls the flow.

Give this a try:

Exhale through your mouth at a steady rate.
Raise the rear of your tongue until it completely blocks airflow.
Don't stop exhaling.

You'll feel that there is pressure behind your tongue, but it isn't flowing as the tongue is in the way. Raising and lowering the rear of your tongue will start and stop the air, and because the pressure is already there, it will start flowing quickly.

Air flowing The best position of the tongue when blowing an ocarina is in the base of the mouth, covering the teeth, with the rear of the tongue down. This creates a clear air path, and produces the best possible sound from an ocarina

The best position of the tongue when blowing an ocarina is in the base of the mouth, covering the teeth, with the rear of the tongue down. This creates a clear air path, and produces the best possible sound from an ocarina

Air blocked

In practice though, we mostly use the tip of the tongue to control the flow of air. It creates a crisper articulation being closer to the instrument. The goal is to form the tongue into a flat slab so that it encloses the whole of the upper 'dome' part of the mouth.

The needed tongue position is similar to the moment while pronouncing 'tu', where the tongue is in contact with the roof of your mouth. If you stop with the tongue in that position, no air should flow.

But in case that does not work for you, we can consciously put the tongue in position:

Locate the alveolar ridge and place the tip of your tongue on it.
Raise the rear and middle of your tongue, so the entire tongue is in contact with the roof of your mouth.
Lower the middle and rear part of your tongue a bit, creating space above it. Only the outer perimeter of the tongue touches the roof of your mouth, leaving the middle part as a hollow 'dome'.

If you exhale with your tongue in this position, you should feel air pushing down on the tongue, but no air is escaping. We can articulate notes by raising and lowering the tip of the tongue, to release the pressure stored behind it.

Tongue lowered The best position of the tongue when blowing an ocarina is in the base of the mouth, covering the teeth, with the rear of the tongue down. This creates a clear air path, and produces the best possible sound from an ocarina

Tongue raised When playing the ocarina the tongue is used to stop the air to separate notes. The tongue is touched to the roof of the mouth slightly behind your teeth, similar to pronouncing a 'T' or 'D'. Pressure builds behind the tongue, which is released when it is lowered, creating a clean attack. Note that positioning the tongue too close to the teeth will create a noisy tone

When playing the ocarina the tongue is used to stop the air to separate notes. The tongue is touched to the roof of the mouth slightly behind your teeth, similar to pronouncing a 'T' or 'D'. Pressure builds behind the tongue, which is released when it is lowered, creating a clean attack. Note that positioning the tongue too close to the teeth will create a noisy tone

Should you find air escaping, most probably the tip of your tongue is too far forward in your mouth, or the middle of your tongue is too low. In both cases, air will escape around the sides of the tongue. Try to notice where air is escaping, and raise that part of your tongue.

Double tonguing

As we've already demonstrated, it's possible to block the air using different parts of the tongue, and one application of this is a technique called double tonguing.

This technique is used for rapid articulations, using both the tip and middle of the tongue to alternately block the flow of air, similar to 'tu - ku - tu - ku ...'.

Hhhhhh... The best position of the tongue when blowing an ocarina is in the base of the mouth, covering the teeth, with the rear of the tongue down. This creates a clear air path, and produces the best possible sound from an ocarina

To get started with double tonguing, I'd recommend practising articulating quarter notes at a relatively low tempo like 100 bpm:

Aim to get the duration of the two articulations to be equal.
Minimise the time spent moving from the two blocking positions to 'air flowing'.
Aim to keep your tongue static during the 'open' period so that the air can flow easily.

Low tempo practice allows you to really exaggerate the 'air flowing' state, which helps with playing at high tempos. There is a tendency to make the movements really small, which can restrict the airflow enough to make your high notes flat.

How double tonguing can be used in music is explored in the article Articulation on the ocarina later in the book.

Tongue posture and tone clarity

It is worth noticing how the placement of your tongue can impact the sound of the ocarina even while blowing a single long note. Give this a try. Play a long tone, and:

Raise the rear of your tongue to almost block the airflow,
or put the tip of your tongue very close to your upper teeth.

Rear of tongue raised (bad) A demonstration of a poor mouth posture for blowing an ocarina. The rear of the tongue is raised, resulting in turbulence, which will create a noisy tone

A demonstration of a poor mouth posture for blowing an ocarina. The rear of the tongue is raised, resulting in turbulence, which will create a noisy tone

Tongue too close to teeth (bad) A diagram demonstrating a poor ocarina blowing technique. The tongue is too close to the teeth, resulting in turbulence and a noisy tone

A diagram demonstrating a poor ocarina blowing technique. The tongue is too close to the teeth, resulting in turbulence and a noisy tone

Most people learn the basics of articulation using vocal syllables like 'tu', but the tongue position they create may not result in the best possible tone. It's worth experimenting to see what affects the sound of the instrument.

We can also vary the shape of the tongue deliberately to alter the sound being produced. An easy example is varying the attack of a note.

An attack is when the sound of the start of a note is different to how it sounds during its normal 'steady state', and quite a few kinds of attack can be created by varying the position of your tongue:

'T', with the tip of the tongue closer to the front of the mouth, produces a harder articulation with a distinct starting pulse of air.
'D', similar to above, with the tongue farther back, creates a softer articulation.
'Ch', creating an airy sound at the start of the note.

An even softer articulation may be created with a tongue position similar to 'L'. If you try saying that letter, you'll notice that your tongue doesn't stop the air, and just causes the pitch to momentarily go flat.

The strength of this articulation can be varied depending on how high you lift the middle part of your tongue.

I'd recommend experimenting with these, listening to their sound and seeing how you could make use of them in your music. We explore this in more detail in Articulation on the ocarina later in the book.

Closing notes

As you've observed, the position of the tongue has a notable impact on the sound produced from an ocarina. Being conscious of what your tongue is doing thus allows you to experiment and find the optimal position for what you want.

Varying articulations is particularly important on the ocarina, given that it is so difficult to create volume dynamics. For notes that you want to emphasise, using a stronger articulation can serve a similar function as playing them louder.