Confused when to say "TA"

[Mark Kiziuk]

Hi all. I bought the beginners course, and just a little confused with something. When do you say “TA”? Do you blow a note, then say the word “TA” to stop the note? My brain and my tongue are getting so confused. Maybe I’m just not co-ordinated?
Mark

[john]

You start the process of getting a note out with TA. TA is the action and sound of the tongue coming off of the reed, this is followed by a lot of air support to maintain that note.

[Mark Kiziuk]

Hey Johnny!
So..I take a deep breath, say the word “TA” into the mouth piece and press one of the keys? Then how do I stop the note? By saying “TA” again? My brain is confused, sorry.
Mark

[john]

Yes, the first part is right, but You end the note by simply putting the tip of your tongue back on the tip of the reed. your tongue just meets the reed to stop it from vibrating so there is no TA involved to end it, only to start it.

*Big Tip: Mark, while you’re just starting out I can tell you that a lot of students don’t stop their notes this way and therefor sound clumsy and out of tune when ending a note. If you end it with the tip of your tongue and not just stop your air supply to end the note then you will sound better in doing this as it’s the proper but often overlooked way.

[Mark Kiziuk]

Thanks Johnny, your the best!
Mark

[Anonymous]

Hi Mark – another useful tip related to using TA.

When you start using the metronome and counting 4 beats to the bar like “one two three four” which are known as 1/4 notes. Its quite common to keep the lenght of the Ta to the length of each beat of the metronome.

So instead of counting 1 2 3 4 in your head, you could just say in your head ta ta ta ta which (further down the line) is a much faster way of speed reading music sheets. For starting out counting is the best way to keep in time with a metronome.

[Jazz Cat]

hey that’s a good tip Johnny re stopping notes w/tongue; I’d usually just stopped by not blowing anymore; I’ll experiment; thx – that’ll tighten/punch up note ends

[john]

yes it’ll do that but more importantly your note won’t fade away and go out of tune. experiment in ending your notes your way and then by stoping the reed with your tongue. when you stop it with your tongue it doesn’t have a chance to fall out of tune which it will most definately do because you’re cutting off the air supply and it will end ugly.

[Mark Kiziuk]

Hey sxpoet thanks for helping me out with counting with a metronome by saying TA. I just ordered a metronome, I should have it sometime next week.
Mark

[Anonymous]

Hi Mark – This year i decided to concentrate more on improving my timing.

I asked my teacher for ways of improving timing.

1) You have to work with a metronome, there’s no way of getting away from that.

2) don’t keep time by tapping your foot. in fact avoid any physical body timing movements – you need to free up the brain to concentrate on playing and not being distracted while keeping track of other bodily movements at the same time while playing.

3) Counting can also be another distraction while playing, for example if you have the metronome speed too fast, you might find your fingers or breath cant keep up with the timing – slow the metronome down.

4) Start out by counting 1 2 3 4 etc.. But also use the ta ta ta ta method for counting of 1/4 notes, for 1/8 notes you can use pairs of ‘te te’ for counting, so for every “ta” note, you can play two “te” notes.
So for fast playing its quicker to sight read going ta te te ta etc than
1 2& 3 – the brains wasting time converting notes into numbers and then signaling the fingers to play the notes by using these simple short cuts, you can play the notes a lot faster – there are loads more tips like that for speed playing of sheet music.

5) when you start playing with backing tracks, don’t use the metronome. try and use something in the backing track to help keep time – could be drum, a louder beat on the first note of each bar etc.

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