Tongue Level Exercises
For Trumpet: Treble Clef Edition Sheet Music Book
By Claude Gordon

Nice book ... like every gordon's text/exercices these are very useful.

Claude Gordon's idea here is to train flexibility and range by training the tongue. With the exception of the very first exercise this is not a traditional set of tonguing exercises (set the metronome, tongue these notes). Rather, the book is predominantly a set of harmonic lip slur and...

articulation studies in which the player is directed to arch the back of the tongue for high notes ("ee") and flatten it for low notes ("ah") - i.e. tongue "levels." Gordon's methods are known for their methodical, this-before-that approach and this one is one of his best.

Playing the trumpet involves participation of the whole embouchure and the tongue is certainly a very important part of that. Excercises in this book caused an amazing improvement in the different levels of my tongue to play the music beautiful in rythm as well as bettering my staccato and legato...

skills.

Claude Gordon reminds brass players that the position of the tongue is critical to reaching the higher octaves. Other teaching books tend to gloss over the fact that the tip of the tongue should not touch the back of the upper teeth while playing in the upper range. Follow this...

classic book and you will play effortlessly in all ranges.