DOODLE TONGUING – BASIC EXERCISES

This is the second part of a series of articles about doodle tonguing, and this time I want to share a few basic exercises to improve both speed and precision when using doodle tongue.

I recommend that you take a few lessons with a doodling trombone player if you are new in this field to ensure that you get it right from the beginning. As usual, it is a lot easier to learn something the right way right away, rather than changing bad habits later!

The main use of doodle tongue is when you play fast legato lines, but to get there you should make sure that you can play it slow as well. The following exercises are all basic, and are designed to allow you to focus on getting the attacks perfect.

I already explained the use of doodle tongue playing eight notes. Now it is time to try play doodle triplets! Once you get used to them, I believe you will find them very usefull.

Regular doodle tongue:

do-dle do-dle

Triplet doodle tongue:

do-dle-do do-dle-do

You don´t have to aim for playing all of the exercises at once, or play all patterns in all keys. Focus on quality rather than quantity when you practice doodle tonguing (and everything else for that matter…).

In part 3, I will show some great exercises that will help you build up speed and strength – you can look forward to the sensation of lactic acid in your tongue. There are only a small handful of Websites in the world offering this service!

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If you are new to doodle tonguing, I suggest that you take a look here first:

Introduction to doodle tonguing