60's Surf Tenor Sax Tequilla/Commanche Growl

[Jay McGuerty]

I’m playing Commanche and Tequilla and want to get the same growling effect. I can sing and humm into the horn and get a great viceral growl that way – no problem. However, they are doing something different, I can get it briefly, 2-3sec by relaxing my throat sufficiently to cause it to kinda on/off disrupt the air flow…. but man is that hard to do and so far not sustainable. I can only do it at low volume and octave, loud and upper register so far no luck. Am I going about this the right way and just need more practice, or are those guy’s using another technique? Maybe that is the reason so few people use this technique cuz its crazy hard (and very very uncomfortable). Maybe it’s easier if you still have your tonsils? I’m playing a Selmer VI, with LaVoz Med-Soft, Guardala MBII mouthpiece which has a fairly large opening ~ .110″ maybe that is making it extra difficult? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[john]

Hey Jay, that’s the “flutter tongue”. different from the growl altho can be used together for extra nastiness.
The growl is used a lot more and you hardly hear many play then together, I do occasionally…like on tequila.
to do the flutter just roll your tongue, rrrrrrrrr like you hear some people speaking in several foreign languages.
I’ve taught it successfully to some and others simply can’t roll the R’s with their tongue. so…
see if you can do it first just with your mouth then if so apply it to your mouthpiece.
You should blow extra hard but once you get it you’ll be able to play it far longer than just a few seconds.

[Jay McGuerty]

John-naaaaay! At the risk of sounding cliche’ …. Far OUT! dude! thanks a buh-Zillion! Can’t wait to get home and try it!

[john]

Jay, I beleive I did a video on the flutter, not on my site but on my youtube channel.

[Anonymous]

@Jay – when you practice flutter tongue, try it out on any tune, just to get used to it.
here’s a flutter tongue practice i uploaded last year, not proud of it. Just used it to further
develop it.

FlutterTonguePractice.m4a

[Anonymous]

[saxomonica]

whho hoo love it ! can\’t hear the tounge flappin\’ as much as i had hoped but i guess it has losesned up since.
Nice!1 i even tryed Shazam on your soundcloud – but got No Result. You know app Shazam of course?

Hey what ever happened to Jack?? Such a nice guy hey. He woulda appreciated that air.
The mountains are in travail, an absurd mouse will be the outcome. Itza Latin Saying. You know the one?

Hey @Jay you got some serious gear there!! Xcellent. Joy Trrrrrrrrrrr

[john]

sx, ya you got it goin….but it’s more of an effect for a rockin kinda tune in my opinion, not a ballad.

[Anonymous]

Exactly Johnny, all these techniques have their place.

However when you are learing and practicing them, doesn’t
matter what tune you pick, providing its an easy tune to
play and you can concentrate fully on the flutter.

Shazam? i’ll have to look that one up.

[Author]

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