Flutter tongue for the Brown Sugar Sax solo

[Michael Bishop]

Hi Johnny,
Hope you’re enjoying your weekend 😎 I’ll be breaking down the Brown Sugar sax solo in a couple of months after I have REALLY memorized, as well as possible, the first 3 exercises in part 1 of Killer Blues and I can apply it to other scales–and even then, I still plan on going over those exercises A LOT as I work at applying to other scales.
There’s only ONE thing keeping me from really go at the Brown Sugar Sax solo on Killer Blues: Flutter Tongue. It’s easy without the MP in my mouth but with the MP IN my mouth is another story 😡 I was browsing around on youtube to see if I could find any tips/tricks that may help me and I found this quick 1:00 video on flutter tongue. Is there any additional insights you can add to this video?
I don’t think growling on the Brown Sugar Sax solo would have the same appeal. Same goes with many of your songs-Honky Tonk, Peter Gunn, Watermelon Man, Tequila, etc.. songs that I want to play in time 😀 But gotta get the flutter tongue first.

http://youtu.be/muK_TT9dfI8

[john]

I actually combine the flutter with the growl, and it’s like a recipe which you can add a little bit of this and a little of that. Sometimes it’s more growl and others it’s more flutter. Brown Sugar is heavy on the flutter I think but you want to do both seperate and then work on blending them.

[Michael Bishop]

I started to do flutter tongue today after practicing these tips!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Maybe I’m wrong, but I just discovered 2 things while doing this: I loosened up on embouchure a little bit, allowed the reed to flutter more freely and it seems like the lips also come into play? This may sound funny (I’m not always good with words on the cpu) but I took the MP out of my mouth and put my index finger on the tip of my teeth and took notice of what’s going on—and if SEEMS/FEELS like the lips are vibrating when I flutter with my tongue towards the front v.s. the back of the mouth. This seemed to help me. If my embouchure was too tight then it wasn’t no where near as loose and free to let the flutter happen. I was doing it on the G note and some on A and natural F notes, not for very long–about 5-6 seconds but it was DEFINATELY flutter tongue!

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