Johnny And The Huricanes Crossfire

[Tim56]

Guys: This is one of my favorites in the late 50’S! Can you say, “Flutter Tung” Great beat!

[john]

flutter tongue and caffeine… who knew?!

[Tim56]

Good one! Johnny: He sure can control it though. I wish I could do it. Can’t trill an R to save my life!

[john]

well, several students have asked for help with flutter tongue, some can end up doing it and others can’t because it’s just like rolling your R’s
like some European languages do. It’s not easy for many folks to roll the tongue like that… but it is possible, I mean, its not only European sax players that can flutter right?

[Michael]

I’m one of those who is working on flutter tongue and have been using this exercise attached below; I’ve improved only a little bit and have really struggled with it. I have no problem rolling my Rs with no mouthpiece/reed in my mouth…..it’s another story to do it with the MP/reed in your mouth. They recommend rolling your Rs towards the front of your teeth, but every time I try it I hit the MP/reed…it’s not as easy at it looks. I’ve learned the Brown Sugar Sax solo from Killer blues on both Alto and Tenor–the only thing keeping me from uploading for Johnny to critique is flutter tongue. For now, I just growl super aggressively, but solos like this don’t sound as clean as flutter tongue do. Flutter tongue is the only thing keeping me from doing Johnny’s Sax cover of “Honky Tonk”. It’s mind blowing how Johnny flutters away on the Peter Gunn Theme song.

[Anonymous]

i had a go at flutter tongue

at :23 i think

[Tim56]

JB: Getting there for sure!! Tim

[john]

yes JB, you got it. it’s mostly used as a gimmick and so sparingly. when we do it that way we can exaggerate a lot more and do it for short bursts. for example, Tequila, listen to how he plays a very short part of the melody using the flutter…makes it stand out and then it’s back to normal.

[Michael]

JB–got any tips/insights that can help? It’s been a little challenging for me to with the MP/reed in my mouth; I can flutter fine with no MP/reed in my mouth LOL

[Anonymous]

@michael – i’m getting slightly confused between Growling & fluttering.

Growling is humming while you blow?
Fluttering is rolling the tip of your tongue?

The first bit of my upload i was
going da-da-da-da-da-da with the
tip of my tongue – i’m trying to get the bat man sound dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-bat man.

From :23 i was trying to flutter,
no i can’t flutter with the tip of
my tongue. What i did was folded my tongue into a V shape(like curled it up) and fluttered from the back of the tongue down the middle of the tongue – so i could
feel my inside mouth behaving like
a pnuematic drill.

[Author]

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