Help With Chuckles...

[welcher83]

Been working on my calling for a few months and really feel confident with cow calls, location bugles, nervous grunts, and advertising bugles. Practice to and from work in the car and at home when the wife is gone. Been recording different calls on my phone and can really tell the difference from when I started.

Cent seem to get it figured out with chuckles though. When I listed to my recordings it seems like it sounds too sharp or high pitched.

Any pointers? I seem to learn best by reading instructions so any help with tongue placement, air pressure, etc.

Thanks

[Rangerz]

Not sure this will work for you, but when I try and do chuckles, I think of how a dog whines and try and make the sound from your diaphragm not just by blowing air out.

Good Luck!

[msd1228]

If your pitch is too sharp then reduce tongue pressure a bit and emphasize the voice thump on the end of each note. The true authenticity in your chuckles will shine when you master the cadence, voice thump, and INHALE portion of the call. The INHALE portion of the call should be one of the most emphasized portions of the chuckle.

Your air pressure will depend a lot on what cadence you are trying to use - if you are doing a soft, rapid chuckle, then air pressure will be significantly less than if you are doing 2 or 3 hard hitting notes for 2 reasons 1) air pressure is related to volume (and tongue pressure to pitch), and a soft rapid chuckle should be lower in volume than your bigger, thumping ones; and 2) rapid chuckles don't allow you enough time to suck in enough air to hit multiple hard notes in a row. Remember, when you are chuckling every single note is a full inhale and full exhale - you should never be getting more than 1 note off the same breath. Think of how you breath after just finishing a brutal sprint - your chuckling breathing pattern should remind you of how you breath when you are out of breath. Rapid full inhale and exhale on every note.

Another key note - the tongue needs to snap on and off the reed very quickly (i.e. on each and every note). Chuckles are not a drawn out note, so you need to hit your pitch and get your tongue off that reed immediately. Without a reed in your mouth, rapidly say the word "so" or "sew" over and over, really emphasizing the "OH" portion of the word (i.e. push the air out of your GUT hard on the "OH" portion - your abdomen should be noticeably contracting and relaxing)- notice how your tongue needs to SNAP up and down from your palate in order to maintain the rhythm? Chuckling is the same.

I'd also recommend popping into the "archived tips" forum and reading the thread on reed fit and placement just to make sure you don't have any issues relating to that.

[welcher83]

Thank you gentlemen. Both explanations helped quite a bit - I've been playing around with it a little and should be able to practice it a lot this week.

Thanks

[chiledog]

msd1228 - I understand what you are saying and you explain it well with good details and hints.
However, your explanation of the chuckle requiring full INHALE and EXHALE sounds more like Paul's explanation of grunts so I am a bit confused.
The 2 sounds are quite different in sound and meaning.
Maybe you could elaborate more to help me out on this.