'Articulation' can be thought of as simply how much space you place between notes (assuming there are no rests!); in other words how long or short your notes are in relation to their notated value. A staccato eighth note and a legato eighth note may have the same rhythm within the same song, but there is more space in between the staccato notes than the legato notes. For woodwind players that means clean, effective tonguing! Some general rules for tonguing:
- Effective tonguing is dependent on strong abdominal support of the air column. Since tonguing is simply the interruption of the constant air flow, if the air flow isn't constant the articulation will not be clean.
- The tongue should be forward and arched in the oral cavity (think of the syllable "hee"). Practice the finger-on-the-lips while blowing exercise, that should put the tip of your tongue in the right place for tonguing on reed (or back of teeth for flute).
- The tongue should BARELY MOVE. All the tongue should do is stop the reed from vibrating or the air flowing past the lips on flute. The less you move the tongue back away from the reed or your teeth, the faster and lighter and cleaner you'll be able to tongue.
- Tonguing requires PRACTICE! If your scales don't sound clean while tonguing it's probably not because you can't tongue fast enough, it's probably because you need to practice slower to coordinate tongue with fingers.
- When you have slurs followed by staccato, clip the end of the slur as if the last note were staccato (but slurred into). You want separation between your slurs and staccatos.
- Metronome, always!
Below is a link to a tonguing warmup exercise. It's mostly just the five note scale study, but with various articulations. Practice slowly and cleanly.