I think I mentioned this once in another thread, but I think it deserves it’s own thread.
I was having trouble with the A and B rolls, specifically making them smooth and up to even a moderate speed. No matteer how much I played them, tI didn’t see progress. I assumed it was maybe you can’t teach an old dog…
Anyway, I started learning Munster Buttermilk. In the B part, measure two has a B roll followed by a B that needs to be cut, then measure three has an A roll followed by a cut A. Essentially you’re doing a note-cut-note-tap-note-cut-note. One day I decided I was going to slog through those measures no matter how slow I had to go, and I did them over and over and over, as slow as necessary to play them right, which was really slow at first.
What I found was, that while I didn’t gain appreciably in playing those figures, after a few days I was playing regular A and B rolls better. Noticably better. I think making my fingers do something harder then letting do something easier seemed to work for me. Like using a heavy bat in the on-deck circle.
I totally agree. I’m not the speed expert, but when I’m not practicing tunes, instead of just noodling, I have all sorts of scales and exercises that I play just to keep my fingers quick and nimble. My view has been that I should be able to play an A roll just as fast as an F# roll or any other roll.
If we keep it up, maybe we’ll play like Brian Finnegan!
John,
As you can imagine, I have been practicing that tune too and had trouble at the same spot. What I did was to just play the A and B rolls over and over again, very slowly, paying attention to the correct temporal value of the notes. It has taken a long time but I now usually hit those rolls well if I don’t try to play too fast. Another tune with those rolls is Banks of Loch Gowna which is also a very nice jig. Ah, the woes of aging. When we’re young we rebel against authority and when we’re old our bodies rebel against us.
Mike
While there’s a place, an important one, for playing things slowly, there’s also a place for playing things that are technically beyond you in just the way described. Of course, I don’t just mean practice things you can’t yet play. All learning involves that. What I mean is practice things a couple of degrees of difficulty harder than what you can comfortably play.
I think when we play tunes we are having trouble with on low D or G and tehn go back to playing them on high D we are doing something like this. it can really help dexterity and rhythm. Also there’s a limited role for playing faster than you can comfortably manage occasionally, but I suspect a lot of people will disagree about that. This sort of exercise should only be indulged in for relatively brief periods I think.
The A and B rolls have always been harder for me because they’re done with the left hand and I’m a righty. You may want to try sort of bouncing your whole wrist rather than individual fingers (like a drum stick off a drum).
In contrast to this, I will rehearse on a low whistle for more of a workout. Then when performed, on a higher whistle, it seems to be that much easier!
But I agree. If I am getting frustrated on a low whistle, it is good for me to go back to a higher one just to keep from getting too frustrated.
I think we’ve been through this before, and there are valid points on both sides. Wombat isn’t saying to always play faster than you can cleanly, but that in order to build up speed and accuracy, both need to be practiced.
Right Chas. I think that to get the rhythm of jigs and reels you need to be able to play fragments of them at somewhere near geezer speed if not at session speed. Even if you can only get isolated phrases sounding right and mistake free you know what to aim for and can go back to playing them slowly.
I defy anyone to learn to play Chuck Berry style rock guitar by learning and practising his licks slowly. You’ll never get the right rhythm that way because you won’t feel it as a rock rhythm. Once you can play them acceptably at or near full speed you can then slow them down to finesse them, then speed them back up again. It’s a backwards and forwards process.
ITM isn’t exactly the same but neither is it completely different.
I disagree with Wombat, but I know nothing about guitar licks. But nothing.
Take a book out of how Highland pipers learn their insanely complicated and precise ornamentation: They slow down to super sloooooooow motion and exaggerate the finger movements (moving the fingers far off the chanter).
On the whistle, slow down (think slow motion, not slow musical speed), then move the fingers in a deliberate and exaggerated way. Most importantly keep in time. That is cruicial. Count eight notes if it helps. Get the fingers used to the clean and rhythmical succession of the movements you need for your roll. You will feel when it settles into your fingers (and it won’t take that long). At that point you can speed up a little, but resist the temptation to speed up too much. Discipline yourself not to play at any speed where you cannot keep the rhythm clean and steady.
Im my experience it takes about a year of 10 min a day to get rolls under your belt. After that the A and the B rolls will continue to be the iffy ones. As a professional ITM flute player said to me once when I complained about having to work on my A rolls: “you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life; we all have to.”
I like this. It took me a long time to get over the fact that I couldn’t learn to crank out rolls and tricky rhythms in a few months. I’m at peace with it (which, I think, takes a lot of the pressure off).
I like this. It took me a long time to get over the fact that I couldn’t learn to crank out rolls and tricky rhythms in a few months. I’m at peace with it (which, I think, takes a lot of the pressure off).[/quote]
Peace. A good practice. Take out the frustration, make it beautiful even if I never get up to tempo. I think this is the essential to way more than playing A and B rolls.
And it’s comforting to know that these are hard for more than just me.
I agree with this. Whenever I’ve been asked to play a tune for a gig, and I didn’t know it well, I tend to push myself a little with it during practice the week before. That way, when I play it slower at the gig, it’s easier.
I’ll try to be a little more open to interpretation, too.
As for the original posting and what’s been posted since, I agree that it’s absolutely essential to find a piece you like and want to practice in order to learn any new techniques. When I was trying to learn cuts, taps, and rolls, I used to practice them. It went absolutely nowhere. Then I started practicing Banish Misfortune (obvious E and G rolls) and Morrison’s jig (obvious cuts all over the place). I learned to do pretty tight rolls on E, F, and G from that. For crans, The maid at the spinning wheel (also has B rolls) and The choice wife. I did pick up A rolls okay on the flute, can’t remember for the life of me what tune it was, although Deirdre Havlin’s version of King George IV from Deanta’s second album is a great one for those. I still haven’t gotten A rolls on the whistle, nor B rolls on the whistle or very tightly on the flute. The second tune in the first set on Mairead and Frankie’s second album is a great tune for B rolls, too.
to clarify on building speed, I’m no great fan of the “let’s play it as fast as we can with as many ornaments as possible” school of playing. I’ve found that most of my favorite sets by many different artists are done at, well, not exactly a leisurely tempo, but what I’d refer to as a tasteful tempo. To me, slowed down, there’s an emphasis on the tune; sped up somewhat, the emphasis tends to be on the rhythm, but sped up too much, the emphasis seems to be on the player. There have been a few players I initially liked; when I heard their music, I’d say “What a great player.” Just as in life, though, after the falling love phase, there must be a love phase. There has to be a conversion from “what a great player” to, “what a beautiful tune.” Some players just seem to be into playing tunes so fast that nobody (except, pardon the expression, Michael Flatley) could possibly dance to them. For me it ceases to be musical.
Also, there are many tunes that sound good at a wide range of tempos. I think it’s a good idea to learn techniques from tunes that sound good slowed down. Morrison’s is a good example, as is Kid on the Mountain, which has rolls, short rolls, and all sorts of goodies. It was one of the first tunes my flute teacher introduced me to. I can play it along with the Bothies now, but when left to my own devices, tend to play it at probably 2/3 or 3/4 their tempo.
Sorry for the ramble. I do think this is a very important topic, though, and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. Most of us have the same goal in the end, though.
Someone (it might have been Bloomie’s stand-in Gunther) gave me a helpful hint on A rolls at the Northeast whistle gathering this summer. For me the toughest part of the roll to get crisp and clean is the last tap on G-- it always comes out sounding like a separate note instead of a little blip on the A. Gunther suggested that instead of trying to tap with my ring finger on the G, tap with my pinky-- not necessarily on a hole, just wherever the pinky happens to be. In the process of tapping the pinky, the ring finger comes down nice and fast and bounces right back off that g hole nice as you please.
If a tune isn’t too fast, I’ll sometimes sneak the index finger of my bottom hand up for A rolls to play that last tap. If I keep the middle and ring fingers of the bottom hand where they belong, the index finger finds it’s way home after the roll easily.
I didn’t really master A and B rolls until last February,when I started learning the uilleann pipes.I think I had a subconcious fear of droping the flute or whistle,but the chanter sits so securely on my knee that I just did the rolls easily,and then that transfered to the flute/whistle.
-Kelly
