A couple of new tunes, feedback needed!

Irish Flute
1

Hi.

I posted a couple of new tunes on Clips & Snips. I’d appreciate some honest feedback.
Me and a friend of mine are thinking about a duet album when my bands album is done. We have loads of great material for it. My friend is an accordionist and guitar player, I’m a fluter and guitarist, so the idea is that roughly half of the material will be me on flute and him on guitar and the other half him on accordion and me on guitar. We will also have a few guests, a percussionist, a fiddler, a double bass player and maybe someone else.
Bear in mind that the material then will be better quality and more carefully recorded. This stuff is still very rough.

Here are the tunes:
http://www.tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/Audio/08-06/BatteringRamGeorgeWhiteHenrickJ.mp3

http://www.tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/Audio/08-06/PlanxtyIrwinGiveMeYourHandHenrikJ.mp3

The first is a Jig/Reel set, the second is a slow planxty/waltz set (straight off BBC :smiley:)
A few problems I am aware of:
Breathing in the first set
Awful transition between the Jig and Reels of the first set
Cranns need work
Bad tone at a few places in the second set

I was sort of struggling with the embouchure that day. The thing is that I’d been playing the M&E with the Cocobolo head almost exclusively, but somehow that head didn’t sound as good as the polymer head in recordings with that particular mic. So I recorded with the polymer head which I wasn’t used to. That’s why the breathing is sort of off in the first set, the tone is breaking up and is weak at places in the second set and if you have sensitive ears the tuning might be off.

But anyway, please tell me what you think, about these tunes and the potential of the project in general.

Cheers

2

Hi Henke,

I agree with your assessment about your playing. All stuff I’m sure can be cleaned up when it comes time to lay down a track. Let me comment, however, about the tune choices.

The jig/reel set doesn’t work that well together to my ear. Perhaps it is the transition which can be cleaned up, but going from a jig to a reel is always a bit if a jolt in my opinion. The one time we do that in my band, we have the jig end and then immediately (before anyone can clap) the guitar starts in with four bars of fast reel rhythm followed by the bodhran player coming in for four bars and then we all leap in. This establishes a clear and exciting transition. I think this works but I still prefer going from a hornpipe to a reel - it is less jaring and has a steady incline of energy. Finally, I think it would be important to do the jig and reel in very different keys. I like the feel, for instance, of going from the key of G to Em (any major to minor key sounds interesting).

I think Planxty Irwin and Give Me Your Hand are too similar. They work ok, but there is no building of tension and energy. They just plod along together one after the other. Picking up the pace of Planxty Irwin a LITTLE and giving it a bit more bounce would help that one and have the guitar accompany with finger picking rather than strumming. Then, if it were me, I would launch into something like Lord Inchequin (same period and feel), but at a VERY spritely pace with the guitar strumming. This tune sounds really cool done fast.

Just my view, for what it is worth … (exactly what you paid for it)! Hope this helps

Clark

3

Thanks very much Clark.

And folk’s, keep it coming! I need feedback here. Why hasn’t anyone else posted their thoughts?

4

I’m going to offer some thoughts on these, but first let me say really nice job all the way around…I enjoyed listening to these.

I wish I could hear you in person…a flute is a hard instrument to mic and I think that’s one thing you are fighting. Some of my comments may be offbase because I am not sure the mic is really picking you up the way you really sound.

I thought the choice of tunes was good. The guitar is coming through a bit too loud in the mix, though.

You rolls and overall execution are really clean and crisp; the exception is sometimes at the start of a longer note a cut or a tap doesn’t come through cleanly. Most of your ornaments have great speed and an almost percussive quality, but just a few sounded hurried or sometimes even sounded like one of your fingers just doesn’t work as fast as the rest–I’m going to guess ring finger left hand, but to really know I’d have to be in the room with you, so again, this may be off-base.

I think you may be working too hard to try to keep the tone of the flute clean and pure–but again, it could be the mic just isn’t picking up the warmth of the flute sound. Part of the charm and elegance of flute comes from the little non-musical sounds that happen: the “puffth” of air at the start of a note, the little bit of rasp and buzz from the embouchure–these are things some flutists try to surpress but if you let them come through they lend so much warmth and elegance to the sound. Even the percussive sound of your fingers coming down on the flute can be a Good Thing.

Trying to mic a flute is hard. I have fought this for years with varying degrees of success. I can’t be sure what I’m hearing isn’t just that the mic isn’t picking you up very well, so take eveything I’ve said with about three heaping tablespoons of salt.

Anyway, great playing, and I enjoyed listening and I hope your projects go very well!

–James

5

To me your playing sounds very good, Henke… what I’d expect from a lefty :slight_smile: , but much better than mine. My only comments would be that the breathing spots could be varied a bit more and there were a couple of times that the playing possibly sounded a little rushed… I thought your tone was quite good, it’s amazing how nice the M&E can sound. Keep it up, an by the time you’re 30 you’ll be signing autographs -

Tod

6

That was my thought too…the guitar was good, but overpowering.

7

Good work! I like your ornaments in Give Me Your Hand, and your tone in the middle range rings nicely. Yeah, keep playing around with mic setups; finding the right one for you is a little like falling in love. I just got a medium-diaphragm condenser that’s nice and warm, but there’s likely something better out there. The other challenge is to forget that there’s a mic at all, and play to the back of the room. That really helps me with high-end tone and pitch.

You mentionned your breathing, but may I suggest you think about longer phrases? Considering the shape of the music is so much more fun than thinking about moving air.

Thanks for putting up the clips!

Oh.. BTW, I do Planxty Irwin with Planxty Dale Wisely, just for variety.

8

I am convinced every time I pick up the flute that breathing is the key to good flute playing. I think Seamus Egan in the mad for trad flute tutorial said breathing is what makes and breaks a player. I think I’ve heard it said that the flute differs from other ITM instruments in that it uses silence as a medium of expression…although I think other instruments have this facet as well, but they aren’t forced to breath like flute players and thus phrasing is not forced. That said, it sounds like your run out of breath during your phrases sometimes…I have a very similar problem and I have to find out where in the music it is proper to take a breath before I run out. I also, try to vary where I breath, so that the same phrase isn’t repeated the same every time.

Overall, great job…

9

Henrik, thank you for sharing the tunes. Although I am no expert when it comes to ITM, my assessment is that your playing is pretty good for a first draft. As others have pointed out, I think that you need to plan where you take your breaths so that you don’t run out of breath and trail-off at the end of a phrase. I am more familiar with classical music, where marks are indicated where to take a breath or to change your bow direction. You can easily run out of bow length just like you can run out of breath.

I liked the set of fast tunes better than the Planxty Irwin, however, as slower tunes are more difficult to make sound good. I am sure that much can be lost in the recording and then the MP3 compression and reproduction on my computer, but with that being said, I can hear problems with tuning and intonation between the flute and the guitar on the Planxty Irwin. I think that you need to take the time to tune better with the guitar in both registers on the flute. I might add that I can say the same thing about some of the recordings on the “Wooden Flute Obsession CD’s 1 & 2”, so don’t think that I am singling you out for any harsh criticism. As I said before, I think that your playing needs some work but shows good promise.

10

Henrik,

I think the recording would have been much better had the guitar not been in there. I love guitar accompaniment, but in this case it is really detracting from your flute playing. Backing ITM is hard and it takes experience, particularly if the guitar player isn’t used to playing trad. I just listened to the first track you posted, but on the battering ram, the guitar player isn’t playing a strumming pattern that works for a jig, so the accents of the guitar playing are totally off. In addition, the rhythm in general is erratic, probably in part because the guitar player is trying to find the pulse. Your flute playing has the right rhythm and pulse, but it gets muddled because the guitar is in the way.

If the guitar player also plays the box, then just record flute and box. That way the rhythm will be solid and the focus will be on the tune, where it should be. Adding guitar, bodhran, bouzouki, whatever should add to the inherent rhythm of the melody players, not detract from it or fight with them. Listen to the Kitty Lie Over album. No backing other than the regulators of the pipes, yet the album still rocks along and sounds full because the melody players are brilliant.

I’d agree that George White’s is probably not the best tune to go after the Battering Ram, but you could make it work if the guitar wasn’t there. Fair play to the D Flute album variations on both tunes.

Hope this is helpful,
Brendan

11

Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it.

As I said, breath, tone and in some ways tuning were due to me playing a head I wasn’t used to. The tunes were originally recorded for a small school project from my previous school. We found ourselves running out of time. For one reason or another, the Cocobolo head I’d been playing for months didn’t go well at all with that mic, so I had to play the polymer head which I wasn’t used to at all. I found myself running out of air a lot more and also it was a lot more difficult to maintain a good tone, so I was struggling quite a bit but the overall sound was still better so we decided to go for polymer. I could have done a better job with the breathing and could have got a much better tone as well if I had a few hours to work on that head but we didn’t have time for that unfortunately.

Otherwise, good feedback.
And Brendan, interesting, will look into that.

12

Let me start with the positives.

Overall, much improved from previous recordings you’ve posted. This is namely in rhythm and tempo. The tempos feel under control but not lagging and the jig and reel rhythms are clear. This is a big improvement on your first recording of George White that you posted which felt more like a fast blur of notes than a reel. This time around it felt like a reel and probably your best tune in this set. The Battering Ram also improved in tempo and rhythm since your first recording too. And your self-composd reel sounds like it has potential.

I felt that phrasing was the weakest element of the performance. Much improved from previous recordings however in which phrasing felt like an afterthought. This time around it didn’t throw off the rhythm like before but it could be smoother. I’m hearing too many breaths at the end of phrases. It’s OK to do but switch it up. When you do breath at the end of phrase you are consistently clipping the last note, especially in the jig. The last note should have a a full quarter note value but in most cases you are only giving it an 8th at best. This was not as much of a problem in the reels but it cropped it up here and there. The main phrasing issue that was prevalent thoughout the whole set was the pulse of the phrases. There should be a very significant pulse at the front of each phrase which I didn’t feel.

The other weak element was your tone. It sounds like you have a good enough embouchure but little breath support or power behind it. So the notes were mostly clear but a little weak and hollow sounding. This was most evident on the bottom notes where they were almost inaudible and lacked the punch that is characteristic of Irish flute playing. In the case of the bottom D and E, I wonder if your embouchure needs a bit more refinement. But overall, more breath support. This was most obvious in your planxty/waltz set. Those kinds of sets should be all tone and expression. I heard some expression but the tone let it down which is all I’ll say about that set.

Jig to reel transitions have to be done a certain way to sound right. Most important is that the tempo of the reel is instant. In this instance the reel started off light and then got up to tempo. Whether or not you have a bridge, a pause, a guitar intro, it should be at tempo. The easiest way to do that is to play the last beat of the jig in reel time. But with where your playing is at, your reels sound better at a moderate tempo so perhaps these kinds of transitions should be saved for a time when you can play a reel up tempo without losing phrasing, pulse, and rhythm.

Ornamentation for the most part was not very noticeable which is good and means that you played it correctly, to accent the rhythm. The only things that stuck out were a couple things on low notes, it sounded perhaps like a cran on bottom D. It stretched the beat a little bit. A cran will sound arhythmic but shouldn’t change the beat.

As for the accompaniment, it maintained the beat and rhythm but the style sounded more luau than session or ceili.

But the most enjoyable thing was hearing the control in your playing and hearing you play jigs and reels and not try to impress us with speed and technique.

The hard work and enthusiasm have born fruit.

Cheers,
Aaron

13

It’s kind of hard to look past that stuff…I’m not all that picky about tuning, but some of it was pretty cringe-inducing. And the higher notes sounded really strained.

Anyway, what’s your goal with this recording? If you want to give it to friends, or as a simple “demo” CD to get gigs or to sell nice & cheap for people who hear you play, I think it has good potential. Pick tunes you really like, that you can play effortlessly, and try to have fun playing them. Don’t obsess about mistakes, try more for fire and spontaneity than sterile perfection. Take it as a snapshot of where you are now, not as a polished piece of “art.”

If you’re trying for a general “professional” release, well, I think you’re being a bit too ambitious.

Sorry for being honest.

14

I think the main problem most people have is that they waste most of their time by surfing the internet and not playing flute.

15

The ambition of this particular recording is not really anything. The idea is that the final recording (which will not really be comparable to this one) will be printed as a cd in some way. Not really to be sold to a large audience or anything like that, but more as a fun thing and we’ll probably sell them at gigs together with the bands cd, just for fun.

I think the main problem most people have is that they waste most of their time by surfing the internet and not playing flute.

:laughing: Don’t really know what to make of that.

Edit: And of course there is no need for apologies. I asked for feedback and I’ve got some good stuff. Thanks folks.

16

Henke, the clips sound pretty good. You are now in possession of a sufficient level of technical ability in which i would extend this bit of advice to you: stop trying to play the flute, and focus more on playing the tune. At this point, the former will fall into place the more as you focus on the latter. As for technical development, perhaps the only exception i would suggest is that would likely benefit most by developing your tone–a strong steady tone will help really bring these tunes to life.

Good luck and, again, you’re soundig great. i enjoyed listening to your clips.