I’ve finaly gotten to the point were I can play long rolls, but I can’t find anywhere that teaches short rolls or crans or anything like that.
I also have trouble knowing where to put ornaments in to songs to get the propper rythem. Does anybody know of a good place to learn these, a website or a book or anything?
Thanks
http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/twiddlybits1.html
Look under the heading “More Advanced Stuff”, halfway down the page.
Still Under Construction. 
The Grey Larsen book will help you. It sounds like MAYBE you learned it backwards, like I kinda did. It’s ideal to learn cuts first, get VERY comfortable with 'em. I know this sounds obvious, but not necessarily, if you are learning in a sort of vacuum.
With the Larsen book you will approach it that way. It never hurts to be able to cut any note, though of course you cut on strong beats usually. Also, and this is reallly important, learning the cut really well first enables you to do short rolls better. Of course, before the short roll, you learn taps (or whatever the nomenclature uses) for the lower note.
I think there is a tendency for someone without a teacher to tackle long rolls first, because they are conceptually and physically easier to begin, starting on the main note. You also hear them more prominently with an untrained ear. On some of my fiddle recordings, I wasn’t hearing short rolls sometimes that I can easily hear now. But that’s mostly because you learn that in jigs and reels, any long note is rolled, so you come to EXPECT to hear them. Then, there they are.
I learned it wrong. I learned to do long rolls first, then short rolls later. This was a real setback to actually playing in the style. I had to go back and work hard to make short rolls come naturally, but the key to that was that I didn’t have cuts down as well as I should have. Short and long rolls should be equally effortless to play, in my non-expert opinion.
Good luck. Remember that in music technique, it takes ten times longer to unlearn an incorrect practice than to implant it. So go carefully!
I don’t know that it’s such a problem to learn short rolls last. I did it that way (which doesn’t mean anything), and I thought it was okay since short rolls are really not necessary while long rolls are. When I started getting more comfortable playing I started just putting in cuts or taps on quarter notes, and eventually the short rolls came naturally. The only thing I did practice was the explosive kind of triple-up-front kind of short roll.
I do agree that getting your cuts and taps comfortable and clean is much more important and basic than working on the rolls. I’ve gone back several times now to put more effort into cuts and taps.
June McCormac’s Fliuit book is where I learned short rolls. It’s for flutes, though. I think Grey’s book is suited to people who already are adept at musical instruments. It was too daunting for me.
I agree about Grey’s book. And June’s book is fantastic. Highly recommended, especially for the tunes and the style. The technical explanations are very short and a bit unorthodox (which I think is a good thing, who needs a bloody canon a la Larsen?).
I don’t think I’d say you learned it wrong. I found short rolls to be more difficult (mainly with the precise timing of the cut) than long rolls. Had I tried short rolls first I may have chucked my whistle into the river 
After playing long rolls for a while short rolls came very naturally.
www.whistletutor.com
look under tutorials
Interesting reactions to my statement! I thought it was just me…but as I said, I realized that my cuts weren’t consistent and automatic enough to start a short roll confidently, like the opening A of Concertina Reel, for example. It has to be bold, no other way to play it, and as Stray indicated, timed precisely, to sound right.
Thanks for your help everybody.
I looked at the Larsen book and I think I will get it. From the sample chapters I saw it looked very good, and it had lots of explanation. Thats good for me, I don’t have a teacher and don’t even know anybody else who plays, I learned all I know from bro. steve and Ryan Dunns’ websites.
I can play cuts, taps, and rolls decent, but I don’t know where to put them in songs unless the song has them written in, and then I cant get any variation or play any songs that arn’t marked.
I’ll check out June’s book too.
Thanks
You’ll see that when you hear people play a tune, everybody plays it differently. Colin Goldie told me that ornamentation comes in naturally when you play a little longer. I experienced this to be true, at least for me. As I now, a year later, learn a tune, I notice that I put in ornamentation naturally.