I recall some months ago a very good bodhran player noted that pipers tend (more than other instrument players) go off time when playing newer, complex, or unfamiliar tunes.
Today I asked a friend who plays a pretty solid piano to watch my timing closely. What she noticed was that on familiar tunes my timing was spot on, but sure enough, on tunes that were newer to me I would go off time but only during more demanding phrases.
I have been concerned about this, but being busy just getting through the notes of a complex tune can take all your concentration when piping. I have been playing more and more with the metronome lately hoping that this will help the situation. It seems to be helping I think, but…
Anyone have further insights into UP specific timing issues???
I don’t think it’s just particular to uilleann pipers. I’ve had that problem on most instruments. I think it’s common to most musicians. The best remedy is to take your metronome and slow it way down. Play through your tune twice on each setting, getting faster and faster. By the time you have the tune from 72b.p.m. up to speed, you’ll be spot on and comfortable. It’s frustrating, tedious and very time consuming, but it get’s results.
Playing a familiar(to you) tune with other players may also throw you off. Their timing expression and nuances may be just enough to make you suspect your own playing.
I have noticed the same thing lately in myself… like when a bodhran player politely stops playing while I finish a tune.
My experience with GHBs is that metronome work helps a LOT, so I apply this to UPs and we’ll see how it goes.. I give lessons in GHBs and some of my students tend to lock into a bad sense of timing on a tune if not corrected early on, so I really push the metronome for them for strathespeys, jigs, and reels when beginning learning the tune.
I watch the bodhran players to see if my timing is on. If they stop playing, I know I’ve gone off.
Perhaps try to simplify the tune until you can play it in time all the time, then start adding layers back in, always making sure you are still staying in time.
I can’t imagine there is something about pipes themselves that would make those players tend to be more off in their timing on newly-learned pieces than other players. The bodhran player may well have observed correctly, but I sort of doubt that the sample size is large enough to warrant any conclusions. If it were, I think the conclusion would have to concern the the personality of pipers more than the pipes themselves.
I’ve always used a metronome (with other instruments) to help with unconcious slowing down in hard parts or out of control sloppy fast playing. I have never observed that I was dependent on the metronome or that I played like a robot after I got my timing down. I was able to slow down or speed up and work on phrasing just fine. The metronome doesn’t take control of your brain. Rather, the metronome helped my brain to be in control instead of the automatic movements of my fingers.
You’re in some seriously deep fecal matter if your playing is so off beat a bodhran player can’t follow it. I don’t know which is more telling, that or the the fact that you actually admit you rely on bodhran players to find the beat in the first place. Does that involve both hands and a flashlight? How do you manage to play the chanter at the same time–I mean what with working the flashlight and all?
Stick to the metronome, it’s hard enough trying to keep your own playing without having to try to rationalize it against the input of a skin-slamming Neanderthal. I’ve edited this a couple of times to soften it up so I hope I’m not ending up sounding too obtuse to catch my meaning.
Hey, copy this to the bohdran forum. It’ll be fun…
I may be blunt but I’ve once again hit the nail squarely on the head as it turns out. I can’t teach you to walk if you’re marvelling so loudly about how great it is some kids are crawling the thought of standing up never occurs to you. First of all you used the term “Good” and “Bohdran Player” in the same sentence. That’s essentially oxymoronic, but in truth the ratio of a “good” bohdran player to ones that can’t find the downbeat with both hands, a flashlight and a GPS unit is roughly 1 out of 100. Having said that, there seems to be no inbetween, so the 99 will be almost unanimously useless as any sort of timekeeping device, let alone any sort of interestingly musical timing device. If you didn’t know that, in fact if you imagined exactly the opposite were true as your post presupposes, I have done you one hyoomungussly large favor, probably handed you the most useful bit of information you would have otherwise encountered in years. Only after you understand that pretty much every single bohdran player to cuddle into a circle of musicians is a hopeless wanker, can you move ahead to determine any problem with timing you may have with your own playing and correct it.
Missing this first bit of revelatory insight into what actual “music” is, you may have remained rhythmically retarded indefinately, if indeed as you overtly chortled in your gleefullness, your entire appreciation of “timing” was based on observations of bohdran players. I assure you as well, I haven’t understated the facts here at all, and have been probably far too conciliatory in the matter lest I hurt the feelings of any tan-slammers who might accidentally read this little tome.
If you are unskilled as a piper and do not intend to remain so, as I say, stick to the metronome, and do your best not to play with, near, before or after nearly any bohdran player likely to be hanging around a session. Your misunderstanding or lack of conceptual grasp visa-vis the downbeat is no reflection on you or any other beginner. Simply having bought a set of pipes, simply holding them in your lap and making vaguely pipe-like noises puts you in a superior musical position to the vast majority of even “accomplished” bohdran players. By “accomplished” I mean that they manage to hit the head occasionally, but even at that you have to admit it is a very large round target only inches away from the tipper.
You as a piper, or wannabe piper, are inherently better than these “good” bohdran players you revere so. This of course is because you chose a musical instrument for one thing, if nothing else, and had the insight to understand the difference even if you couldn’t play either.
Wow. Talking out your ass has now been taken to a whole new level! ROTFLOL
Thankfully, the many sessions I’ve seen over the years haven’t been plauged with this obvious and pandemic bodhrán problem. But I’ll keep a few extra vials of the bird flu vaccine in my pipe case just to be safe.
Did I say that my metronome speeds up every so often?
I told that to my fiddle teacher at one point and she gave me that “DON’T EVEN GO THERE” look as teachers do.
I am not a bodhrání, but I believe I have already come into contact with this bird flu … at least, I keep getting these overwhelming urges to climb a tree and crap on somebody’s windshield …
Where have you been Royce??? I have truly missed your prickly commentaries. I am a little disappointed that you didn’t work cretin or Neanderthal into your reply. Please repent and try harder. I wish I lived in Minnesota so I could take up the Bohdran.
John
(Still a beginner after 3 years but having a good time)
(I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.)