… you can now find at Brother Steve’s phantastoplenipontentialiriousterouspenultimagical webpage. http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
It was a real eye-opener, particularly the bit about descending triplets in a reel transmogrifying themselves into cut eigth-notes. It brought home the point that triplets don’t always sound the way the are written. (Let me pause to deny vigorously and absolutely the insidious and slanderous allegations that I may have been learning tunes from printed music.)
I had a question about triplets, but rather than email Brother Steve I thought I’d post it here for everyone to profit and to add their small change.
How should these sort of triplets sound: (Key of A myxolydian, one sharp)
EA 3(AGA BA 3(AGA | EA 3(AGA BGAG | EG 3(GFG AG 3(GFG | EG 3(GFG EGDG | …
(That’s the first four measures of The Maids of Mount Kisco, as written in L.E. McCullough’s 121 Favorite Irish Session Tunes.)
It seems to me that it would be natural to cut the first note of the triplets to avoid tonguing. The effect would be almost more like a smudged off-beat long roll. And of course the “EA 3(AGA” can be played as “E~A3”. Should it be? Or is there a rhythmic quality that I am missing? (I feel that McCullough writes the triplets the way he does so as not to overburden beginners with rolls).
Any insight appreciated.
/bloomfield
[ This Message was edited by: Bloomfield on 2002-02-20 12:00 ]
Why shouldn’t the post be here? Seems a reasonable question to me.
I believe the triplet pattern you cite is just the notion that LE uses to indicate a roll in a reel in 121 FIST. There are no actual roll indicators in that book, are there? It’s a weird way of doing things, but with a little practice it isn’t hard to read.
In the jig section, most of the rolls seem to have been turned into note-note below-note.
The first post is supposed to be there, but not the second.
If you listen to FIST CD, L.E. plays the triplets as written (eg. EA 3(AGA…) and not as rolls. It is true that he does not notate rolls, but he doesn’t notate any ornaments or variations that he plays in the fast version of the tunes. (If you don’t have this excellent book-and-CD set, each tune is played once slow and straight, then a second time faster and ornamented.)
I guess I can put my question differently: Is that notation described above just an idiosyncracy of McCullough’s book, or does it (roughly) represent a way of actually playing tunes like Maids of Mt Kisco, Green Groves of Eirin (B-Part), Sporting Paddy, Swallowtail Reel etc.
Is that notation described above just an idiosyncracy of McCullough’s book, or does it (roughly) represent a way of actually playing tunes like Maids of Mt Kisco, Green Groves of Eirin (B-Part), Sporting Paddy, Swallowtail Reel etc.
I haven’t heard the CD, but I glanced at the book one time and I quickly came to the conclusion that the transcriptions had been done by someone other than LE McC.
That odd notation for short or off-beat rolls was one of several things that led me to that conclusion. I can’t remember all the others, but I seem to recall that the explanation of ornamentation in the introduction sounded as it had been written by someone who knew a good deal less about the subject than I would expect from LE McC.
I can’t say I’ve ever noticed anyone playing these figures in this way.
It might simply be that the weird way of playing rolls as eighth note followed by a triplet is LE’s way of coping with going slowly.
I don’t want to claim any sort of authority here, but I would only play it that way as a variation, and it’s not a variation I usually think of. When I learn a turn from that book, I automatically substitute a roll every time I see that figure.
On 2002-02-20 16:03, colomon wrote:
It might simply be that the weird way of playing rolls as eighth note followed by a triplet is LE’s way of coping with going slowly.
I don’t want to claim any sort of authority here, but I would only play it that way as a variation, and it’s not a variation I usually think of. When I learn a turn from that book, I automatically substitute a roll every time I see that figure.
I may have an old edtion of this book, but every tune in the book has at least one typo, usually more. I always use the tape when learning tunes from this book…
[ This Message was edited by: dsparling on 2002-02-21 08:24 ]