Could anyone give me and idea of the different ways of gracing the back D? Up until now a have only cut it using the thumb but ive hit tunes where i need more.
Help!!
Dan
Have you looked at some of the books available, like the Dance Music of Willie Clancy, or Seamus Ennis’ The Master’s Touch?
A very popular back D ornament is the pseudo-roll done by flipping the thumb rapidly back and forth over the back D. This requires that you close the back D with the side/edge of the thumb instead of the pad of the thumb.
You can also get a lot of mileage out of heavy vibrato using the A or G.
djm
Can you give a couple of examples of bits of tunes?
[Abc notation handy]
ddd triplet is favoured by some but not all … either
you’re a Keenan man or an O’Flynn??!! 
Play it by moving the thumb
rapidly over the d hole
Many would rather play variations to lift a long d into something
more interesting:
dcd
dAd
dBd
df#d
d2 d
d d2
3 staccato d’s
d 3[Bcd]
ded
d 3[gfd]
3[BcB] d
3[AcA] d
d 3[f#ed]
or play a long d with the chanter off the knee, and c hole open, vibrato with one or two lower hand fingers
or dispense with the d altogether and pick another note from the arpeggio?
you can roll or triplet other notes.
and I’m only getting warmed up here 
Long d’s can be a feature of Scottish tunes…is it Irish or Scottish tunes you’re playing?
Boyd
…oh …and
grace into back d with either c# or ghost d
or even with some of the triplets mentioned above
Boyd
I only have heather clarkes book at the moment, But should i think about obtaining those books?
Thanks Boyd. any more???
Im playing a mixture of scottish and irish stuff but im still at a basic level and things like triplets are slightly beyong me at the moment. What im starting to do is build up a small repotoire (sp?) at the level im at until i move on to more technical stuff.
Cheers again
Dan
I only have heather clarkes book at the moment, But should i think about obtaining those books?
Thanks Boyd. any more???
Im playing a mixture of scottish and irish stuff but im still at a basic level and things like triplets are slightly beyond me at the moment. What im starting to do is build up a small repotoire (sp?) at the level im at until i move on to more technical stuff.
Cheers again
Dan
Most players will have at least one of those 2 books.
Ennis and Clancy are giants in the piping world.
A real investment to make would be a tenner of petrol now and again and travel to meet up with other pipers [see my private message to you].
This is not an instrument that you should learn from a book.
[Some would say you can’t learn it that way!]
Just hanging out with other players, at various stages of their development, will give you invaluable information, tips on technique, sight of different makers’ work, and helpful feedback [if you ask].
Boyd
The Piping of Patsy Touhey also discusses the back D and ghost D, and also an ornament called a backstitch - a tight staccato triplet played with two notes in one hand and one in the other. This can be done to any of the top hand notes, of course - FGd, FGC#, FGB, FGA. FGA, sound familiar? Actually Touhey played GFd, GFA etc. etc., usually in conjunction with the “lone” note played twice - dGFd, C#GFC#, etc. It was very systematic.
The FGd triplet I use as a substitue for a roll in reels where a fiddler would play a bowed d triplet, like the 3rd part of the Boys of Ballisodare, which goes Bdd3), BCd3)gd BCd3)gd edBA, in its usual form. I play BdFGd3) for that first bar instead of Bdd3). This is just my own solution to this problem, you can also just play Bddd, or the “rubbed” back D triplet which others are talking about - Bdd3), just like the fiddlers, sort of. Some pipers find the sound of this scurrlious - obnoxious. “The rubbed back D is right out” according to Seamus Ennis.
Kevin, “rubbed” is a good term for it. I like that. I have heard many people espouse the same sentiment after Ennis’ proclamation. However, it seems to be a more popular ornament than ever with pipers coming over from Ireland for the various tionáls. Even if you only use it once in a whole night, I think any ornament is worth learning.
djm
Experimenting with an old chanter of unknown make that had a good top hand, I developed an action which I never analysed very carefully, but it basically consisted of gracing with the B finger, and possibly relaxing the top hand so that maybe some of the other fingers come off the chanter in the same movement. It gives a lovely “liquid” sound on that particular chanter, which has a lovely clean sound on the top hand, though I never got round to applying the same technique to the Rogge. I have a suspicion that either Kevin Rowsome or Seán Potts does something similar.