Backstitching

I know what backstitching is and recognize in playing however i have a hard time implementing it in my playing. Does anyone have a few pointers or guidelines that would be useful to know. Thanks

just got to find the right place for it…
say, in a jig, you got a low A quarter followed by a lo A eightnote in the first half of the bar, then goes to a triplet something starting on a lo B.
Fitting in the movement you could play Lo A, eighth, then staccato lo g + staccato lo F# 16th’s then lo A 1/8note, continue the tune with the aforementioned B…
Same wiht loE, lo e 1/8–stacc. C# 1/6th, stacc. a 1/6th, then lo e 1/8. & continue ye tune..(ok purists: so its not an exact 1/8 -2 1/6th’s -1/8 subdivision but the idea stands)
also to consider: is it tasteful / idiomatic (traditional) where you intend to put it?
it loses so much in written words…we need a manuscript tool mod’s! some kind of finale plug-in…

I’ve only heard Jerry O’Sullivan and Patsey Touhy using this ornament.

Greetings

PJ wrote:

I’ve only heard Jerry O’Sullivan and Patsey Touhy using this ornament.

Any chance Jerry O’Sullivan used it on “O’Sullivan meets O’Farrell”?

David

I’ll have a listen tomorrow. He certainly uses backstitching in his version of Colonel Fraser. In the 3rd part at about 53 seconds and again at 57 seconds, he plays some backstitching.

The latest edition of the An Piobaire from NPU has a version of Harvest Home by Joe Doyle, a long serving tutor at their classes, that stresses Backstiching in the last variation, as an execise at least in putting this gracing into a tune.

Mickie Smythe on his Wild Keys CD plays this version I think, but certainly uses Backstiching in the version he plays.

Certainly one tutor told us in a class, that rather like over use of the regulators, excessive use of backstiching, is rather naff. I’d probably agree with him if I could play them easily.

Someone posted the Joe Doyle ABC’s here just before Christmas.

Pwt

Paddy Keenan also does it on the Cork Hornpipe, last cut of his “Long Grazing Acre” CD.

paddy and cork hornpipe? I may be missing this. backstitching, from what i recall, is not something that he typically does - and what i just listened to did not have any in it… last track of that particular cd, last tune did have an open triplet in it, but that was it…
maybe i am missing it… sorry if that is the case.

i just did not want anyone thinking something was backstitching that was not… the best folks i have heard in person doing backstitching - and surprisingly so - are kieran o’hare and eamonn dillon… eamonn does it when prompted in amazing finesse.

Mick Coyne explains backstiching and gives examples on his tutoring websight

http://www.uilleannpipestutor.com/

click on the tab labled intermediate
when the menu pulls down go to the intermediate practice room
Cheers,

Hi Maze,

I could swear the backstitching is in there the second time through on the B part.

I could be wrong…I was wrong at least once last year(ask my wife!) :smiley:

Yes Paddy does backstitching in his version of Harvest Home.
I have, I think, four recordings of Paddy playing it, two bootlegs recorded at pub concerts, and two commericial recordings.
He plays the same variations at each performance, but not in the same order. I choose the performance which seemed to have his variations in the most common order, which seemed the most logical, and I did a painstaking notation of it, done listening at half-speed.
First to clarify what I mean by “backstitching”. I mean by that either the low-octave staccato notes C# and A used to decorate lower-hand notes upper octave, or the upper-octave staccato notes G and F# used to decorate upper-hand notes in the lower octave.
So, the staccato triplet AC#A uses the same notes as the backstitching ornament C#A.
Paddy, in Harvest Home, at one point plays:
(D major, all C’s and F’s sharp)
Cd/eA(3ACA) fA(3ACA) / gAfA eA(3ACA) / (3eCA) (3fCA) (3gCA) (3fCA) / (3efe) (3dCB) (3ABA) (3GFE) /
So, while the backstitched CA’s are not insterted between pairs of upper-octave G’s, F’s, and E’s in the way that Touhey did, but form part of a triplet, the effect sounds like backstitching to me.

I was going to suggest the Harvest Home as well as I (try) and play this little backstich when playing it. It’s a good little exercise just play high e followed by a quick CA, then f, then g. Just like pancelticpiper wrote (3eCA) (3fCA) (3gCA). Do that up and down and it’s fun to work on the coordination. Now yelp the second octave notes. Now you’re cooking with fire!

Listen to Johnny Doran’s version on The Master Pipers Vol 1. He may be doing this, I don’t think he is but he sure is doing everything else. So listen to this version just 'cause.

The is also an old 78 of Richard O’Mealy (two actually) playing with either backstiching or perhaps record deterioration. Normally I wouldn’t bring up obscure 78’s, but this one is free online at:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html

If memory serves me, Ken Ricketts back stitches on his version Lark in the Morning, as posted on Clips and Snips.

T