i am a beginner playing a pennychanter, and i am using the heather clarke tutorial.
so far working mostly on F#, G, A and B, of course in the lower register. trying to minimize bad habits.
when i play simple exercises using these notes (as in lesson 4 of the tutor if anyone still has their copy) am i supposed to be playing all staccato or a mixture? when i go from B to A, should i close all fingers in between the notes or just cover the hole with the third finger keeping the ring finger open? when i go from A to G, (no fingers in common) should i make sure to get a full closure of the chanter between notes?
I find that when I play with my family (2 fiddles, piano, and guitar), the ornamentation get’s lost, so I stay with the legatto style of playing. When playing with just the guitar or the fiddle, I play more close-fingered style because it is easier to discern the ornamentation and stocatto notes.
On any instrument, the key to mastering a song is playing it perfectly stocatto from start to finish. This is how I learned classical piano, and it has helped on the pipes.
I think If you learn staccato first , it allows for real control of the lagatto , otherwise the lagatto is just sloppy piping hidden behind alot of fast reels and reg playing , of course , I could be wrong .
tom . ( spelling ) ? ( )
This is what I got in my first lesson yesterday, as tok replied. Practice them both, and staccato first, which is obviously easier for a beginner anyway, then practice lagatto. They are both two parts of learning.
Strange though, while I am struggling to learn, and having such a time of squeezing the weasel, thinking there’s a problem with my reed, etc., my teacher played my set wonderfully!?
Point of interest: Talking to Kirk Lynch about my progress, after two weeks, and asking him questions, he said that with all the things going on, at the same time, with bellows, bag, fingers, etc,. is really like one big mind****.
It just takes time, and lots of practice. My 2 cents.
Hi,
I’m not sure if I’ve got the terms Legato and staccato right but FWIW, the guy teaching me is very keen to make sure that I close the chanter completely between notes, I assume this is staccato.
Elbogo, I know exactly what you mean when you talk about thinking there’s a problem with the reed etc. As I said I was having problems the 1st week, thanks to the good advice I got here on the forum the 2nd week has gone much better and I feel much more relaxed (still bad though)
I wonder how we’ll feel after the first month?
Yep, mac, that is staccato… lagatto is going into the next note as you close the last one. Just going through the scale without stopping. I believe it is like, staccato: D.E.F.G… and lagatto is like: DEFG… to simplify.
Actually, Meir, I started practicing by playing lagatto, as it seemed most logical, and it also felt (and feels) easier. Now though, practicing lagatto seems harder, halting.
I’m with the Elbo on this one. It is essential that one is ABLE to do both well. Then when one has a better sense for timing, phrasing, ornamentation etc. you will be able to make the DECISION of what to use when. If you never learn to play staccato, you’ll never be able to USE staccato if you want to.
Jeeze, as I read my last post, it seems like I’m getting confused. I think I meant to say that playing staccato, or single notes, stopping between each note, now seems harder.
Does anyone know of a good CD featuring a piper who consistently incorporates both staccato and lagatto in his playing… or is that something done by most experienced pipers?
Listen to some of the chieftains’ older music. You will find that Paddy Maloney seems to play legatto when playing in-group, and he plays more tight-fingered when playing alone.
Hi Folks,
I have the Mad for Trad CD Rom pipes tutor, I did’nt notice before but when Séan Og Potts plays the beginers tune, Dawning of the Day, he seems to use a combination of Stacatto and Legatto. There was a thread a while back talking about Travelling style, closed/open fingering and stacatto/legatto. http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?topic=5894&forum=6
again, thanks to all. the message i am getting is for now to practice all exercises strict stacatto and legato. which is what i am now doing. it certainly feels right in terms of demanding discipline in practice.
i guess my remaining question is: would an experienced piper completely close the chanter even between notes with very close fingering, specifically the following intervals:
F# to G
G to F#
A to B
B to A
i am sure that in these intervals you would completely close the chanter on occasion, to separate phrases or to emphasize a note. i am wondering if anyone ALMOST ALWAYS closes the chanter for these intervals. seems to me you would start to sound like an NSP player.
may i say that this list is incredible. i do not believe that a beginner on a “classical” instrument would be able to get the kind of help i have been getting from the quality of people on this list.
Elbogo, the answer to your question is “yes”, and that’s why it’s hard to give a simple answer to Meir. It’s a matter of context and taste. Some of the note pairs that Meir mentions will be played either tight or open by the same player in different parts of a tune. Even some of the triplets that are usually played tight can be set off by being played open for a change (e.g. FGA at the start of “Statia Donnelly”).
Anyone following this thread out of more than passing interest should look at the “travelling style” thread if they haven’t already done so. Apart from Leo Rowsome’s “King of the Pipers” record, which some say was recorded when he was past his prime, and young Mr “Bend it like Beckham” Spillane, you’ll hear very few pipers playing entirely open. Johnny Doran, who used to be seen as the other end of the spectrum from Patsy Touhey, plays some perfectly percussive tight series of notes while conveying an overall open sound. Tommy Kearney plays in a style which is close to Rowsome, but he too throws in some prefectly tight ornamentation. When you listen carefully to Séamus Ennis, you realise that he plays far more open than his strategically-positioned tight passages would have you believe.
There has been a bit of a fetish for constipated piping since the 70s onward, influenced particularly by the return of Andy Conroy to Ireland when he retired from the US. He was seen as the second coming of Patsy Touhey, and was undoubtedly a revelation to people like myself in NPU at the time, “cut off by fog” in Ireland. It’s impressive, but as Andy himself once asked, “is it music?” He could get away with it as rather a novelty, but many of his would-be clones are all technique and no music.
Meir, I still stand by my recommendation to any beginner that they start with Brian McNamara’s solo album, and let their own taste develop from there. He plays slow enough for you to hear what he’s doing even without the Amazing Slowdowner. If I could play like that I wouldn’t even want to look any further.
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