Just a read a really good book someone gave to me called “The Four Letters of Love” by, Dubliner, Niall Williams. It was a nice surprise as there is mention of whistles and fiddles in the book. The person I got it from is a new aquaintance and was giving books to charity when she offered me whatever I would like from her bag of books. I happened to grab that one out of the bag. Fate I think. She has no idea I like ITM.
Thought I should share that with you all. BTW it is not a romancel as the title may lead you to believe - more a spiritual love that is threaded throught the novel. Very touching.
Okay, part B of this subject. Bill Ochs or was it my first Walton book, taught me to cut lifting one finger above desired note - I.e. cut G with an A. But Mel Bay Irish tin whistle Book is teaching to cut (and, consequently the first part of a short roll) by using A for D,E,F. B for G. C for A and B. E for D. Does it sound better do you think the Mel Bay way? Or, is it perhaps easier fingering with a view to maintaining speed during a jig to do it the Mel Bay Way. I just don’t know if it matters or not. I am accustomed to cutting a note above. Thanks in advance.
As far as I know, the “traditional way” to cut the notes is with the L3 finger for F#, E and D and L1 finger to cut the notes B, A and G.
When I just started playing whistle I cut the notes in that way, but I saw that my teacher uses to cut with the note above, so I started to do it like that. I think that, for example, Grey Larsen tend to cut with the note above as well, but I’m not sure.
I consider that my cuts are quite good, I don’t know if it would make any different to cut with L1 and L3 or with the note above, I think both ways are valids.
I learned first the way with only using two fingers to cut (the traditional way), but I relearned to cut with the finger above the note as Grey Larson teaches because I think it sounds better and once you get it in your system it is easier and makes rolls easier, but thats just my opinion.
I’m sort of a hybrid I think. Sometimes I cut with the note above and sometimes I just cut with a random note, whatever is easier. I’ve always done it this way, it’s a subconscious thing
The “traditional way” reflects the somewhat shared technique of the whistle, Irish flute, and uilleann pipes.
In this way, the upper ring finger is used to cut all of the lower-hand notes.
However, on certain flutes, and more rarely on certain whistles, this cut can sound fuzzy or chirpy on the second-octave E. So, sometimes you do get a better-sounding cut to use the lower-hand index finger on the second-octave E. (Goes to show that the traditional way of doing things is not necessarily the best-sounding or most logical way.)
In the upper hand, the traditional way is to use the upper-hand index finger. So, as people have said, you only need to use two digits for cutting. This can be called “economy of means”.
On the uilleann pipes it’s more complicated because when you get to the upper-hand notes in the second octave, the notes are less stable, and sometimes using a distant cut makes the note drop to the lower octave.
So you’ll see uilleann pipers who cut upper-hand notes in the lower octave with their index finger or thumb, the cuts being a third or forth away from the melody note, but those same notes will be cut by the next-available finger in the second octave.
In other words, the traditional aesthetic likes the cut to be a third, fourth, or even fifth away from the note being cut, but in the second octave of the uilleann pipes the cuts become closer to the note being cut due to the chanter’s instability.
I myself am always wary of Americans with the (as I call it) “Yankee ingenuity” approach, the urge to ignore tradition and use one’s native cleverness to devise a “better” way, a more logical way, to do things.