When you play Cliffs of Moher is the F in the B part an F natural or F sharp? I’m talking about the F in the first 3 notes. Grey Larsen’s book shows an F natural but other sources show an F sharp. It sounds right either way. When they play at our session I’m not sure which note it is. It’s one of those notes that I have trouble hearing what note it is. I lack perfect pitch so I go on what seems right but both seem right.
When I play an F natural I half-hole it. Is that the right way to make an F natural? Or is there a cross-fingered solution?
I can’t answer the first part. But yes, I think half-holing is about the only way to get an F natural. I’ve been playing ‘Carolan’s Dream’, which has a prominent F natural in both the A and B parts. Ya gotta finesse that one a bit.
F# or F nat, it doesn’t really matter so long as everyone is playing the same thing. Makes for a nice variation using both. I have had to stop playing the Chicago Reel for the exact same reason. Some folks learned the tune with an F nat in the B part, and some with an F#. If I do dare to play the Chicago, I have to say that I am playing it with an F#, and with an F nat the second time through, etc. Otherwise, it always derails.
Arbo
When I actually play that note instead of some other figure (rolling the E, triplet to the G, etc.), I tend to play an F-supernatural, somewhere between F and F#. Just roll off to slide up to the note and back to E, no careful half-hole necessary. Maybe that’s cheating.
Ignoring Cork’s comments ( I don’t think Cork goes to sessions. I often play a key-less flute in sessions and I half-hole with no obvious problem - solo is another story), you can play the tune either way or both ways. It’s good to be flexible and to be able to go from Fn to F# when you want to. I often use the Eb and G# keys to see how the tune would sound. Depends on the session- loud and boisterous or retrained and serious - and the other musicians.
Why would you want to stop playing a tune because you’re not sure where one note fits in? I play Chicago with an F# but I were playing with somebody who used an Fn I would do it that way. Or expect them to accommodate me. It gets interesting when two people want to play to the other’s setting and so they each play a different note every time through. Best not to take it too seriously.
Does anybody else find that there are a few tunes where there are notes like this that you can’t tell which note it is? There are some tunes (which ones escape me now) where I’m not sure if it’s a C or C# and either way it sounds right. I mean, I can’t really tell even when hearing it. Sometimes I don’t think it’s either. Maybe I’m hearing the “supernatural”, as you say.
As for the half-holing, F is easy enough and so is Bb. G# is not easy. For me anyway. At least that one I can cross finger with practice.
as far as “the cliffs…”,
i find any or no note will do at that point . it doesn’t matter what it is. it won’t affect the tune. actually, it’s the note that precedes it that i think matters and so i try to accent that.
and this might explain why you may hear different things being played by different folks.
Heck, do 'em all - for sure if you’re playing solo, anyway. Variation is the spice of traditional music. You can skirt the F question altogether by rolling the E or cranning it or going into it with a long “nyah” slide from below; you can use Fnat, keyed if you have the choice or half-holed, depending on what you’re after; a hop up to a cut G instead of Fnat (the ascending triplet sounds good, MTGuru; an obvious solution that I didn’t even think of. Thanks!), and I just realised that a jump up to the high A or down to the low A could sound pretty nifty too. There have got to be more available to you, as well.
I’m not too inclined to use the F#, but who knows for the future.
Thanks for those ideas! For me, variations don’t come all that natural unless really simple, like maybe skip a note, take a breath, do a roll or a cut or something really simple like that. I never am sure what notes to substitute. Aside from a lack of musicality and creativity, I wouldn’t want to be accused of playing jazz or something.
The ones I mentioned are pretty simple, too, really. Simple’s what I do, myself. All you need to do is now and then when you’re bored pick up your instrument and try stuff and see if it works, and if it does, put it into your bag-o-trix.
Have a good listen to lots of fiddle and pipe players - people like Paddy Canny. They are often playing a note a little bit flat or a bit sharp here or there, sliding into notes - it’s not sloppy playing, it’s deliberately done to enhance the character of the music. C is a very variable note in particular.
I can’t recall ever noticing anybody, live or recorded, playing an F nat anywhere in Cliffs of Moher - not saying it isn’t/shouldn’t be done, just that I haven’t come across it, and it’s a pretty bog-standard sesh tune!
FWIW, I tend to play a dotted crotchet E at the beginning of the B music, often gracing into it by hitting a very brief D first. I vary what I do on the various recurrences of the figure.
I started wondering about this when I heard Grey Larson use Fnat (or maybe
supernatural) on the disc that accompanied Chris Smith’s book on Irish
Accompaniment. In local sessions, most people roll the E instead of going up
to F on that figure, so on certain repeats I can play with half-holing the F to
various degrees without sounding too out of place. If I’m playing it slowly,
I like to slide up to Fnat in the B part.
Its easy enough to use the Fn as the second note in the second part. Even better on a key-less flute. Makes it a mournful sounding, sexy West Clare tune. Northwest Clare maybe?
The Cliffs of Moher, at sunset, are absolutely spectacular. One of the wonders of the world.
Glad you said this - I’ve been wondering the same thing since this thread showed up. Never heard a Fnat in the tune, and I’m not sure where, or why, one would show up. Still, there are always odd variations of tunes out there, so I guess it’s possible… But at a session, on an otherwise pretty standard tune, I wouldn’t think to use an odd variation, even if it was the way I preferred to play it - save that for solo stuff. The idea in a session, IMO, is not to confuse or otherwise keep folks on their toes, but to play things communally. I guess if you all discussed it beforehand, and wanted to give it a spin, then that’d work…
That is one of the troubles of learning from recordings. Nobody is playing anything “bog standard” on a recording. I thought maybe the Fn was one of the quirks that made the tune what it was. Apparently it is just an embellishment.
“The idea in a session, IMO, is not to confuse or otherwise keep folks on their toes, but to play things communally.”
If you’re with sympathetic people and musicians you feel comfortable with, you can do anything with a wink and a smile. It’s a give and take, always. I love it when somebody I’ve been playing with for years introduces a new wrinkle. What I don’t like is when somebody I don’t know is showing of just to impress.
