Yesterday while tootling around with a Susato C, trying to see if I could get it to honk, I stumbled on the following revelation.
In the lower octave (only) you can execute a very crisp-sounding cran with the first two fingers of your top hand rather than the more conventional practice of using the top two fingers of your bottom hand.
On the low D (note, not whistle), whether this sounds better seems to depend on the whistle. On most whistles, it sounds a little crisper to my ear than using the lower hand. On some it sounds no better and even a little worse. There may be some elusive variables at play here - it sounded 10 times better on the Susato last night and this morning I can only hear a small but significant improvement.
On the low E note, however, on almost every whistle this top-hand fingering transforms your conventional cran from a damp squib that I for one would never want to use into a cracking ornament that I think will make a very nice substitute for a short roll.
As I said, neither of these will work in the second octave.
I can’t be the first person in the world to have stumbled on this fingering, but I’ve never heard it mentioned anywhere. Has anyone? Anyway, try it and tell me what you think.
Edited for clarification
[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2002-01-05 13:48 ]
Steve, isn’t that similar in a way to the double cut rolls from the Patsy Touhey, Mike Carney, Tom Busby, Joe Shannon, Andy Conroy line of piping: they used the the top two fingers of the left hand for TWO cuts (as opposed to the regular one) in the rol before hitting the lower note. This can and is sometimes also used for the lower hand cranns on th pipes, I believe on the flute and by some whistle players too by now.
Nice one Steve! I’ve just been trying out what you suggested, and I think I’ll be using this technique in future - it’s very effective, and I find that it works from D up through to G (also seems to work in the second octave on F and G).
I’m confused. I’ve always been told that a cran involved three cuts, usually using fingers from both hands. I was always a little fuzzy on their timing, but recently concluded that it was probably the same as the “two cut” figure Peter talks about. (That is, if a normal roll uses the two grace notes to form three consecutive eighth notes of the same pitch, the cran uses three grace notes to form two sixteenths followed by two eighths.)
Around the time I figured that out, I decided to leave out one of the cuts in my crans, giving it the three eighths pattern. I wanted to try to get a very even rhythm for the cuts before adding in the third cut. I’d always thought of this as cheating.
To make matters more confusing, I do each cut with a different hand – the first with the third finger of the top hand, the second with the middle finger of the bottom. (So that the same fingers move as an F# roll.) If I added another finger to the cran, I think I’d use the first finger of the top hand.
Peter - yes, it did occur to me that the movement was pretty much that used to play double-cut rolls - which I don’t much care for, BTW.
But I’m glad to learn that double-cut rolls have an Irish piping pedigree: the only two whistlers I’ve met that use them are both primarily highland pipers, so I assumed it was an adaptation of a warpipe thing.
Also happy to know that I’m not the first to think of this fingering for crans, but seem to have stumbled on it independently.
On 2002-01-05 22:56, colomon wrote:
I’m confused. I’ve always been told that a cran involved three cuts, usually using fingers from both hands.
I’m not an expert on crans, by any means, but it seems to me there are at least two main varieties - those involving three cuts, and those where you only have time for two.
On whistles, the way I’ve seen several players demonstrate the cran is to use the first two fingers of the bottom hand if you’re doing two cuts, and the third finger of the top hand if you’re doing three.
Maybe Peter can give us a piping perspective - after all, crans are ornaments borrowed from piping. Many fine whistle players never or only rarely use them, BTW.
PS A few people have been on at me to include a discussion of crans on the Brother Steve site - the idea is maturing slowly, but don’t hold your breath anyone.
Steve, Double cut rolls sound a too mechanical for me, I never use them either. I think they originate in highland piping.
I have, at Steves request, tried to write a few basic cranns I am as yet not sure I have them all written down properly (one crann in the reels notates the same as the double crann in the jigs while I feel they are quite different so I am not sure that is clear enough without enabling you to listen to the cran) but I let yez have it anyway. These are the basic ones for the pipes , there is a whole variety of different ones which you can play around with. I have written them as D cranns but replace the D for an E and you have your E crannns. Rule of thumb: don’t use them if you can get the rhythm clean and crisp without muffling, if you get them wrong you are much better off without them.
Reels:
Written : A|~D3 etc
played: A| {G}D/{F}D/{G}D{A}D
(example : start of The Trip to Durrow)
Written A|D2 ~D2
played:
A|D2 {G}D/{F}D/{G}D or A|D2 {A}D/{G}D/{F}D
(example: start of Jenny’s Wedding)
Jigs:
Written: A|~D3
played : A| D/{G}D/{F}D
(example: Sean Bui, Blarney Pilgrim)
A crann Seamus Ennis called a ‘double crann’ it is used when the note cranned is preceded by the same note, it involves a triplet and is the most difficult one to get right
(Humour of Ballyloughlin, third part of An Phis Fliuch, on E: start of the Kid on the Mountain, both Es and Ds in The Munster Buttermilk AKA Behind the Haystack)
There are a other ways of cutting, Seamus Ennis used a different set altogether, see his tutor ‘the master’s touch’ for a very clear treatment of the subject. A shot crann I like can be used in jigs in figures like ADD where you play A ~D effectively, it’s a quite contrary effect listen to Paddy Moloney on the pipes playing Cherish the Ladies (this particular crann occurs in the third part)
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-01-06 05:51 ]
I’m a relative newbie, but from what I’ve heard, read here, on other websites, and in books, it seems that there isn’t necessarily any one, true, way to play an ornament on a given note. Take, for example, the cut for a roll on G (on a D whistle): one source says use the first (‘B’) finger, another says to use the second (‘A’) finger, and yet another says to use the third (‘G’) finger. (Almost everyone agrees that the strike should use the fourth finger.) Given that ornaments are primarily rythmic elements maybe it doesn’t really matter, though it might be nice to play a cut that harmonizes. Then again, I could be wrong. Could someone steeped in the tradition please weigh in here?
Jeff
[ This Message was edited by: JeffMacD on 2002-01-06 10:36 ]
I certainly agree that the precise fingering you use for an ornament doesn’t matter - after all, that’s what my original post was suggesting, a possibility of different fingering for E crans on the whistle. As Jeff suggests, the only thing that matters is how the thing sounds.
The reason for studying or copying the techniques of established players is to make your ornaments sound as good as theirs. If Séamus Ennis, who spent a lifetime perfecting his piping technique, recommends doing it one way, then one should certainly try it out and consider it carefully. But you can always do your own thing.
The situation seems to be different in highland piping, where I gather you have to do everything exactly according to the book or be frowned (or worse) upon.
Thanks for the cran examples Peter - I intend to study them closely later today, but at first glance they seem to be very similar to what I would strive for on the whistle.
Regarding the example you gave for The Blarney Pilgrim, since the next note in the tune is also a D, would you not cut one more time (say, using the G finger sounding an {A}) between the cran and this next note? So the third finger cut is not really part of the cran strictly speaking, but might as well be thought of as such?
Ah, my point exactly; the only thing that matters (for us whistlers, at least) is how it sounds. And, that we should weight more heavily the advice of players that sound good. I asked about this precisely for the reason mentioned: that in the piping world there does seem to be only one, true, way. Whistling seems to be a little more playful.
On 2002-01-06 10:56, StevieJ wrote:
I certainly agree that the precise fingering you use for an ornament doesn’t matter - after all, that’s what my original post was suggesting, a possibility of different fingering for E crans on the whistle. As Jeff suggests, the only thing that matters is how the thing sounds.
Regarding the example you gave for The Blarney Pilgrim, since the next note in the tune is also a D, would you not cut one more time (say, using the G finger sounding an {A}) between the cran and this next note? So the third finger cut is not really part of the cran strictly speaking, but might as well be thought of as such?
As to the first: crans are, like rolls, a rhytmic device, treat them as such. The only thing to avoid is to use the same cut twice in a row.
As for cuts harmonising, I don’t really think that comes into it although I do have a preference on the pipes for cutting with particular notes but this has more to do with the particular sound the cut makes (eg I would most of the time cut high e with g which is a more pleasing effect to me than using the a, although I sometimes use the more common A to cut it). It’s quite often a matter of taste.
As for the Blarney Pilgrim, I knew this would come back to me, the next note gets separated as you say by the a cut and it does seem like that one becomes part of the cran. same situation really as with the double cran where the last note before the cran is the same and in your mind becomes attached to it. Plenty of room for confusion there. (like the repeat of the first part of the Kid on the mountain which ends on D so the reapeat doesn’t start on the double cran, I didn’t touch on that in the first post for fear of putting you all off)
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-01-06 11:39 ]
On 2002-01-06 10:41, ErikT wrote:
Stephen and Peter don’t get much more steeped >
And it only very recently that we worked out that it was one afternoon in july 1985 together with Geoff Wooff, Adrian Jeffries, Fiona Doherty and others that we sat down in the backroom of Hillery’s in Miltown Malbay and actually played music togetherr and I have a tape to prove it
