Great, now I have to wait five hours to get home and try that one!! Thanks, Pan. I am intrigued.
Nobody mentioned it, but I am very aware of the other sympathetic frequencies and peripheral noises as you do these. Percussively, you can hear that lisping sound as the fingers hit the pipe. For whatever reason, I am more aware of it with low D as the starting point, than other rolls, etc.
As I said before, the G cut stands out more, and to my ears, not in a pleasant way. it’s like hitting a wolf-note on a guitar (if you know what that is). Because we all practice in isolation, I am very aware of it, but wonder if even the first row can hear those noises…
Weekenders, I absolutely don’t recognise what you say about a G cut in a cran being like a wolf note! Sorry, just don’t. Can’t hear it. Perhaps its your whistle, or the way you do it? But then, I didn’t really see your point about low D crans on the whistle being inaudible either???
Pan, I think it is really interesting how our different backgrounds instrumentally affect the angle we come at this from, and it shows in what we can contribute and what we feel about the matter. I’m primarily a flautist (though I’ve played whistles too right from the start) and come at both this and the flattened seventh cross-fingering question in another current thread from very much that viewpoint. I’ve never had more than a brief try-out on pipes. I recognise the origin of cranning as a pipe technique, but didn’t know much about it beyond what I’d worked out as effective on flute and whistle for myself; hence I found your last couple of posts very informative and useful. You are, I take it, primarily a piper and come to flute and whistle from that perspective - that is certainly how it comes over. I wonder how all this seems to people who are primarily or only whistlers?
Yep I come first from The Other Bagpipe Which Shall Not Be Named, then through the uilleann pipes, to whistles and flutes. I learned whistle initially from a guy who had learned whistle by hanging around with a couple of the Keenan boys back in the 70’s, and he played the low whistle with lots of piping stuff in there.
Anyhow, for those interested, Matt Molloy’s flute/whistle imitation of the piper’s stacatto B C# D triplet:
On the pipes:
x xoo xxxx
x xxx xxxx
x oxx xxxx
x xxx xxxx
o xxx xxxx
Now, many pipers open this up a tad by leaving out one of the silences:
x xoo xxxx
x oxx xxxx
x xxx xxxx
o xxx xxxx
And Matt adapted this to flute by playing:
xoo ooo
xxx ooo
oxx ooo
oxx xxx
That one little G gracenote, when played up to speed, gives the triplet a wonderful stacatto-like effect. Note that the middle note of the triplet is a C# on pipes but a C natural on flute/whistle. Don’t matter. On both instruments the same triplet is always used regardless of the key signature the tune is in.
Now, the terrific open-style Dublin piper Gay McKeon does a very open B C# D triplet instead of the classic stacatto style. He simply plays:
x xoo xxxx
x ooo xxxx
o xxx xxxx
The duration of the B is very very short, so the movement sounds like a fat C# gracenote on D, the C# gracenote itself having a very short B gracenote on it. This movement is very legato and is wonderfully effective. It sounds a lot like Mary Bergin’s B C# D triplet, and I wonder if this is a case of influence going the other way.
There is a spike in the volume of the sympathetic notes that accompany the cut of the G hole that make it stand out, compared to the cut on the F# and A. It’s subtle, but I am led to believe that the point is keep the cut notes even. When I hear a cran on a pipe, it sounds very even, almost like the melodic notes of a tabla, where there is a basic percussive onset sound, followed by variant pitch.
This is on whistle only. I have no idea whether that is true on the UPs or flutes..
As for not seeing the point about audibility,I don’t know what to say. The low D on a whistle is the first note to be drowned out in a band or session. I don’t think that’s even contestable. Doing an ornament on it is only going to be appreciated by the player or nearby mates. It’s stronger on the flute, I guess. Can you name a note on the whistle that is softer than the low D??
But I am all for learning it, I hope I made that clear, whether for solo playing or just attaining the craft of it and fitting in with the other instruments.
I have little to add to the wealth of good information here, except …
As a non-piping, non-fluting whistler, and 2) given the relative weakness of the bottom D and E on the whistle, and 3) given the rarity of crans by even some of the best whistlers …
… I find myself usually simply substituting a double cut on D or E when a cran is called for and the tempo is fast enough to blur the end result. Since I’m not used to closed fingerings, double cuts seem to give sufficient bang for the effort.
I use [B1, B2] or [T3, B1] for the cuts, whatever sounds best. The timing is the same as a roll, with the second cut occuring where the tap would normally be. When a longer figure is called for, or at slow tempos, an additional cut with B3 (i.e. B1, B2, T3) simulates a longer cran.
There are probably all sorts of reasons why this is horribly wrong, and someday when I can play perfect crans I may laugh at my folly. But for now, this approach seems good enough for an ornament needed only occasionally and sometimes weakly heard. I’d rather spend more effort working on things like phrasing, timing and lift that pay more immediate dividends for the overall quality of my technique.
I sure understand where you’re coming from. I’m playing low whistle exclusively these days and I can’t get a cran to really sound like much on it. The whistle (a Burke) does have a strong honking bottom D but I haven’t been able to maintain the strong tone whilst playing a cran. So, rather that using pipe-like things, I’m using a more percussive flute approach. For example, that phrase in The Gold Ring:
6/8 / BBB DDD / AAA DDD /
rather than doing any sort of pipish cutting on the D’s, I’m finding it stronger to do:
6/8 / BBB DF#D / AAA DF#D /
This D F# D thing has a G cut on the F# and when played with a strong breath push is more powerful than cranning. I’m also liking it better than the traditional “flute player’s cran” of going D F# E D (not an even triplet actually, the F# sounds as a cut on E). So I’m favouring a strong percussive effect over an intricate ornament.
Dear Guru, those are basic crans as described in various places above! You’ve got it. The sequence of cuts you describe is pretty much what I do - and wrote before. I’ve learnt from this thread that pipers may often use different sequences, but essentially, that is it. I don’t think anyone wants to be purist about sticking strictly to what specific pipers do/did - it is an adopted, transferred technique, and the point is the resulting effect (viz. what I said about fiddlers using an equivalent). If you get a nice clear, percussive burble or ripple in your ornamented note, who cares exactly what cuts you use (except maybe Weekenders with his hypersensitive ears! )? But this thread has been great for suggesting alternatives and for explaining the theory - which is what its originator wanted! Pat on back for all of us???
I can only shamefully add that, a few years back, what I first thought was a cran, was simply a double-cut, I just hadn’t yet heard the term! I am pretty sure that L McCullough, in the original white covered tinwhistle tutor, might have defined a cran as a simple double cut, not sure.
Twas Grey Larsen who set me straight by showing the more complicated cran. Then I listened to piping records with a different ear and heard them plainly.
But I like Jem’s point, because it brings up the issue of just how much imitation of pipes can you achieve? They are so different. And, of all the great whistling CDs I have, I can’t think of one example of a cran in my musical mind that sticks out… Back to the records, because now I wonder if I’m missing them…Wouldn’t be the first time that I had missed intricacies…
I was just experimenting with various cuts on bottom D on my Burke low D, and at least on that thing I can’t perceive any real difference between the G cut and the F# or A cuts, such as Weekender was talking about.
All of the cuts, even an E cut, destabilise the bottom D. The Burke’s bottom D, when sounded without cutting, is very powerful, but I’m having a devil of a time coming up with a cran or cran substitute that doesn’t make that note break up. So far, I’ve
played my piper’s cran but backed off on the breath. The result is a nice but quiet cran.
played the cran with full breath, the cran jumps to middle D.
played the “fluteplayer’s cran”. This, simple as it is, also has a tendency to make the bottom D break.
played D F# D with a G or A cut on the F#. This has perhaps the strongest effect.
the least cran-like, but having the strongest bottom D, is just to sound bottom D and “push” a second. Less is more???
Well, what he’s calling a cran, at least to a piper, is not a cran at all but what might be called a roll on bottom D. A true cran has four notes in the space of three, achieved with three cuts. He’s simply rolling bottom D with two cuts- kind of a simplified semi-cran.
I just checked out that clip too. Pan, I think what he’s showing is what the majority of flute and whistle players who use them at all would regard as a basic cran. It is also what I was always told (haven’t checked it out for myself with a slowdowner or such) Matt Molloy did/does as the purported initiator of a version of the pipe cran adapted to flute (as an alternative to the orthodox triplet run) to achieve a similar effect to that heard in pipes music. It is of course perfectly possible, as we’ve already discussed at some length, to add in extra cuts and vary the pattern of finger-lifts, including using what pipers may regard as orthodox.
However, I think it is perfectly legitimate to call the two cut [D (cut R1) D (cut R2) D] or [D (cut L3) D (cut R1) D] groupette a “flute cran”, and it is certainly a good way to start getting into crans. You really can’t call it a “roll” as it doesn’t meet the normal criterion for rolls of having a visit to a lower tone (“tap”) in the groupette. It does meet the criteria of crans if one accepts a basic definition of the word/concept as “a note rhythmically interrupted by a sequence of cuts to several different higher notes”.
I think, though, this is a good point to reiterate that all and any crans on any instrument originate in the desire to substitute an effect similar to a roll where a roll is physically and technically unachievable. In the process a technique is revealed that actually offers a subtly different result, one that can be explored and exploited in its own right within the idioms and technical possibilities of different instruments - including fiddles and fretted strings, as mentioned before. Thankyou Uillean Pipes!
For simplicity sake, just think of a cran as a roll for D notes, be it 3 notes or 4 and apply it in the same manner you would other rolls. The only difference is that there are no taps, because you already have all your fingers down, so all you can do is cut. You can also do them on E and sometimes they fit in nicely especially at the start or end of a passage but usually people would just roll the E’s. Though it’s possible I wouldn’t cran anything higher than D or E.
The video clip I posted shows the two cut cran which is effectively a D roll used to sound 3 D notes in succession. So instead of tonging 3 separate D notes you could use this type of cran. Also if you had 3 notes that were DED for example, you could also just cran them in the same way by effectively turning them into DDD.
As you heard there is also a 3 cut cran used to sound 4 D notes in succession something that doesn’t normally happen naturally in Irish tunes. So as above if you had a piece with DDED or DEDD for example you could use a 3 cut cran and just make them DDDD. Try to use 3 different fingers for the 3 different cuts, doesn’t really matter what order you prefer but any of these 3 are the most common XXOOOX.
The same applies to normal rolls be they 3 or 4 notes. GFGG or GAGG (the odd one out being just 1 note away up or down) can be converted to GGGG and rolled the normal way using cut,tap,cut.
Well, again at least on pipes and in my experience on flute and whistle, to be a cran it has to have the rythm of a cran. Three note seperated by gracenotes, be they above or below, constitute a roll. For example, there’s the “piper’s roll” which instead of going note-cut-note-pat-note like a normal roll does, goes cut-note-pat-note-pat-note. In other words the cut is at the start of the three “melody” notes. This, though produced differently, still has the rythm of a roll. Likewise playing note-cut-note-cut-note on bottom or middle D is yet again a roll because it has the rythm of a roll. One could call it a simple cran or pseudo-cran or semi-cran or quasi-cran or whatever, but it doesn’t have the timing of a cran, so at least to a piper’s ear it isn’t a cran.
The traditional fluteplayer’s cran, the note sequence D F# E D, does rather effectively simulate the rythm of a cran, though using different means.
Matt Molloy plays true crans on bottom and middle D- four notes with three cuts, the real piper’s cran. The difference between that and only playing three D’s with two cuts is obvious.
)? But this thread has been great for suggesting alternatives and for explaining the theory - which is what its originator wanted! Pat on back for all of us??? 