Dear Sirs,
I struggle with crans. I am very confused about how exactly to perform crotchet crans on D and E as described by H.J Clarke, in her tutor. I was hoping someone could explain to me very simply what I am supposed to be doing with my fingers and the chanter when attempting these crans.
On page 50 of the tutor it shows a crotchet cran on D written as semiquavers of G,bottom D, F and bottom D. On page 51, this is expanded with an extra grace note A, played at the beginning or the end of the previous sequence. A similar description is given on page 55/56 of the crotchet cran on E.
Forgive me but I just don’t understand what I am supposed to do to play these. When I have looked for examples on the video tutor of NPU, the pipers only seem to play variants of what I understand to be dotted crotchet crans which begin with the D or E rather than dropping the first D or E, making the first note of the cran one of the grace notes.
When I play the crotchet cran on D, do I have to play a G on the knee, then lift the chanter to sound the bottom D and then, keeping the chanter off the knee play the F and A (if using the extra grace note) or do I play an A grace note as I lift the chanter to sound the D and then play G and F? If I do the latter, then what is the difference between that and a dotted crotchet cran on D?
I am similarly confused about the crotchet cran on E. When I play the first grace note, G or A, should I already have the bottom 2 fingers open so that when I put the G finger back for example, then the bottom E sounds or do I play the grace note, put back the finger I have played it with and only then lift the two fingers to play the E?
If anyone has ever seen a video of someone explaining and demonstrating these particular crans slowly, I would really like to hear about it. I think I am about to go mad!
Thank you for your help and patience
Litsj
Typically the whole cran is played off the knee. Try it very slowly at first, putting lots of space in between each cut: D (hold it up, then make three cuts)…A…F…G… (or some people do AGF). Because you are holding the chanter off the knee, D will sound between each cut. I suggest starting out by waiting one full second between each cut. You want precision and control here, for a clean sound. Best way to achieve that is to master it at a slow pace and then gradually speed up.
If, after you master this movement at a slow pace, you want to place a cut at the start of that D, to make it an initial hard D, go ahead. If you want to put an extra A cut at the end, to get the hard D effect again at the end, go ahead. But it would be best to master the three cut sequence first.
Same general concept for the E cran. Hold it off the knee the whole time.
If you can’t find a good video on YouTube, several folks on here give Skype lessons (Pat Darcy, for instance), so you might arrange one – that is, assuming that you are not geographically near to a teacher, and cannot attend a tionól in the next couple of months. You don’t indicate where you are. In the US, there’s one in Atlanta in March and one in St, Louis in April.
Dear Kad,
thanks for the reply. It is a great help. I think I really need to slow things down. My main problem is that I don’t understand the difference in rhythm between a long cran(dotted crotchet) and the short cran(crotchet). I can’t hear the rhythm in my head and that’s why I am finding it so confusing. It is a difficult technique to master, but thanks for your help.
Litsj
The best cure for that is to listen to more Irish music, and then listen to even more Irish music. And then… listen to more Irish music. Getting the techniques down is much easier when you have an idea of what it should sound like.
I suspect the issue, in your case, is not so much with listening as with the verbal descriptions of the technique. I suspect that you’ve answered your own question in part:
The way most pipers play them, the crotchet cran differs from the dotted crotchet cran only in the omission of the initial D or E (as the case may be) - mostly. I say ‘mostly’ because there are subtle differences in timing depending on the context of the cran, which is where you must rely on your ears. The finger technique is basically the same.
I might paraphrase the other part of your question as ‘whether the initial grace should be played closed or open’. When played at speed it may be hard to distinguish, but I think the grace starts out closed/stacatto, and the fingering for the root note (i.e. the D or the E) opens sometime during the brief interval when the grace is sounding. It’s precisely the same as any initial cut on D or E - your analytical mind may be getting in the way here, since you can already grace D and E without putting too much thought into it!
My copy of Clarke has been missing for years, so I can’t check the specific instructions; however it is indeed possible to play a crotchet cran with only two graces rather than three. I think Seamus Ennis used both two and three grace versions, for example.
I might point out that the cran with an initial cut (rather than an initial ‘root’ note) can also be played as a dotted crotchet, as if you had a crotchet cran followed by a quaver; the last ‘quaver part’ is then usually separated by a fourth cut. When used in jig time this technique is referred to by some people as the ‘Ennis cran’ - but again, opinions and terminology differ.