Hi Folks: have been playing Gilles Chabenat’s “Crested Hens” (beautiful tune by the way). I play the 3/4 time version with the D# in part B, I think many of you are familiar with the tune. At any rate, I’ve been adding various embellishments and I do, what I call a “lift” from D to E and from A to B. Have wondered what the correct term for that embellisment is called? Thanks.
If it’s a slow lifting of the finger below, causing a bending-upward tone connecting the lower note to the higher note, I think it’s called a “slide”. If it’s just an articulation such that you simply begin on the note below then quickly lift up to the next note above, causing a “blip” that basically accentuates the note above (i.e. in the A part, your playing a B, but the A below accents it), that’s called something like a “strike” or a “tap” though you’re not exactly striking or tapping. But now that I actually play the tune, I think I do end up with something in between a slide and a tap. Well, there you go…
Something like this?
http://www.steeltownsession.com/audio.php
I apologize that these clips require the Flash plugin. I haven’t had time to rebuild the site. Life gets in the way.
Kirk
So that would be a “slap”?
Best wishes.
Steve
How about a “slip”?
One of my favorite tunes, though I usually end up playing it on the low whistle, since the D# is next to impossible on the keyless flute I’m playing now. I really like the version done by Solas on their debut album, especially at the slower tempo, though inevitably when playing it at a session, much to my dismay, other players tend to always want to speed it up. As for embellishments, I’m guessing I use the same one you’re describing, but my challenge is varying ornamentation each time through.
Jason, you describe the ornamentation well when you say it’s something between a slide and a tap. Sorry I didn’t take a little more time describing the embellisment, but I was in a rush to pick up the grand daughter from her piano lesson–it’s the low hanging fruit concept, I guess.
Stiofan, yup, that’s the one. Solas does a great job and that’s the speed I like to play it, but like you say, others seem to want to play it at a more rapid pace. Sounds really nice on the D flute, but I do have an D#/Eb key and that makes a nice difference.
Perhaps the term “lift” gets it best. I just get tired of describing the ornamentation as the “lifty up thing” or something of that nature. Even described it as a “wift” a couple of days ago. Steve cracks me up, a “slap” 
Well, someone might come along and have the correct name, I was just curious as to what to call it?
So… uh… how exactly do you play a D# on a keyless flute? I don’t see D# on the basic fingering charts. It’s pretty easy to move from B to C natural by just lifting my left 1 finger a bit - or 0XX000. But D#??? It makes some horrific noise when I try to lift my right 3 finger a bit.
Basically you don’t, which is why the charts omit it. This is my great objection to the keyless flute - all transverse flutes should have at least an Eb/D# key (and not just to get that note!) It may be possible to half-hole on a large-holed flute, but most E holes (R3 hole) are pretty small for other reasons, even on a Pratten style flute, making half-holing (or even sliding off the finger for a portamento change from D to E) tricky to say the least. Often the best solution is to substitute a harmonically acceptable note (most commonly in our field of music an E or F#, depending on context - in Les Poules Huppées I’d suggest a B below), but that of course fudges the tune and isn’t ideal if you are a lead or prominent instrument and want the melody line intact.
Good point, Jem, and thanks for clarifying the D# matter. I suppose “impossible” (without “next to”) would be more realistic to say, though at the time I wondered if there might be highly experienced/expert players out there who could coax out the Eb/D# from the R3 hole. Apparently not, so now I know. One of these days I’ll get around to upgrading to a flute with the Eb/D# key, but in the meantime, guess I’ll have to keep using the low whistle for this tune (which sounds quite nice, too, IMO).
Strange thing to get dismayed about when you’d expect a triple-time bourrée to be quite brisk and taking the Solas version as your model is effectively a reversal of ‘normality’!
You know Peter, I think you’re correct; however, I, like Stiofan like the sound of the slower tempo with this particular piece. Besides, it’s kinda like I’ve alway maintained, “We can’t all be normal.” 
Finding my interest picqued by this thread, I went looking for Crested Hens and found out some interesting things…
- It’s in the Massif Central Tune Book No.1, which I’ve had (along with No.2) since the early 1990s but hadn’t looked at recently at all (and should do because they’re full of great tunes!).
- The version presented there is down a tone in D dorian/minor.
- There’s a 6-year-old comment on The Session effectively amounting to a take-down notice from the publisher but remaining quietly ignored!
- There’s some nice, quirky (and presumably authentic) detail in the ‘Massif Central’ version that’s been smoothed out in the ‘Session’ version and pretty well all those I’ve heard so far. Notably the start of the second part, which (in the common E minor) would be g2 Bg Bf | =c4 rather than gB Bg gB | =c4.
So I’ve learned it on flute the original way in the original key as well as the tone above and have to say I like it like that.
Geez, I had no idea that Crested Hens was such a modern tune. I have versions that were recorded before Solas’s, and I knew that it was Win Horan who originally slowed it down, so I figured it was just an old Breton dance tune.
You learn something new every day.
Not old and not Breton. But there’s a Session comment linking to what appears to be the original recording with Gilles Chabenat (starting at 0:20), which both matches the ‘Massif Central’ version closely and effectively torpedoes another comment raving about the ‘gB Bg gB c4 part’!
From the same thread Peter cited:
This tune used to be mentioned a lot as " a 400 year old Breton tune. Brettagne hens are the only one’s that grow crests".
Glad to know I’m not the only one who thought it was old and Breton. 