Hey Folks
Now that I have learned about 15 songs, I’m thinking about sticking some embellishments in, like rolls, slides or vibrato. I have an idea on how to do these but I’m not sure where to use them.
Does anyone have a few tips for me?
Also, I have watched people playing with these embelishments and wonder if they practice the tune with them or are they just winging it?
I know this isn’t helpful immediately, and others will likely chime in with this same suggestion, but:
Buy Grey Larsen’s Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle.
It covers EVERYTHING! Amazing. It’s helped my whistle and flute playing immensely so far. It’s worth it even if someone plays only one of the instruments.
Well listening is the first step. Listen to, and tape with permission, a good
player doing the songs you know. (songs - with singing - ?) And/or find
recordings of the same and listen for how it is done on those. When you
think you have an idea where they are doing the ornaments, then you try
it too, in the same places at first.
Yes sometimes you practice the tunes with the rolls right in them, but
other times take them out and put them in other places. Then you have
more choices once you know the tune really well.
Good luck, its fun!
Lesl
Hi Treefella,
Well, i’ll assume you’re playing in ITM style.
When you’re really comfortable playing irish music and really comfortable playing ornaments, then yes you can sort of wing it. But when starting out I say you have to practice properly grafting ornaments into your tunes. Let’s take rolls. They have a precise internal rhythm that you can practice within a tune at slow speeds. Here is an example of a reel (the name escapes me at the moment) where i play it slowly with rolls grafted in and then at up tempo:
http://orion.it.luc.edu/~bjanis/feadog39clip.mp3
The moral of the story: practice your tunes at slow tempos with rolls and other ornaments precisely grafted in. When you have that down, increasing speed is a piece of cake. (You’ll be surprised at how hard it is to practice slowly). It has taken me many years to learn the art of practicing slowly; but that’s what I always do even now when i want to introduce ornaments into a tune and otherwise make a tune my own. However, rolls and other ornaments cannot give a tune that lovely lift if not done with a steady, rhythmic precision.
So that’s my two cents. Hope it helps and good luck!
I find rolls have two different rhythms, depending upon where they are used. If they are used on the beat (normal in the jig familiy), the first part of the roll is the longest, if off the beat (as in some places in hornpipes and reels) the first part is the shortest.
I advise learning the ones on the beat first as I found them easier to do at first.
Me too. Everything i know about playing whistle i learned in Bro Steve’s site. Don’t read only the parts about ornamentation. It’s all good there.
wow, i hadn’t checked out the brother steve’s site in a while. I love the section with the transcription, clips, and comments. what a treasure trove of clips. Very nicely done!
As usual, I recommend Bill Ochs’ The Clarke Tinwhistle. I came to whistle via recorder, and used Bill’s excellent book to unlearn many Baroque practices and learn ornaments.
One vital thing is not to think of “embellishments” or ornaments as something simply added on to a tune. They really are an integral part of the structure of trad Irish music. Instead of merely decorating a simple melody line, they really move the line along and breathe life into a simple sterile tune. Getting this feel comes only after a lot of playing and listening.
All good advice, especially Lesl’s point about variation.
Especially listen to Paul. He’s got it.
–James
I think embellishment is an art but a novice should try to get a solid grasp of the bare tune first.
Ok most of the time that is not how they hear Irtrad - but if they can then should step back and enjoy the rhythm. It began as dance and sometimes today people dont want to dance, ok they want to listen - but take note, like BG or Blues or any other folk music the heart of it is in the rhythm.