Hi everybody,
I’m an absolute beginner on the uilleann pipes.
I am trying to teach myself and i really miss the tips and advices of a “real” teacher.
I learned that the fingering for F# is all fingers down except for the middle one of the right hand.
When playing a roll on F#, how can you possibily play an E? It is not possible to do it quickly, unless you use an open fingering for F# (only first finger of the right hand down).
But on my David Daye chanter the open fingering for F# gives a note that is too high in pitch.
I have the same “problem” with rolls on A.
Can anyone help me?
I play two types of rolls with F#, on the knee and off the knee.
On the knee, sound F#, cut with A then pat with silence by briefly closing the chanter by patting with the bottom middle finger.
Off the knee, it is a bit more complicated as the timing of raising off the knee is critical in making it sound right. Sound F# on the knee and a few milliseconds before you cut with A then the pat off the knee, (closing the chanter) should give a hard D hopefully.
(Edited for actually picking up the chanter and seeing what I do) There are several ways to do the A roll. I finger the A with two fingers up and pat with one finger. You can use either back D or C# for the cut. The pat should give a lower octave note, or you can lift off the knee just before the pat, hoping for a nice, crisp hard D “bump” and not the octave A that you can occasionally get with the chanter off the knee and bag pressure exactly right. 
It’s a rhythm thing, not a precise note thing.
“But on my David Daye chanter the open fingering for F# gives a note that is too high in pitch.”
Try keeping the RH little finger down.
It’s sounds like that is the main thing the OP is missing.
Thank you for your replies.
@fancypiper - it appears that the thing that i was missing was “patting with silence”. The roll on F# off the knee sounds a little too “advanced” for me, but i’ll give it a try as soon as my technique improves a bit. You have been very helpful 
@MTGuru - what does OP stand for?
@MTGuru - what does OP stand for?
It stands for original poster or original post.
When playing rolls in general, the pat or tap is supposed to be a (very) brief silence, rather than a note.
Even off the knee, it should be so brief than there’s no discernible note.
My teacher says to treat rolls like a “loaf of bread”, you have the same size loaf (note) but you have to cut it into equal pieces to make it sound right.
I was not making the tap with enough “snap” so the silence was too long.
I practiced just going up and down the scale doing rolls and things improved.
Still have trouble with making my middle finger move fast enough but it is improving.
Tim
Yes I agree with the above, there are a number of ways of rolling F# on the pipes.
In the low octave I’ll often play it open, off the leg, in two different ways:
x xxx xooo …A wide-open off the leg F#, which I’ll pat with just the one finger. This is great for getting a good “bend” up to that F# note.
x xxx xoox …A semi-open off the leg F#, which I pat with both raised fingers to get a Bottom D pat.
In both octaves I do a closed F# roll:
x xxx xoxx … The chanter CAN be kept on the leg the entire time, giving a silent pat. Easy for it to jump the octave, when done in the low octave. OR the chanter can be lifted for the split-second of the pat, giving a D pat. I’ve heard many pipers do them that way. The chanter lift has to be very short, otherwise you’ll hear an out-of-tune F# melody note.
Rolls on A are a different thing.
In the low octave I’ll usually just do the x xxo xxxx fingering and get a silent pat. But also various lower fingers can be left open; you’ll have to experiment to see which gives a good in-tune A on your chanter. These low octave A pats can also be done off the leg, either the entire time of the roll or just for the split-second of the pat.
In the high octave it depends on how your particular reed/chanter works. I can’t do an upper octave closed A pat because it always will drop to the low octave on my particular chanter. So, I usually play high A with one of these two fingerings depending on what notes precede or follow A:
x xxo oxxx
x xxo xoxx
both are more in-tune on my chanter than the one-finger A.
Again, thank you everybody!
Since we’re talking about ornaments, i have another question.
Sometimes i see tunes with cuts to back D, i tried a few times, but i never succeded in playing any higher note enough quickly to cut to back D. Any suggestion?
When cutting to C natural or C# i simply lift the thumb, which should give a back D… is this correct?
About back D, usually one either pats it by placing the thumb on and off the hole, often to give a series of detached or staccato Ds, or by swiping the thumb over the hole giving a brief light seperation. Then there’s the thumb triplet done by swiping the thumb over the hole twice to give three Ds.
There is one cut on back D that’s often heard, the “ghost D” cut, in slow airs. It’s a cut done with the little finger of the bottom hand, but unlike most cuts, the thumb has to go back on the chanter during the cut. It’s a wonderful expressive thing, the ghost D cut.
Yes C and C# are cut with the thumb.
Willie Clancy used to do a cool thing quite a bit, that is, when going from back D to C put a cut on the C. It’s done by playing back D, replacing the thumb to get a silence, then playing a rapid D cut upon C. It’s often heard in the melodic sequence back D > C > A.