I’ve just discovered a nice way of playing the highland piping birl when playing pipe tunes in A Mix on my keyless flute…
Playing the A as normal, use the right index finger to sweep up over the LH3 hole and back down. Probably won’t work with a g# key, but on a keyless, it seems very easy and the only problem I have is getting the right hand back in its’ normal position quickly and precisely enough.
Give it a try and let me know what you think? Or alternately tell me that you’ve all already known how to do this for ages…
I’d love to have a video or audio of this!
Just tried it and I think a “tap” is probably a better way to get that effect (i.e. tap the LH3 hole with your left ring finger). It’s also the more “standard” way of doing what you’re describing (I think). When I moved my RH index up, the effect seems too long to me - it shouldn’t be really discernible as a separate note. Again, if you post a sound clip showing what you’re talking about…
Pat
Sounds more like a long roll than a tap to me. The birl does produce three discernible notes, I believe — a treble effect.
On flute, I’m not hearing much difference between that sliding birl (which is awkward for me) and a deliberately-played long roll, which is very easily done.
Well done guys, Peter and Jem. I am always suspicious when i think that I have discovered something new 
Somehow it is reassuring that I am just now finally digesting something I must have read a while ago… A year later is about par for me…
I seem to recall old discussions of Kevin Crawford and maybe others doing it on high whistles, probably on the whistle forum…
In reference to Jem’s video. In the spring of 1981
I’d just learned to play long rolls on g and a in the kesh jig. (On the pipes.)
I was playing around with the tune one day
and came upon the same idea. I never had the nerve to play
it for anyone fearing the backlash of “It’s not traditional.”
Thanks for thinking it through and showing everyone.
I’ve seen people do the “swipe the hand” thing, rarely - but I’ve seen it. I don’t like it, it’s too fast and while it does create a flurry of notes, it lacks the right rhythmic thing.
In highland pipe tunes I’ve found a cut before the A then a birl-like motion with the U3 finger or a double tap sounds a lot more birl-ish to my ear. I’ve been under the impression that a birl/burl/byrl was pretty much a double cut low A on the GHB and that’s what I go for, the initial cut seems to clean it up especially since the passages using a burl come from the 2nd register.
EDIT: Here’s an explanation of a burl as I understand it and try to emulate
http://youtu.be/DAqp7ojGKyc
But birls should be fast!
or a double tap sounds a lot more birl-ish to my ear.
While the double tap is one of the recognised methods of executing a pipe birl, it’s probably the rarest/least taught because it’s so difficult to execute snappily enough.
I’ve been under the impression that a birl/burl/byrl was pretty much a double cut low A on the GHB and that’s what I go for, the initial cut seems to clean it up especially since the passages using a burl come from the 2nd register.
No cuts in the actual birl. It can start with the first G {GAG}A, an A before that {AGAG}A or take what you’re calling the initial cut {gAGAG}A, but doesn’t have to come from the top hand at all.
EDIT: Here’s an explanation of a burl as I understand it and try to emulate
http://youtu.be/DAqp7ojGKyc
And that’s at best a pretty indifferent demonstration. Not nearly crisp enough and only showing that unusual double swipe (the standard methods probably being the ‘seven’, the ‘tap-drag’ and the rarer double tap).
Birls should be fast, yes - but they should also have the right rhythmic thing - it’s dance music, rhythm is king.
That hand swiping thing doesn’t produce something that sounds like a birl. It does create a flurry of mushy taps, but like you said the taps should be crisp, worth noting there should only be two of them, and they should be in the right time rhythmically. None of which gets done with the swipe If I want a mushy flurry of notes I’ll just flutter-tongue the note and still be able to snap to the next note with out re-arranging my lower hand.
Sure it’s a cute gimmick, like a fiddlers left hand pizzicato or harmonics, but shouldn’t be a ‘go-to’ thing in the tool box.
Also, I wrote cuts, when I meant taps. My silly mistake.
A double tap done in the right timing is going to sound better and it’s only hard until you’ve got the chops to pull it off like anything else when it comes to playing music.
