On the following site you can find four Irish traditional folk tunes that I made on wooden flute: bence.marosan.com.
It’s a very rough material: I’ve been in exam session at the University, so I didn’t really have enough time to work them out properly. But you will hear the main problems and difficulties that I have in playing the Irish flute. I’m planning to make a demo cd at the end of this year – and making seven or eight more tracks in the same style. I would be pleased if you sent your oppinion, any advice, tip or critique. Please, listen these tracks and write what you think to me. I would be most grateful for anything you can tell me about this music.
There is NO “www.” reference before “bence.marosan.com”!!! You should only write “bence.marosan.com” as the address!!! Please be sure that you wrote the proper address!!!
Hello Peter - well you seem to be doing well as regards tone. I’ve only listened to your first selection of jigs followed by the first reels. To be honest and blunt, your playing doesn’t sound “Irish”. This I think is mainly due to your phrasing, you seem to be taking breaths or pausing in the wrong places, and playing very legato, almost as if you were used to playing classical music on a recorder prehaps? This I think you could easily correct simply by listening to some solo recordings of Irish flute players and studying how they phrase/breathe within a tune. Also I’d suggest playing at a slower tempo as your timing is erratic, especially when you play the B parts in the higher octave.
Otherwise you have the tone/embouchure under control, so you doing well there, so just to sort out the phrasing, breathing and timing. Listening to solo traditional players is just as important as practising I’ve found. As a beginner then you’re coming along fine. All the best
Thanks a lot for your reply.
You are absolutely right. I started with playing classical music, and fell in love with Irish traditional music only a few years before.
I will do as you told me. I need a few time more to learn the stressing style of traditional flute players.
We all have our problems with playing the flute, so don’t take my ideas as some brutal criticism, because believe me I still have challenges with the instrument. I find that your embellishments occasionally crash into eachother, you seem to cram too much movement into a short space of time. You might be better to simplify, using fewer embellishments, or allowing more time for them to flow, so that you aren’t trying to play them on top of eachother.
I hope this helps and doesn’t sound convoluted or complicated!
Ye’, I absolutely understand you, you’re absolutely right. The most important consequence is to slow down. I must work on my breathing controll a lot too. And fewer embellishments, of course. :roll:
About emphasizing: I feel that traditional Irish music has a different stressing than mine, but more concretely: where do you suggest me to move my emphasizing?
