Should you grace f by ‘nipping’ it with g or is using a alright? - any opinions?
You can nip (cut) it with G for a quiet sound, or with A for a more clearly pronounced sound. You can pat (tap) it. You can roll it and smoke it. Its really up to your tastes. There is no one way to do much of anything if it sounds good and suits the music.
djm
“Barking” it or “yelping” it is nice if you are in the 2nd octave.
You can do anything you want. It’s your chanter.
The new Pipers’ Review had an account of a tionol - the author contrasted the advice of two of the tutors, who weren’t mentioned by name but I suppose were Jerry O’Sullivan and Ben Koehler. I would guess it was Jerry who said to “grace all notes in the top hand with D, since this gives a brighter sound.” Ben it seems said to use C#, “the back D is too harsh.” For A one person told me to use B instead of either of these notes, since either is harsh, and “Highlandish.”
Denis Brooks gives advice on suitable gracings in his tutor, and speaks of the possible stridency some of them will give your music if you employ them. A listen to Rowsome, Reck, Doran, or Ennis will show that they avoided these strident graces as a rule and employed the note closest to the one being graced. Patsy Touhey, however, used the back D a great deal; Pat Mitchell says it was his recordings that inspired Clancy to use the back D in his music, and many modern pipers have followed Willie’s lead here.
It is up to you. Learning to pipe is like learning to speak, you’ll develop habits which will simply be a part of how you play whether you know it or not.
Grace it with any note above it. Some sane manoevers will manifest themselves over others, like G, A, C#, or back D for a whalloper at least in the lower octave. You could use B, but it tends to sound invisible and is a retarded finger for most people so you get stronger results by making your G, A, C# workhorse fingers and save back D for serious cutting on specific passages, and use B in the upper octave only when you can’t use the C# or Back D as a substitute. (On some chanters you can use C# or D’’ and not lose the octave, but the resultant snarl is unpleasant to say the least, and not much of a “grace” note, more like a sound effect.)
Royce