I really like it. I also like the Irish Washerwoman. My Darling’s a Sheep is beginning to pall though …
I’ve just been sitting back and soaking in all of this info! Haha. I thought I would let everyone’s stream of thought and conversation to carry on. All of this info has been extremely helpful. It’s nice to know that my earlier statement about playing rolls when it feels right and sounds good isn’t isolated to just me!
I see nobody has dived into this one. Well I reckon it’s another case of both approaches (let’s call them “straight” and “swung” rolls for the purposes of this discussion) being valid and working well in different situations and different playing styles.
I may have contributed in some small way to the prevalence of the “three equal notes separated by a cut and a tap” approach among whistle players who look to the internet to learn things in the early 2000s with the method explained in my (moribund) incarnation as Brother Steve.
I started by doing rolls very differently, actually, on fiddle, from listening to records with nobody to show me how to do them, and what eventually pushed me into doing them in some kind of satisfactory fashion (after a lot of unsuccessful attempts) was the sudden realization that (the way some fiddlers I was listening to at the time did them) all the action in long rolls was delayed, like a kick in the tail. Highly swung. Like Breathnach’s bouncing ball idea, but exaggerated even.
Eventually I noticed that certain flute players I liked listening to played most of their rolls unswung. And even some of the old fiddlers - Bobby Casey’s rolls for example sound pretty dah-blah-blah to me.
So that, combined with the technique for teaching rolls on fiddle that a friend showed me, led to my teaching rolls on whistle in that way. It wasn’t until an observant student pointed out that I was doing something different in hornpipes that I realized that straight rolls sound altogether wrong if you are playing hornpipes with a swing.
So now I reckon that both approaches work - for long rolls in jigs and reels, you can play either method very happily. In a swung hornpipe you have to swing the roll, let the ball bounce.
But for what I call off-beat rolls, well you can’t swing them IMO. I’ve only heard one player try (a flash youngster who obviously listened to a lot of Flooky stuff) and it sounded terrible.
Maybe it’s different for pipers?
I see nobody has dived into this one. Well I reckon it’s another case of both approaches (let’s call them “straight” and “swung” rolls for the purposes of this discussion) being valid and working well in different situations and different playing styles.
I was waiting for you to jump in with the dablahblah roll.
The placement of a cut/tap/gracenote (relative to the beat) is a pretty important issue and the swung/unswung roll is probably another example of that.
I used the example of Coppers and Brass above because the pipers who use the ‘three notes separated by taps’ as I described above usually employ it along side ‘normal’ rolls in different iterations of the same phrase. Different devices for different occasions. Pipers ofcourse can (and do at times) play three non legato notes in phrases like that. But that is perhaps beyond the remit of the whistle forum.
For sure one can find traditional players who are, one might say, outliers. Tommy Reck is one such, Micho Russell is another.
But if you come upon a typical circle of 10 or 20 experienced pipers and fluters and whistlers playing the Kesh Jig you’ll be hearing rolls from all or nearly all of them.
So I think I’m safe in saying that playing rolls is typical/standard/idiomatic of ITM woodwind playing at the present time.
Years ago there was a fluteplayer who was telling me he had a revelation of sorts listening to some old Irish fife player, how cool it was to tongue everything and use no cuts or pats or rolls, and that he was going to change his style to get rid of all that stuff. I never heard any actual change in his playing- he was still doing rolls in all the usual places.
About the multiple pat thing, there was an old Clare fluteplayer here, Ray Tubridy (cousin of Michael) who had an interesting thing he would do from time to time, play a series of four, five, six G’s in a row with pats. I’ve never heard quite the same thing elsewhere, not the way he would do it.
With pats on the pipes, due to the semi-closed fingering, there’s a grey area as to what’s a “pat” and what’s playing a series of separated notes, the same fingers being used. It’s just a matter of the timing. Many pipers pat two fingers for B, giving a silence rather than a note in the pat. (Some lift the chanter to get a Bottom D pat.)
About semantics, one oftentimes finds people in a particular tradition using music terms in nonstandard ways. About the “rightness” or “wrongness” who can say, but the usages are nonstandard nevertheless.
So in Highland piping the term “slur” is used to mean a completely different thing than it means in the wider musical world. (The Jig Of Slurs was specifically composed as an exercise in performing “slurs”. ITM players usually remove all the slurs from the tune, by the way, which is ironic.)
My problem with ITM learners calling cuts and pats “ornaments” isn’t a semantic one, but a conceptual one. They often conceive of cuts and pats as being alien to the music rather than integral to it.
So I think I’m safe in saying that playing rolls is typical/standard/idiomatic of ITM woodwind playing at the present time.
I would agree with that but there’s a clear reason for it: people are being taught and a degree of standardisation has set in. Competitions are another push in a certain direction. But something having become common or even standard practice is not the same as considering something ‘essential’, it’s still a stylistic choice.
I am not sure Tommy Reck could be considered an outlier. Being in his company opened my eyes to a few things (as did/does being in the company of other players) and the occasional sticking to the notes instead of the obvious choice perhaps of using the roll was one of those things. He didn’t do it all the time but when he did it really stood out as a very pleasing and effective device. I could easily have given different examples, there’s a lovely and distinct version of the Flogging Reel I got off Tony Linnane : it goes BGGF DGGA BGGA (3Bcd g— in the first part. A very pleasing change from the usual one with the rolls and another reason to question the assumption that rolls are essential to a tune.
But yes, stylistic choices, different concepts. I my mind there are different things you can ‘hang off’ a note. They achieve different effects so I would tend to think of them as more ornamental. I wouldn’t dispute cuts and taps as articulation, in the Flogging reel above {c}BG{A}GF etc would be obviously so but I suppose we could argue about the function there if you’d delay the cut and play {Bc}B2 {GA}GF DG{A}G where the simple cut, by delaying it and changing the placement of it to a slightly later point is significant to how the phrase will come out. It’s a statement (to a close listener anyway). Articulation or ornament? A bit of both I’d suggest in this case as it’s not completely utilitarian in its use, there’s a distinct decorative element there as well.
FWIW, I enjoy churning these things around a bit, and hear different points of view. I am not too hassled about the label anyone wants to stick on these things. Not trying to prove anything right or wrong, in other words.
I follow the “straight” and “swung” rolls concept and where you suggest they do/don’t fit. But I lost you with the “what I call off-beat rolls”. Perhaps an example would uncloud my mind…
And harkening the pipers? They’ll just take this to whole new planes of controversy 
Very much enjoying the subtleties of this conversation from folks with lots of experience with the tradition.
Thanks and best wishes.
Steve
Off-beat rolls are these ones like fB ~B2 although some people would write f ~B3 but that’s another one open for loads of discussion (and we’ve done it a few times already so maybe not again right now).
I’d strongly feel the first one is the correct rendition (or at least has always been the standard way of writing it, see Breathnach, Mitchell, Small etc) but in recent years the second has appeared on the internet, a lot, based on the three notes ‘articulated by cut and tap’ thinking.
Off Beat Rolls.
Typically a roll is placed on the strong beat at the start of the measure to add emphasis. An off beat roll is where the roll happens NOT on the strong beat, say on the last three notes of a group, or even across groups or across measures.
Brother Steve’s website has some good explanations of this. Although his Long-roll and short roll page isn’t linked to the main menu:
http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/usinglongrolls.html
Typically a roll is placed on the strong beat at the start of the measure to add emphasis.
It is pretty common to shift the emphasis in a tune by moving a ‘normal’ (short) roll and I am not sure the effect is the same as what Steve calls ‘off beat rolls’
eg: B2 ~B2 BGEF|GABd efg (vs ~B3 A BGEF|GABd efg or ~B2Ac BE ~E2| ~G2 (3Bcd efg, the latter a configuration that nicely calls the whole articulation vs ornamentation question back into focus)
which is a distinctly stronger effect than when played for example as GB ~B2 BGEF|GABd efg especially when taken as
Bz ~B2 BGEF|GABd efg
where the strong beat is strengthened much more by moving the roll away from it and creating a bit of space/silence (I am partly thinking with my piper’s cap on here but it equally applies to the whistle)
Well it’s certainly a roll on an off-beat, but it’s not really the same thing. You are showing up the shortcomings of my invented terminology.
That’s a short roll on the B and the reason I started using the term off-beat rolls is because I really feel that BG G2 played BG{A}G{F}G is a different animal from BG + and the difference lies in the (wait for it) articulation, or lack of it.
Decades ago a mutual friend of ours, giving me some early pointers about whistle playing, first alerted me to a common way of articulating the ornament I now call the offbeat roll (or ornamenting the articulation) on whistle, which he said had been shown to him by Cathal McConnell and it went like this:
B (t) G {cut} G {tap} G
(t) = tonguing. And that is how most whistle and flute players would do it, I think, i.e. not tonguing after the first G (before the cut). It is also how most fiddlers would do it too, changing bow direction at (t) and not after the first G.
And the effect, to me, is not like a short roll at all. To get the true short roll effect you’d need to articulate (tongue, or change bow direction) after the first G. A small number of fiddlers do this - Kevin Burke is a notable example.
What do pipers do? I don’t know. What do you do on the whistle, Peter? Anyway that’s why I wanted to use a term other than “short roll” for BG G2 etc.
I’d have to qualify the interesting and valid examples you show above as “off-beat short rolls”. But I do find all the taxonomy tiring - and useless at some point. (Good thing I don’t play GHB.)
But I do find all the taxonomy tiring - and useless at some point.
In some way labels are probably needed to have a conversation about these things but a lot of these devices are multi-functional in the context of music and I am mainly interested in how they function in that context. The examples are just a bit of fun and submitted in hope they may open someone’s eyes (ear?) to the different possibilities.
I am forever fascinated by the many possible ways to ‘move through a tune’. In that context of melodic possibilities, I have been listening to the CD of Claire Egan’s fiddleplaying in recent months. She has quite an uncanny knack of bending tunes in each and every direction and finding all sorts of diversions and detours. But that is perhaps moving too far from the scope of this thread.
To answer the OP , its very simple, if your a beginer, dont be playing rolls and stuff in your tunes untill your not a beginer anymore…
To make a comment on the ornamentation- tune issue. .the tunes are universal, open to all instruments and players. Instrument specific technical tricks are not. As such the tune can be played by anyone and rolls are not part of the tune.
Rolls become part of a tune only in performance, ornamentation articulation whatever you call it.
Keep things simple at first, eschew technical tricks and devices for they are mere tricks of the fingers . Its in the way we play, the flow and rests , the pronunciation and delivery . Play your tunes with verve , lift, excitement, energy , variation , when this is accomplished the ornaments are aporopriate.
The problem Ive noticed is players haveing no lift, drive, excitement,energy or variations, but lots of rolls and technical tricks…
The ornamenta are not a cover all for poor expression and lack pf feeling, they are the touch of a master.
Look ar it as a cake, a cake can be pretty and look good, covered in bells and candles , cream and strawberries but taste dull and unexciting , another cake can have no ornaments, look simple yet be delicious…
Its not the ornaments that matter, the icing on the cake , rather the cake …
I have been listening to the CD of Claire Egan’s fiddleplaying in recent months. She has quite an uncanny knack of bending tunes in each and every direction and finding all sorts of diversions and detours.
Claire Egan is supposed to be passing thru my area soon and I’m looking forward to hearing her music.
She was launching the CD, again (I was at a previous launch last month), at Kilfenora this afternoon, meant to go but the day was just nice so stayed around the house and did jobs that needed doing.
I don’t think anyone could disagree with this.
I don’t understand the distinction between “the tune” and “the tune in performance”.
A tune not being performed would be, what, a tune in its written form? Or being generated by software?
“Technique” covers all aspects of musical performance: a fiddler’s bowing, a fluteplayer’s breathing, how instruments are held, how notes are produced, how they are articulated, and so on.
I disagree with the separation of digital articulation from the overall approach or performance practice on Irish traditional woodwinds for the following reason: Say we’re at a typical modern session, and there are several fluters, whistlers, and pipers. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single one of them not doing rolls. And over and over again you’ll see them doing rolls in the same places in the same tunes.
Any outsider coming to the music for the first time can see that rolls are merely one of many performance practices which are part-and-parcel to the tunes as played. To remove any one of the many performance practices would create an artificial style at odds with what our hypothetical outsider is hearing. (I’m talking about the music as actually played, not the philosophical or theoretical construct which might exist in the player’s mind. I’m also talking about the shared Irish woodwind technique, not that of any other sort of instrument.)
It reminds me of the time, in the wee hours after a house-session, that a well-known piper kept playing solo for a time, then entered into a discussion about Irish music. He went on a little rant about the use of vibrato, said how he hated to hear airs played by fiddlers with vibrato, that airs should be played without vibrato in general. Being that I’d just heard him play airs for nearly an hour, with vibrato on nearly every note, I challenged him to play an air without vibrato. He took a couple stabs at it, but just couldn’t do it, and gave up in disgust. Goes to show how music as performed can be at variance with music as it exists in theory.
To be clear, I didn’t use the word essential, but rather typical/standard/idiomatic. Words like idiomatic, common, standard, typical, and so on are descriptions of observed reality while “essential” is stating an opinion. (It’s the difference between saying that I observed 30 red trucks and only 1 truck of another colour, and saying that it’s essential to drive red trucks.)
As far as the reasons, as an outsider coming to the music I have always tried my best to accept what I hear “the real Irish guys” doing at face value, and try not to impose my own theories etc upon it.
Interesting to see the example people usually hold up for not doing rolls, Tommy Reck, being characterized as doing so occasionally/not all the time.
Also I note that you refer to the version with rolls as “the usual one” which is the only thing I’m saying, that on ITM woodwinds rolls are usual (the word I would prefer is idiomatic).
For sure! Rolls move the tune along and articulate it, but also decorate it.
Once I played a couple tunes on whistle at a “hoot” (an open-mic lounge thing in a guitar shop, nearly all the players being guitarists) and when I was done one of the guitarists said something about all the “trills” I had done… I’d actually not played a single one. He was perceiving rolls as trills.
As far as the reasons, as an outsider coming to the music I have always tried my best to accept what I hear “the real Irish guys” doing at face value, and try not to impose my own theories etc upon it.
And yet you seem reluctant to accept the observations of others, in Ireland, as valid because the things referred to fall outside your personal experience.
For the ‘Kesh’ example look at Martin Nolan’s examples in the documentary about traveler pipers (by Tommy Fegan, on Vimeo, I believe), not perhaps what you hear at your regular session outside Ireland but just the sort of thing I observe and referred to in earlier posts.
To take another example of a jig, take Gallagher’s:
~E3 ~G2 A ~B3 dBA ~B3 ~B2 A ~G3 A…
you’d hear it often in sessions just like that, rolling along. In my experience however :
EDE GFG BAB dBA BcB ~B2 A GFG A…
can be heard used all the time as well and very effectively so. Both are valid way ‘through the tune’ and will occur alongside or in consecutive iterations of the tune. To dismiss one as solely based on a theoretical model only existing in someone’s head would be plain silly. As would be stating that either way is less idiomatic than the other. Just because you can use rolls, or many people do, doesn’t mean that you should therefore use them as if they’re set in stone. Far from it.
Interesting to see the example people usually hold up for not doing rolls, Tommy Reck, being characterized as doing so occasionally/not all the time.
Tommy Reck used rolls quite a lot in his playing. I wouldn’t put him forward as a role model for not using any rolls at all. My example was in relation to one of those moments, that the German so aptly calls an ‘Aha Erlebnis’, that I experienced in his company, playing with him and listening to him (and vice versa). It was an observation of one of the the great stylists of Irish piping at work. That I mentioned him specifically was because what I observed hit home at that very moment, what I observed was not unique to his playing and I have observed the same many times since and continue to, to this time. It is a specific, and highly effective, stylistic choice, used by many and on different instruments. Also, if one player or the other gets cited as an example, it may well be because they do something more imaginative than your run-of-mill session player, something worth noting.
It reminds me of the time, in the wee hours after a house-session, that a well-known piper kept playing solo for a time, then entered into a discussion about Irish music. He went on a little rant about the use of vibrato, said how he hated to hear airs played by fiddlers with vibrato, that airs should be played without vibrato in general. Being that I’d just heard him play airs for nearly an hour, with vibrato on nearly every note, I challenged him to play an air without vibrato. He took a couple stabs at it, but just couldn’t do it, and gave up in disgust. Goes to show how music as performed can be at variance with music as it exists in theory.
You know as well as I do vibrato on wind instruments is widely used and accepted in traditional music while in general the use of heavy vibrato by fiddle players is considered the hallmark of a non traditional background (although there are more than a few traditional players who use a small amount of vibrato in their playing). So really, a case of apples and oranges there.