I have had heard both extremes from: 1. put in ornaments anywhere you can to use them to, 2. use them wherever you have to to separate notes and occasionally to add some flourish. When I listen to recorded music the amount of ornamentation seems to vary quite a bit. The current person I am following seems to add some kind of ornament about twice per bar (he isn’t counting, I am just estimating).
Does the amount of ornamentation vary by the type of tune? For instance polka’s seem to have minimal ornamentation.
Are there any rules on this issue?
Thanks.
Jeff
BTW: In case no one recognizes me, I made it to 14 months on this thing and can play (er.. butcher) a handful of tunes at a fair clip, so I changed my avatar from the mando to something more appropriate for this list.
Jeff, there was a fairly long. recent discussion of this exact topic in the Whistle Forum. So you may want to take a look before rehashing any those comments here.
MT thanks for that link. That was an interesting thread and an informative answer to my question.
I did see some flute listers answering over there, but I think it will still be interesting to see if there is any difference in the answer as it relates to the flute.
Yep. Unfortunately, I think it’s kind of like asking “How many adjectives should I use in my sentences?” Two? Four? The question doesn’t really make sense.
As with adjectives in speech, you ornament (i.e. articulate) particular tunes in particular ways in order to express what you want to express. And you learn how to do that by listening to, studying, and emulating models of other players who are effective and expressive. Trying to quantify this may be interesting from an analytic POV, but it won’t help your playing.
What MT Guru said. Just to add: you know the answer already, Mandoboy. You’re already a musician, so go with what you feel, what sounds right to you. That will, in any case, be exactly the right amount of ornamentation for your playing.
As usual, nicely put. It’s not how many ornaments, rather what kind of effect is one trying to illicit with their music? I find it helps to have a very clear mental picture of how the music should sound (ornaments, tone, pulse, tempo, etc.) in its delivery, whether that’s to sound like another player, genre, or my own interpretation.
As I mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve been taking an Irish music ensemble class at the St. Louis folk school from a brilliant Irish fiddler. Entirely professional level fiddler. One can play on flute pretty much the ornaments played on fiddle. This fellow ornaments heavily and from the beginning of the tune and wants us to do the same, so I am–which is pretty much the opposite of how I approached ornamentation before.
The answer to this is really quite simple. Go to a session and start your favorite tune. Use the ornaments you think you should use. If you overdo it, the ghost of Graham Chapman will enter the room in a policeman’s uniform. He will address you directly, saying, “All right, then! Stop it! Too many ornaments! It’s silly! Stop these ornaments right now or I shall have to ask you to come with me! Right! Carry on!”
At this point, you back off on your ornamentation. Very simple.
Let me know if you need some advice about playing flute with someone at a session playing ITM on a banana. I’ve taken a class.
I think it’s important to separate the idea of ‘articulation’ from ‘ornamentation.’
Cuts, taps, glottal stops, breathing, even rolls, are all tools to articulate the tune and create phrasing and rhythmic emphasis. Viewed through that lens, I don’t see them as ornaments–they’re part of your rendition of the tune, not imposed on the tune. (Think of how incomplete a tune would sound if you took a big breath at the beginning and then slurred 16 bars worth of notes.) The right amount is whatever makes the tune sound the way you’d like it to.
Oh, oh - we want a pointed stick, do we matey? Well, if you get accosted with some bloke playing “Irish Washerwoman” on a bowl of grapes, don’t come running to me!
I think Tintin’s point is right on, but if you’re playing with others, and you can’t play at their speed with your “articutation” or “ornamentation” being clean and adding to the music, its better IMHO to concentrate on the notes in the tune that make the tune recognizable. Playing by yourself it doesn’t matter, but when you play with others its about the music and the blending of the sound. If you can’t do a roll that matches the fiddler, I feel its better to do a dotted quarter, as long as it fits the tune.
“Irish ornaments” indeed are used for articulation but clearly have a decorating effect by virtue of the microtonalities/dissonances they introduce in the attack of the note. They are said to be audibly imperceptible but in fact they are. Yes it is useful to think of them as articulations but we employ them because they often sound nicer than tonguing.
If we deem melodic triplets, trills, note bending/glissando, and potentially other commonly used melodic variations, as falling within “Irish ornamentation”, then we are no longer in purely articulation territory.
My concern was that I recently took a private lesson from a famous flute /whistle player and he asked me to play a tune. I chose Christy Barry’s #1. I usually play this with rolls on all the dotted quarters and some cuts to articulate repeated notes. But not a whole lot of ornamentation in addition to that. (remember I’m a beginner). I was happy to be able to play the tune with good rhythm and what I thought was good feeling. He seemed put off by a lack of ornamentation to the point of making me feel that I had done the whole thing wrong. Telling me that I should have ornaments between almost all the notes and that was what I really needed to concentrate on.
Then I started taking some lessons and found that the instructor seemed to feel the same way with regard to ornamentation. That the tune must have an abundance of ornamentation to be played correctly.
I have to admit that I like both of their styles, but I am not at a level to be able to play that way yet. So if I learn to play the melody with good rhythm and tone and use “ornaments” where necessary and not everywhere I possible can, will my playing be frowned upon by others even though I might find it satisfying at the level I am playing?
I guess my real question is: Is it better to learn to play initially concentrating on good tone and rhythm and using cuts and rolls where needed, then learn the ornamentation techniques gradually, or should one try to learn it all together right from the beginning?
Pardonaymoi, but you spent time with a couple of idiots. Played well, a tune need have no ornaments at all unless it is unplayable (or nearly so) without them. By that, I mean that a succession of notes of the same pitch (for example) played without rolls will just sound weird in an Irish tune and will also force you to use articulation (tonguing, cuts, or what have you) to separate the notes. But ornamentation used to play the tune “right” is simply nonsense. Some regions of Ireland and very fine players use ornamentation very sparingly. I probably use less than I could, but if the tune sounds right to me, ain’t nobody gonna tell me it isn’t “right.”
Listen to recordings and emulate the players you admire, but remember to give it your own stamp. If you are you, nobody can ever tell you you’re doing it wrong.
And to answer your question, everyone learns differently, but I find that once I have memorized the basic tune, there are ornaments I want to get in there right away, especially if it makes the tune easier to play. After that, I play around until I get the tune to my taste. I also like to play a tune at different tempos, as a hornpipe, in swing style, as a waltz, or whatever works. It gets the tune into my head and helps to suggest variations for how it can be played. These techniques are handy for deciding how you want to ornament the tune when played as it was written. Have fun!
