I think we need to know what these 2 teachers expect and Mndoboy’s current playing level. Eventually, we all face our limitations in terms of talent, time, ability to concentrate, effective practice and instruction. If everyone could play like Matt Molloy, etc… Truth is, most folks should concentrate on playing in time, playing in tune, playing with good feel and phrasing rather than adding a boat load of ornamentation. I find when I’m more concerned with adding ornaments/variation than with the tune itself is usually when I screw up.
I’m a teacher too and understand the value of setting challenging goals for my students. But I’m also aware that a student’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky) comes very much into play: the challenge must be within a student’s ability to achieve the goal. Most folk’s ZoPeD is nowhere near the level of adding 2 ornaments a bar and still maintaining all the other requirements to play musically regardless of the amount of practice, focus, instruction. Again, I’m don’t know mandoboy’s specific situation; I’m speaking of most folks in general.
Well, these two professional teachers DO know his situation, having heard him play
and doubtless talked to him.
Now either they are BOTH of them incompetent teachers, which is conceivable but unlikely,
or they are not making excessive demands. Of course he may not be able to do what
they want then and there, but the idea is that you go home and practice
the ornamentation until it becomes natural. They’re not asking him to ‘load up
on ornaments’ but to ornament in a certain way in that tune. Mando says he already can do
cuts, taps and rolls, so what they are saying hardly sounds unreasonable.
Hard work, no question.
Don’t mean to be critical of anybody. If two teachers told him do to such and such,
I figure we help out more by encouraging him to give it a college try than by
suggesting both of them are loonys. They’re his teachers, we’re not.
Unless they really are loonys, which sounds unlikely in this case.
Fair enough, Jim, point well taken. Go get 'em, mandoboy!
I guess I was answering the title question, How much ornamentation is the correct amount?, and whether using 2 ornaments per bar is a sane ideal, the answer to which would be it depends on the person. I do maintain that for most of us, the answer is “no”. I don’t think we should underestimate the power breath control and emphasis using one’s air and embouchure can have in shaping tunes and getting the right feel, a skill I think just as important as ornamentation.
A local whistle teacher, who is an excellent all around musician, teaches ornamentation in tunes to true beginners as part of the initial learning process, saying the ornaments are absolutely integral to the music and should be learned right out of the gate. Personally, I’d rather see students be able to play all the notes straight, in tune and in time from low D to high b than to have them struggle with playing murky ornaments and not get the feel and basic framework of the tune. Maybe I’m wrong about that; I certainly do not have the credentials this teacher has.
Some of the ornaments I put in a tune make it easier to keep up with the warp-speed fiddler in our band. I find that when where and how many ornaments change with the speed of the tune, my mood, and whether my arthritis is flaring.
Even when I learn a tune by ear I tend to focus on the bare bones of it at first. Somehow I seem to be able to filter out the ornamentation. When its in my fingers have the basic tune ornaments start appearing of their accord.
Clark
I guarantee that good players don’t think in terms of “amount of ornamentation”. Guaranteed. And if you want to play like them, you have to think like them. Even for pedagogical purposes, the notion of “how much” ornamentation will not get you there.
It’s really: OK, here’s a particular phrase I want to play. How can I articulate / ornament / shape this phrase so that it expresses what I want to express, and reflects my understanding of how these notes contribute to the tune. OK, now here’s the next phrase. And the next. Whether you end up with 10 ornaments per measure or none, the number is meaningless.
Excellent advice. That was my observation upon listening to some recent recordings of myself. Play clean, like Chet Atkins (I thought I was). However I don’t believe ornaments were the cause of my blurry notes. I like to play with a highly focused tone and that demands more careful breath pressure and embouchure.