I see the light - phrasing in reels

I live where no whistle teachers are available. For several years, I have been mystified by the phrasing of a certain type of measure commonly found in reels. Examples are the first measure of Drowsy Maggie, the second measure of St Anne’s, and the first measure of the Boyne Hunt. My husband as been studying bowing on the fiddle from Matt Cranich’s book. One day last week, I heard him doing the mystery phrasing on fiddle, then on whistle! I practically ran into the music room saying, “That! That is what I’ve been trying to ask you how to do!”

Bear with me while I try to describe this. The measures in question have one quarter note, a pair of eighth notes, then four eighth notes, the total basically alternating up and down in pitch. The fiddle bowing marks show the quarter note and first eighth note as a phrase, the next three eighth notes as a phrase, followed by separate bowing for the last two notes. When I translate this to whistle, I tongue the first, third and sixth notes of the measure and Voila, I get the mystery rhythm!

Is this how others achcieve this sound?

Cheers, Nancy

Sorry to spoil the party mood but that is not whatis commonly understood as the phrasing of a tune, these are merely bowing instructions.

Peter, so far, it has worked better on this type measure than anything else I have tried. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to what is “commonly understood” about the phrasing. Can you describe what is done to get the proper phrasing on whistle? I know it is hard to describe, but that is all I have in the Irish wasteland of Texas. Thanks for your input.

-Nancy

[ This Message was edited by: NancyF on 2002-03-31 09:32 ]

[ This Message was edited by: NancyF on 2002-03-31 09:34 ]

Phrasing is the most difficult thing to learn on any instrument. Irish or not. Because Phrasing is the essence of music. It is what turns sound into music. I like to think about what part of the line the notes lead to. Often the last notes in a measure function more as the beginning of the next phrase then the end of the one. While they do function as both the beginning of one phrase and the end of another, it is important to decide which is more important and emphasise your phrasing in that direction. Good luck, it is a lifelong project isn’t it!

I’ve had moments of illumination like that, Nancy. They’re wonderful when they come.

Here’s what has worked for me:

First, I go to my copy of the music program Noteworthy and enter the sheet music into it. There are others programs which are used, but this is my favorite. Once the song has been entered, you can have the computer play it back for you. What this does is show you exactly how the notes as written should be played, because computers have excellent clocks in them and the time will be bang-on.

Second, get copies of CDs by various musicians who play the song and listen to what they do with it. This will show you the relationship between what is written on the page and the tune itself as it is played by very-good to excellent musicians.

Third, take stock of both sources, along with your own resources as an artist, and put a version of the song together. This step will probably extend over all the years that you play the song, and is one of the reasons playing folk music never gets dull. :wink:

My apologies if this advice is superfluous. As Lee Marsh likes to say, “enjoy your music.”

On 2002-03-31 09:27, NancyF wrote:
Peter, so far, it has worked better on this type measure than anything else I have tried. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to what is “commonly understood” about the phrasing. Can you describe what is done to get the proper phrasing on whistle? I know it is hard to describe, but that is all I have in the Irish wasteland of Texas. Thanks for your input.

-Nancy

The point I tried to make is that phrasing a tune is a different thing. An example of phrasing has landed in your mailbox by now.

[technocrap]
Nancy, I call the phrases you are describing “rocking pedal” figures - a term invented, as far as I know, by Australian ethnomusicologist and IR-Trad fan Graham Smith.

“Rocking” because on the fiddle these figures usually involve rocking the bow to change back and forth from one string to another.

“Pedal” because one of the notes, most often but not always the lower one, is constant (the term “pedal” coming from the organ and piano world).

A good way to “bow” these on the whistle is to tongue the notes in pairs, tonguing each “pedal” and slurring into the alternating notes. This may seem counterintuitive at first, because you end up tonguing on the second note of each eighth-note pair, but if you persist you can get a very nice swing with this tonguing pattern.

As with all patterns, you don’t have to stick to it rigidly, but it’s a good starting point.

I started using this tonguing instinctively because again (see Bruce’s post on rolls) it corresponds pretty much to the way I used to bow these figures on the fiddle, but I have recently realized that it is fairly standard practice.

So this would tie in nicely with your observations about your husband’s fiddling. The tongue is our bow!

[Edit PS: I just reread your original post again more carefully and I see that, apart from the last three notes, the pattern is the same as what I have described. Sorry to have given needless advice! So to answer your question, what you describe is close to a pretty standard way of tonguing such passages.

I agree with Peter and others about the phrasing of a tune, but it seems that you were asking about these specific figures and how to make them swing, not the entire subject of phrasing.]

[/technocrap]

[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2002-03-31 13:44 ]

Where to begin? I’ve always thought figuring out and executing good phrasing to be the most challenging, difficult and vague aspect of “getting it right” or getting it to sound right (or better). I haven’t read much that clarified it (don’t expect much right here).

What I’ve learned for myself has come from listening to a lot of recordings over a long time, and listening for those elements that make the tune sound more than 1234, 1234. Neil gave a good example in how the end of a bar might disconnect and attach itself to the next bar (ie, 123 41234) as a way of disrupting the monotony of 1234. There might be a slight pause between 3 4 and the 4 is played a bit quicker before the next 1.

This takes you into the use of ornamentation. The pause-quick note puts more emphasis on the next phrase. This can also be accomplished by various ornaments, like slurring the 4 into the 1 or doing a tap or cut between the 4 and 1, or whatever. The point is how do you emphasise the separation of phrases or emphasize the beginning of a phrase or an important note? I think of phrases as varying length sentences with periods. Either, the beginning of the sentence is emphasized or it sets up important notes in the middle of the sentence.

You also want to listen to the structure of the tune as a whole (beginning to end). You’ll find repeating phrases or repeating variations (ie, repeating ornaments) that tie different parts of the tune together (kind of like interior decorating). These elements may be rolls that recur at specific points, reminding you of their presence earlier, but then changing to something quite different on a repeat so the listener hears something not quite expected.

The bow marks Nancy referred to are just that, but, (caveat: all I know about fiddling is from listening) bowing seems to be intimately tied in to phrasing, so, I would think some good clues would be garnered from looking at bow marks in a book. I’d certainly experiment with them and try adapting them to whistle playing, whether by using them as tonguing points or whatever. See what you come up with. The progress I’ve made in my own playing has been from extensive experimentation. I’ve never had an instructor or mentor. At some point, I’d realize that what I thought sounded cool and sophisticated was actually a lot of clutter. My more recent progress has been in paring down to less ornamentation and focusing more on separation of phrases. I don’t count the experiments and overornamenting a waste as I improved my skill at doing the ornaments. The advance is in figuring out where they actually enhance the tune. That goes back, in my mind, to phrasing. Pauses, tonguing, cuts, taps, rolls, slurs, whatever, create the intricate rhythms between the 4/4 or 3/4 basic rhythms and separate the parts of the melody.

110 Ireland’s Best Slow Airs has phrasing marks over the notes- those long rainbow arches. Using those, the tunes make a lot more sense if you don’t have a recording to refer to. Use them to make distinct separations between the notes under different arches, regardless of the bars defining the rhythm.

I’d suggest listening to some recordings where the performer plays a lot of repeats of a single tune and listen to the variations. It’s the contrasts that clue you in and suggests possibilities. My favorite example is Martin Hayes (fiddler) playing Paddy Fahy’s jig. He plays at a moderate tempo and repeats numerous times with wide variation. Laurence Nugent’s flute and whistle playing is easy to listen to- he plays some slow, some fast. Windy Gap is great. Some friends of mine are big on the Molloy/Peoples/Brady cd. I don’t recommend it for learning purposes, especially as a beginner. It’s about as fast as it gets. (Of course, you can put it into the cd tray with slow down software.)

Final word: listen to a lot of recordings. Different artists playing the same tune will open your eyes to the possibilities also.
Tony

Nancy,
Not all fiddle players will agree with me, but this rocking bow rhythmic pulse is very effective on very fast reels and often the bow will rock in the same direction over several notes.A slower tempo would look more like Mat Crannitch,s bowing.Thanks to brother Steve I learnt much about fingering shortcuts on his wonderful website.Both tunes you mentioned can be played without lifting your right hand 1st and 2nd fingers over the relevent passages and creates a feel very close to the bow rocking technique that is so effective on fast reels.Just as the bow would rock over several notes, minimum use of tongueing may be more effective if the tunes are played fast.I hope this makes sense.Peace, Mike :slight_smile:

Thanks you guys! It is nice to have people to bounce stuff like this against. (Bad grammer sorry) I had a nice email from a board member who pointed out that some of the issues with this post I caused by using the term “phrasing” when I meant “articulation”. Luckily, you-all figured that out in the end.

Cheers, NancyF

On 2002-03-31 10:04, tunemarshall wrote:
Phrasing is the most difficult thing to learn on any instrument. Irish or not. Because Phrasing is the essence of music. It is what turns sound into music. I like to think about what part of the line the notes lead to. Often the last notes in a measure function more as the beginning of the next phrase then the end of the one. While they do function as both the beginning of one phrase and the end of another, it is important to decide which is more important and emphasise your phrasing in that direction. Good luck, it is a lifelong project isn’t it!
\

Well put, Tunemarshall. I play by ear (mainly by playing tunes which I have picked up from CDs just because I like them) and find it quite a struggle to read sheet music. But I also teach Irish music to Belgians and other non-Irish people who are generally conditioned to learning purely by reading. I tell them that the transcriptions are generally just a very rough guide, but some people here are rather too wedded to the printed note.

What bugs me beyond belief is the way the notes are tied together in tunebooks - if the notes which belong to the phrase in the following bar weren’t tied to the previous phrase, this would signal the phrasing much more accessibly for people who haven’t acquired the music by genetic mutation or transcutaneous osmosis.

Thank you Roger! Your suggestion for tunebooks, if it had been implemented before I learned horrible habits into my tunes, would have saved those within Burke-shot from my offenses. :slight_smile: Hope the publishers are listening… N