I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Meaghan. I’m a music education student majoring on flute (the normal silver one!). Irish music, however, is my passion, and I am in possession of a small number of whistles, a bodhrán, and a lovely McGee flute. I’ve been dabbling off and on for about three years now, but only in the past year have I been really attending sessions regularly, and now I’m in a small, casual Irish band that has really helped expand my repertoire (compared to what it was!).
My biggest struggles with the Irish flute stem from the fact that I’ve had classical training since I was 7, and I’m having to relearn a lot of things…while still staying versatile enough to switch back to classical mode when I need to! I’m getting better at inserting ornamentation, but I have a really hard time varying the tune, breathing in different spots, etc…even if I can alter the tune with my own ornamentation, that one version seems to stick in my mind (and fingers) and it’s hard to change. The busyness of the school year doesn’t help, but now that it’s summer I should have more time to spend on my Irish flute!
I’ve recorded here a version of Within a Mile of Dublin. I don’t usually do the crans and cuts in the second version, but I was trying to experiment with how it sounded…I need to record myself more often! Hopefully this forum will encourage me to do that.
The main thing that strikes me about your clip is the rhythm. You’re playing this reel as, in effect, a hornpipe or perhaps a slide or single jig. That’s fine if that’s your intent, and people morph tunes all the time. Otherwise, it sounds odd to my ear.
Also, if you’re not going to cran that bottom D and really honk it, a better alternative is a simple cut |AD{A}DE FEFG|, or alter the melody to |AFDE FEFG| or something similar. The single-tongued triplet just sounds very out of place. Especially since it wouldn’t be played as a classical triplet anyway, but more as 2 sixteenths and an eighth.
As you say, these are things, along with your tonguing and phrasing, that you have to unlearn. Welcome to the adventure.
I was, in fact, trying to play it as a hornpipe–I wasn’t aware it was originally a reel!
Hmm…interesting ideas for the D. I usually actually triple-tongue it, not single, but I really tried to be conscious of slowing it down–I have the awful, awful habit of playing things Way too fast, and I thought the hornpipe would sound better at a laid-back tempo. But this is good–again, there is a triplet on the page and so a triplet is in my head whenever I hear the tune, so other ideas are excellent!
If you’re looking at a fiddle transcription, the D might be notated as a triplet representing a bowed treble, since the open string D can’t normally be rolled. But flute would usually play something quite different. Triple tonguing is not common.
Not to beat the dead horse, but reels as hornpipes and weird triplets are examples of why you need to toss the dots and learn this stuff by ear. Especially if you’re coming from a classical background.
Hi, Meaghan, good to meet you, and welcome to the C&F Flute Forum!
I came to ITM from a Boehm flute background, too, and your Boehm flute background will serve you well, at ITM.
However, one of the delights to the simple system “Irish” flute is the lack of a key mechanism, with no keys to get in the way. It’s fast, really fast!
You’ll also meet a number of very talented ITM specialists, here, too.
Yes page… Even if I’m trying to learn from a recording I still find it way easier to write it down first, though I am (slowly) getting better at picking stuff up aurally at sessions. I have been listening too! The Chieftains do the same Within a Mile of Dublin/Old Blackthorn set we do, and they do hornpipe-ize it. After a second listen I notice that it isn’t as triplet-y as I thought; I think there’s a roll in there that might be giving it that feel.
As far as other ITM listening, I’ve got to admit that I don’t listen to as much as I should be (school and all that…and I still need to figure out what to play for my recital next year!) I’ve been poking around the forums and am getting some names, so hopefully in the next couple days my Visa bill will be substantially more expensive due to iTunes purchases. At the moment I really like Solas, though after trying (and failing miserably) to decipher Seamus’ ornamentation, even with The Amazing Slowdowner, I’m noticing that he tends to obscure the tune a little with all the “twiddly bits”. Still sounds amazing, though! I’ve also got a fair number of songs from Lúnasa, Danú, Planxty, Matt Molloy, Chris Norman (though I don’t like to use the extreme registers as much as he does), and Flook.
Well actually, they don’t. I just listened to that track. It’s so not a hornpipe. The Chieftains’ phrasing and accents just scream “Reel!” If you can’t tell the difference, you’ve got some homework to do.
What might be throwing you is that reels are often played quite dotted - with the dotted eighth plus sixteenth figure. But that doesn’t make a reel a hornpipe. (Nor does playing a hornpipe straight make it a reel.)
Nice choice of bands, Meaghan, though highly arranged stuff is not always the best choice for really diving in the stylistic issues. Others here can direct you to good listening choices where you can really hear and sort out what’s happening.
That said, Seamus Egan’s ornamentation is pretty straightforward, in the Matt Molloy vein, though he does use a bit more finger bouncing then some.
Apparently I have Lots of homework to do…what, then, is the difference between a hornpipe and a reel?? I always assumed that this Was the difference.
I’ve already snagged a few recordings of Grey Larsen and Kevin Crawford, as well as a couple of Joanie Madden’s. Any other suggestions are more than welcome; in the meantime I’ll continue poking through forums!
This is dance music, and the reel and hornpipe are two different dances. So it helps to associate the rhythm and feel of each with the corresponding dance steps, despite variations in tempo, dotting, etc.
Oversimplifying, and going just by the music … Reels are in 2/2 or Cut Time, with generally 2 strong pulses (and sometimes phrases) to the bar - which may sometimes be on the front beats (1 and 3 when counting 4) or back beats (2 and 4 when counting 4). Triplets are uncommon, and when present, they’re often “weighted” as 2 sixteenths plus an eighth; and they’re most often used for executing passing tones between main melody notes. Small melodic phrases are often linear, with runs of adjacent scale notes punctuated by leaps.
Hornpipes are in 4/4 with 4 pulses per bar, with 1 and 3 relatively prominent, though not all 4 might always be emphasized, or they might be fairly evenly stressed. The 2-quaver groupings may sometimes be substituted by true, even triplets, suggesting a 12/8 feel. And the triplets are often to neighboring tones or arpeggiated. Hornpipe melodies themselves are often more arpeggiated than reels.
There’s no litmus test, but maybe some of that will help. I hope this doesn’t start any food fights. I’m no expert, really.
One addendum on hornpipes: there is typically a strongly emphasized group of three quarter-notes at the end of each phrase.
When reels are played with a swing, which they often are (but don’t have to be), it’s a less pronounced, more fluid, subtler swing than in hornpipes, which are usually played with a more heavy swing.
It’s not the swing that makes the difference, though: if you play a hornpipe absolutely straight–which you probably shouldn’t --it’s still a recognizably different kind of tune from a reel, and if you play a reel with a heavy swing, it still doesn’t sound like a hornpipe.
MeaghanEryn, be welcome here! Many of us began on the silver flute…some of us were even music majors, once upon a time. Give yourself some time…Irish traditional music is a well with very deep water and a great many people never go very far beneath the surface. Nothing can substitute for familiarity–listen every chance you get!
Hi MeaghanEryn. Nice work with the recording. For a classically trained flautist you’re doing a very good job, I’ve heard much worse.
I don’t know what sort of hints and tips I can give you, I’m by no means a master player but I might be able to offer you some advice coming from another direction. I don’t know if it’s possible, or any help for you, but one thing that strikes me with this whole thread is that you should as much as possible try to abandon the classical (theoretical) approach to this music. I have some formal training (much less than you and many other people on this board), and one thing that has struck me is that there’s often a lot more theoretical approach to classical music, while folk music tend to go much more with the “feeling” if you will. The first step, as some have suggested is to throw the sheet music away for now. I sometimes use sheet music, but only as a rough guide to a tune, it may be a good idea for you to stop using it altogether for a while. Don’t focus so much on the theoretical approach to tunes. Start to listen, listen to something that is more straight forward and less arranged than the stuff you listen to now. I recommend you go on youtube and listen to a lot of flute players there, find the ones that you like best in terms of style (because there are lots of different styles) and start buying their cd’s or mp3’s, here are a few recomendtions: Matt Molloy, June McCormack, Kevin Crawford, Mike McGoldrick, John Skelton, Gary Shannon and Josh Dukes. There are others of course but that’s a good start, and they all have albums available.
Another thing that I’ve found helpful is to concentrate very hard to stop thinking with your tongue. Most ITM ornamentation comes from the fingers. Most ITM players use the tongue or glottal stops as well, but usually far less than any classical musician. Therefor it’s often helpful for classical musicians to stop using the tongue all together in the beginning to learn to have full use of the finger ornamentations. When you have that down you can bring some tongue back to it if you like.
And of course the most important thing; it helps to drink fair amounts of
whisky
Welcome indeed, MeaghanEryn - lots of good advice already given. I’d especially reinforce the “loose your tongue” suggestion, at least pro tem…
Oh, and take no notice of the whisky-driven…
You may find something of use in some of my YouTube clips, several of which are tutorial - the low whistle ones are pretty much as equally applicable to flute as far as fingering technique, phrasing etc. goes.
BTW, I too was a tin-typewriter player originally, for a while, though not properly classically trained.
Hi MeaghanEryn, and welcome,
I’ve just grabbed my cold flute and run straight through the first part of ‘Banish Misfortune’. Cork, here is a little clip of me playing legato and then playing with exaggerated glottal stops. http://www.box.net/shared/7upexkeu6v
Here I am tonguing, this is really hard for me as I don’t tongue that often, so it is difficult to try to do it the whole way through a piece. I then play it somewhere near normal. http://www.box.net/shared/mhzrof0rle
(edited to correct a case of mistaken identity, sorry Henke)
As to what a glottal stop is… http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/235680/glottal-stop and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop
Now although the sites above explain what it is in linguistic terms, how do we apply it in a musical sense? How does the glottal stop work in music?
I use ‘uh-huh’, although I don’t actually say uh-huh, I use the physical action that my mouth uses to form that glottal stop that happens between ‘uh’ and ‘huh’.
I also use ‘beautiful’, there are two stops in there, one just after the ‘you’ sound and another after the ‘ti’. Try saying those words, then try playing using the type of stops that they create.
One tune that comes to mind would be the jig ‘St.Patricks day’, it starts off with a nice ‘uh-huh uh-huh beautiful’ phrase.
Another couple of words are ‘put’ and ‘hot’ a great one for punching out the bottom D really hard.
We pepper our everyday speech with glottal stops without being concious that we are doing it. There are lots of words out there with glottal stops in them, the trick is finding and understanding the mechanics of a few words whose physical shape would fit nicely around your playing.
I hope that helps.
Sorry for hijacking your thread MeaghanEryn, but I think this could help you in your playing. You just need to know that there are more interesting and better sounding ways to accentuate a tune than using tonguing alone. I think you also need to start playing legato, force yourself not to tongue. I am not saying don’t ever tongue, just go cold turkey for a while and discover the other methods for articulating tunes, then in time it would be a matter of balancing out your articulation to suit each tune.
Good luck.
That’s funny, CWM. Maybe in Stralian, or Cockney. I hear exactly what you’re talking about. But in standard North American English, and probably Meaghan’s speech, there’s not a glottal stop within a mile of “beautiful”. Byoo-di-ful.
In fact, they’re not peppered in NA at all, but fairly rare. Most commonly heard instead of “t” at the end of sentences or phrases, as when asking the question “What?” (= Wha’?). This actually makes it harder to describe glottal stops to Americans.
Except in certain pronunciations. My dad was Bronx Irish, and in his speech there was no “t” in words like “bottle” or “cattle”; just a big glottal stop in the middle.
Even if I’m trying to learn from a recording I still find it way easier to write it down first, though I am (slowly) getting better at picking stuff up aurally at sessions. I have been listening too! The Chieftains do the same Within a Mile of Dublin/Old Blackthorn set we do, and they do hornpipe-ize it. After a second listen I notice that it isn’t as triplet-y as I thought; I think there’s a roll in there that might be giving it that feel.
Aye … sticky wickets.