When I first took lesson,s from Steve Scale,s in the London pipers club , he suggested that to learn a tune really well it would help if you first learned to lilt the tune all the way through( or at least in your head). I had forgotten this technique for learning a tune but recently tried it again and found it very helpful, especially with rhythm, as I lilted the tune tapping the timeing with my hand on my leg before playing it on the chanter .
It might be helpful to others !!
RORY
PS Try and get some recordings of lilters if you don,t already .I have some of Josie McDermott lilting some reels and they,re amazing !!!
At this Dadaesque website you can hear quite a few examples of lilting, most of them in the Irish tradition, a few in French. They all come from a recording and you can read the notes at the bottom of the page—I didn’t notice them at first. One of them is by Josie McDermott who was mentioned above. http://www.ubu.com/ethno/soundings/celtic.html
I guess one could lilt in an unprofessional way, but these people make lilting seem like a whole lifetime’s study in itself!
Oh, ok. Thanks, Cynth! Now I see. The “diddly” bit threw me for a moment. When I do it, it sounds more like #10, Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer. I must have picked it up from my father. And I never do it to existing tunes, but only nonsense that I’m making up.
Hmmm. Never knew what it was called. Nor did it ever occur to me to ask!
Yes a Quebecer but not a piper and I’ll have to miss the Monday stuff anyway. But you’ll be able to see me and cronies providing music for the Irish dance w/shop on Sunday afternoon - come and say 'allo.
Steve, if you do a google search on turlutte you’ll find out what else it refers to, and that will explain a lot of the strange looks you get when requesting a bit of turlutting…
I thought the third one from Brittany was really beautiful. The voice of the main singer was really entrancing, strong.
It seems as though if one could whistle the tune accurately, then that would be okay in terms of learning the tune. I know I have seen advice that if you can sing the tune then you have it memorized. I can’t whistle very well or fast so I am going to try making up syllables.
Two pieces I seemed to do better on were actually songs I had sung (in private!) quite a number of times before I started playing the whistle.
When I was taking piano lessons, my teacher would tell me to sing out a passage to get the feeling of the music and how the phrasing should be. I didn’t understand what she was getting at then, but I think I have a better idea now. You are less separated from the music if you just use your voice—you aren’t struggling to hit notes, play softer, etc.—so with your voice you can get at where the tune is going better maybe.
Thus explaining why my father never mentioned what it was called . . .