Beginner piper here. Having troubles with C natural transitions in The Humours of Ballyloughlin in the B part, bars 5 and 6, which I have written as: | cBc dcB | cAG FGE | Here’s the whole B part as I have written:
I’ve heard on a number of occaisions that when playing C naturals, the C finger should never really leave the chanter, but should be curled up, or as though you were pointing at something. I’m having a problem with doing this cleanly in bars 5 and 6 as there are 4 C’s played rather closely to eachother. Is there an exception to the curled C finger for occasions such as this? Or should I just keep practicing slowly until I get it right and keep my C finger on the chanter?
While I do “uncurl” my C finger, it does actually leave the chanter at the end of the note, otherwise the C will be flat (maybe this is just on my chanter). To me, on quick C’s, it’s just that I’m "uncurling’ my finger rather than lifting it straight up, which gives the hint of the “glide” up to the C. Sometimes, on very quick C’s in reels, I think I do just lift the finger straight up with no glide at all. You don’t always have time to get that nice glide in there- or maybe it’s just me.
Curling the C finger back is for longer notes. It gives you a slurring sound and accents the note. Playing straight notes is considered pretty boring, so lots of effects are added so that no note is left uncoloured in some way. This comes with practise, experience, and lots of listening to better pipers.
As you are discovering, curling back the C finger really doesn’t work well for short, quick notes. When you have a passage where you have to play notes beside each other quickly in succession, just practise those finger movements over and over until you can do it cleanly. If the passage is very fast, you may have to modify your fingering, e.g. playing B with one finger, or C with one finger, even when the notation says it should be a Cnat. This works because you play the notes so fast the ear doesn’t have time to pick it out.