Just joined up. Brilliant stuff man, brilliant! Anyone else care to share their thoughts?
-Micko
I’ve been playing through the beginning stuff and am enjoying it but really needed to capture a few of the audio clips and slow them down to figure out what is actually going on. Of course, nothing special there, I have to do this with most tunes. I’d love to see a site or tutorial somewhere that really goes through ornamentation and how it rhythmically fits in a tune.
Let me expand on that since it probably makes no sense. On Mick’s site, or in the Clarke tutor it’s always “I’ll play it once slow and then faster with ornamentation”. I’d like to hear it slow with ornamentation and then dissect that sucker.
For example, on Coyne’s with Brian Boru’s March, there are these A rolls and ACd(ge)d triplets (or whatever it is that they are) that are never mentioned or notated. It takes awhile to figure out how he’s cutting the A and what is actually going on with those second octave ornaments. He does a great job explaining this in isolation, as Heather does, but I have yet to see them explained well in the context of a tune. Just take a couple bars of the trickier stuff and walk through them with explanations of what is going on with the tune in regards to the pipes. Since many of us are working on notation when ornaments are often not notated, this would really help with getting a feel for when, where and how to use cuts, rolls, triplets etc.
That make any sense? Good, now get to it people.
-Patrick (that’s Mister to you, bub)
Oops! Thanks Tony, I thought I forgot something.
Wonderful site. Good resource for isolated pipers especially. Check it out!!
John
Me too. Then I work on the same tune in the intermediate list. It’s a great way to get the ornamentation. Before, when I learned a tune I’d just chance my arm with ornamentation. This gives me a little more direction.
I just signed up also. However when I click on the "play " icon in any of the lessons, nothing happens. Does anybody know what kind of audio files these are and what software I need to hear them?
Liam
Liam,
The files are Flash format files meaning you need a Flash Player. But given than you can see the rest of the sight which is also in Flash format indicates you already have it. You do have to wait until the page downloads totally before clicking on a sound file icon will produce results. I’m on dialup, so I can be waiting a good few minutes before I wil be able to listen to sound files. Also mean that unless you’re an I.T geek and know how to get around it, you can’t save flash sound files to play independently of the site at a later date.
On a couple of occassions the page will take 5-6minutes to load (the backstitching page) and even then sometimes the file will not play. I emailed Mick about this and he said it could be a system glitch at my end. I persevered and after anouther go, the file which I couldn’t get to play initially was able to play, but then a file that I could listen to previously all of a sudden wouldn’t. I need to upgrade my PC methinks.
I love the site and find it very worthwhile. Not for complete beginers though. They should still do the H.Clarke tutor too to get the fundamentals down pat.
Cheers,
DavidG
What I do is use a sound capture program. There are several out there, I use Audio Hijack on the Mac. What these do is capture the audio from any program and save it as an MP3 or other audio file. The you can work on the tunes without being online or run them through a slow-downer-thingy.
They also work great for streaming audio such as internet radio stations.
-Patrick
Hello,
A little off the topic, but I have always wondered how to do a Cnat roll, or is it cran?? Can you also do a C# roll??
Thanks
Cnat long roll - play Cnat, cut with back D, tap the Cnat.
Cnat short roll - cut with back D to Cnat, tap the Cnat.
C# long roll - play C#, cut with back D, tap the C#.
C# short roll - cut with back D to C#, tap the C#.
Crans are on bottom D and E.
If you don’t have it yet, I suggest you invest in the Heather Clarke tutor.
djm
I signed on right after P D’Arcy put it on his web site. Good stuff to learn. Audio Hijack works great-picked off Rolling Waves from The Boys and Girl from County Clare.
IS there a freebie I can use for Windows? Audio Hijak seems to be only for Mac as far as I can see - although I haven’t really searched very hard.
Cheers,
DavidG
I found this program a few years ago and it’s worked out pretty good for me. I just checked out the web site and it’s been upgraded since I downloaded the demo. Again, it works just fine on my pc. I’ve never felt the need to investigate other similar products.
Thanks Bill, I’ll give it a try.
Update…I just tried it out and it seems the only way it’ll record the Flash format tunes on the Coyne site is if I point the PC mic at the speakers when playing, meaning it’s recording everything else around the room too, and makes for veeeerrrrry large wav. files. I’ve tried changing the settings but to no success. Is there a way to make it record straight from the sound card?
Cheers,
DavidG
Hmmm, I’m using an older version and it just captures what ever is passing through the sound card when in record mode. One thing I do have to remember to do is make sure that the record feature is enabled. I double click on the speaker icon, click on options. then properties. I select “adjust volume for recording” and then click okay. Usually, I find that the “wave” volume control is set on mute and have to enable the wave recording feature. Once that’s finished I open Silent Bob and click on record. then I start playing the selection, or any program that I want to record and that’'s that. I do get a wave file and they are always large. I use my Cool Edit program to do any editing and then convert the file to mp3 and delete the original wave file in order to save space. Maybe I should download the latest version and try it out.
I’d say that it should be able to capture the file from the sound card like you said. Perhaps I’ve got some settings to adjust as yet. I’ll give it another go when I get home from work today.
Cheers,
DavidG
I downloaded the pro version and installed it. It recorded the Coyne flash media without a hitch. The only problem I had was my dial-up connection. I have to wait a bit to get the entire clip to play without breaking up.
I noticed that this is a fairly old program: last update appears to be in 2001 if I read everything correctly. The pro version has a 3 minute limit until it’s registered. The regular version has no time limits on recording, so don’t fall asleep while recording!
Yeah - I’m a dial-up person too. Luckily I’m a bonsai maniac as well so I know the meaning of patience 
What settings to you have it on under ‘Options’ - ‘Gain Control’ -‘Channel to Observe’?
Cheers,
DavidG
I think I’ve worked it out. Seems there’s a good 30secs of empty space before the sounds starts playing for some reason. So I have to scroll forward to find the beginning of the recording.
Cheers,
DavidG