more speed, more tunes, more orniments, or more by ear?

Uilleann Pipes
1

Ok, I’m at a cross roads, and thought I’d put this out here to see if I can stir up some discussion and get some input on where I’m headed…

I’m almost to the end of my first year playing the pipes (yea! only 20 more to go!)…am feeling much more comfortable playing the ‘beastie’ and know a handful of tunes, which I’m getting better at playing through at a moderate pace without flub ups.

Most of them I’ve learned from the written music although a couple I’ve learned by ear from teachers. I’m fortunate that I took Band for 6 years in school, so have learned to read music quickly. However, learning by ear is a chore for me (and worse for the teacher I’m sure!).

The tunes I know are: Inisheer, Southwind, Boys of Blue Hill, Sean Bui, Wards Jig, Garret Barry’s, Blarney Pilgrim, Britches full of Stitches, Maggie in the Woods, Spancil Hill, and have started working on Out on the Ocean and Drops of Brandy.

I’ve been working on clean fingering (tidy fingering as Keiran O’Hare would say), with a few slides into notes, my crans are getting better, and have worked in a few triplets (gfe, bcd)…but only a couple of rolls are workin’ and no vibrato.

Recently, my teacher suggested adding a drone, so I’ve been practicing with at least one drone, sometimes two going on the slow tunes.

So, this brings me to my question…where should I focus my time now?

My thoughts are that increased speed will come on its own as I play more and more, as will orniments.

I believe working on learning by ear will serve best as it will kill multiple birds with one stone…adding to my tune list as well as helping with articulation and orniments.

The first tune I’m planning to tackle is from Seamus Ennis the Pure Drop, 4th track “O’Sullivan the Great March”..any other suggestions for tunes to begin learning by ear? I did a search on this topic but didn’t find anything.

-gary

2

Gary,

Sounds to me like you are on the right track. Irish music is all about the “feel”…the rhythm…the lift (and from your posting I infer that you are new to both the pipes and to Irish trad music).

For myself, I gave up sheet music shortly after taking up the pipes and I’m very glad I did. I also was fairly new to trad music when taking up the pipes and so focusing on listening ended up being more important than I was initially aware. All the great piping teachers said to Listen - Listen - Listen! Doing so helped to make the transfer from a generalized appreciation for the music to a better understanding of the details within the music. Now I feel at least I’ve scratched the surface, but the process continues…

As with any skill you learn by doing. This applies both to the actual playing of the pipes but also to the learning of tunes. Learning a tune by ear does get easier the more you do it, so don’t worry if it’s difficult at first.

At this point I learn all my tunes by ear until I can play them through from memory. My ear will also tell me if I not getting a phrase and then I do use sheet music to check out the “rough spots”.

Good Luck!

Paul

P.S. Very often you will have to alter your own version of a tune to match what is being played by others. Developing an “ear” for the music will make this not only easier but it will feel quite natural - as it should be.

3

I think increasing your speed should be the last of your goals; too many beginning pipers (and whistle players, fluters, fiddlers, etc.) play too fast too soon.

I’d focus on rhythm foremost as you start working on more dance tunes. A jig or a reel played with no ornamentation but with good steady rhythm and lift is much more musical and engaging than the same tune played with tons of triplets, rolls, and cranns but no discernable rhythm.

Learning new tunes is good for getting your fingers used to different patterns. But as you get better, it’s a good idea to take time to go back to the tunes you already know and work on them too.

Try recording yourself now and then again in 6 months or a year; it’ll give you a sense of your progress.

4

Snoogs,

I hate to be the one who puts the turd in the punchbowl, but here’s the updated formula for becoming an uilleann piper:

seven years learning
seven years practicing
seven years playing
seven year wait for a set of pipes

= 28 years.


t

5

Better off starting a tune very slowly, first getting the melody right and then rhythm. When I went to Na Piobairi Uilleann, they said “better playing a few tunes well then a lot of tunes badly”.

Then maybe give a shot at incorporating ornamentation, to “color” the music a bit, by breaking up the tune and starting phrase by phrase.

I’ve been at it for a while, and I still have trouble at my closed-style of playing.

Good luck with it! :slight_smile:

upiper71

6

I don’t agree. You have to push it sometimes. Ideally, you want to develop into a player who CAN play fast, but pontificates about the need to play slow, as opposed to the player who pontificates about playing slowly because they CAN’T play fast. To get there, you need to play as fast as you can in your early days. Not all the time of course, and understand the difference.

But the time has come to get off the diet of jigs and start in on the reels. Two reels for every new jig/hp/march.

Don’t waste too much time trying to pick up tunes by ear. This is what will come on its own.

Try playing along with ABCMus. It has rock-steady tempo.

Listen to solo piping. Lots and lots of solo piping.

Oh, and you can practice rolls outside of a tune. I suggest doing so in great quantities. Same for the triplets.

7

My suggestion would be to try tunes you like. These might be the tunes that you find yourself humming or whistling or lilting to yourself, or outloud, even.

Once they’re in your head, it’s easier to put them onto the chanter. Of course, putting them in your head so that you can hum, whistle or lilt them means listening to them however many times it takes to commit them to memory in the first place.

The instructor that I had at Willie Week (Kieran O’Maille) made it very easy to understand when he told us on the very first day (when the topic of learning tunes was brought up) :
1) Put them here (pointing to his head)
2) then you can put them here (pointing to the chanter)
3) And then you’ll have them here (pointing to his heart).

8

“More speed! More tunes! More ornaments!”

If George Lucas were ever to take up the uilleann pipes, that sounds like the sort of thing he’d say.

Ciaran O Maille’s advice is absolutely what you should be aiming for. There’s an interview with flute player John Skelton–I think it’s on Brad Hurley’s site-- where he says something about how you should listen to a tune over and over until you hear it in your head and find yourself humming or whistling it while you’re doing the dishes.

I generally listen to tunes over and over until they just rattle around in my head and I feel like I need to exorcise them from my skull somehow. Then I reach for my pipes and they come flowing out. And then I hear the latest Hillary Duff offering on the radio and that gets stuck in my head instead. AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh!!!

I have always liked the radio analogy though when it comes to learning tunes. Just take a second to think of all the songs you heard in high school that are, for better or worse, forever etched in your memory. If you can get those stuck in your head, you can learn tunes by ear.

9

To get there, you need to play as fast as you can in your early days.

I’d suggest that needs to be taken with a large caveat. Playing too fast, too soon leads to death grips and too much muscle tension. Continuing to play too fast for your ability will lock in muscle tension until years down the line, you’ll hit a wall and wonder why you’re no longer progressing.

The key to fast playing is complete, relaxed control, and accuracy.

I agree that you need to push it, but if you do so without realizing tension hinders fast & accurate playing, then you’re locking in bad habits.

10

I couldn’t agree more. It is important to consciously relax while playing.
Honestly, I don’t know if you can do this in the early stages… I don’t remember what it felt like. But what you can do is give your hands a break, like take a few days off. I know one thing I was guilty of for a long time was playing too often and my hands stayed in a state of soreness and fatigue, which caused frustrating plateaus in my playing.

The other caveat in playing fast is to realize why you’re doing it. You are training your hand muscles to move quickly (and relaxed). A sprinter doesn’t train by taking a stroll. But you aren’t playing fast just to be playing fast.

You want to be able to play reels cleanly at a snail’s pace and at about Q:1/4=220, even though they’ll sound “right” somewhere in between.

11

Ear training, ear training and more ear training… until you can hear to the level where every listening becomes a practical piping lesson.

Once you know what to do it’s just a simple (if somewhat long and drawn out) process of doing it.

You learn to hear and recognise it,

then set about ‘knowing’ it (‘know’ as in knowledge),

then develope the instincts nessecary to do it and make it sound good through doing it a lot and actively listening a lot.

learning (identifying, terms, means),
practicing (learning to know),
and playing (learning to apply instinctively).

None of the above take as long as seven years to bear fruit… on the other hand you can continue to develope and hone the process for 70 yrs+ if you wish.

A method I suggest to approach the instinctive, stylistic aspects of other players is to learn the basic melody that is being played then listen out for what is happening that is different from what you accept as the melody. Get a feeling for their instincts, take what you want from them and develope your own.

Over time the tunes begin to reveal themselves as powerful sets of options and suggestions rather than definitive statements (if you listen to and ‘know’ the right music that is).

Never accept norms, standards or the obvious.

2 Cents,

Harry.

12

By the way - Kieran O’Maille made these statements as he began teaching us our first tune of the week. When he called it out, I began reaching into my pipe case for a tune book. He stopped playing the tune and asked what I was doing. I replied that I was looking for the notation. He then instructed the class that reading notes was most certainly NOT the way to learn Irish music, and then proceeded to explain how. He ended the instruction by stating those 3 very direct, very clear, lines.

I have several books in my collection of tunes, but I almost never use them, unless (as previously mentioned) I’m trying to work through a ‘rough spot’ in a particular tune.

Now - this is not to say that one can never learn a tune by reading the ‘dots’ - to say so would be foolish, at best. But for me, personally, I have to hear the tune to get an idea of how it should sound… the feel of the tune. That’s something that notation can never provide.

13

Perhaps the statement should read “Play as fast as you can play - cleanly.” That sort of identifies what the goal truly is.

14

Hi Brian,

I had a few tunes with a banjo man from your neck of the woods the other night down in Santa Monica. Good fun too :slight_smile:

All the best,

Patrick.

15

Aha! That must be where I’m going wrong. I’ve been ‘knowing’ it in the biblical sense, and f***ing it up all over the place. :smiley:

djm

16

Patrick,

Who might that have been?

17

djm:“Aha! That must be where I’m going wrong. I’ve been ‘knowing’ it in the biblical sense, an f***ing it up all over the place.”

I do hope you remembered to wear your ‘safe’ while you were at it… :smiley:

18

Carnal knowledge of the music is as as wide spread as it is apparent, prostitues are readily available and will always be an easy option… :astonished: :slight_smile:

STD= Stylistically Tragic Diversion.

…Like so many crabs among skillets.

Be safe,

H.

19

I was listening to Drones and Chanters vol 2 on the way to hospital this morn. The Hannan tracks were so fast as to be annoying to me. How many aspire to play like that?

20

I have some home recordings of RH playing at a quite normal speed, and he is really a very nice piper. Perhaps he is mellowing in his old age. I know that achieving his earlier breakneck speed is still very much in fashion with younger players who have the technique down, but not the feeling of the music. Maybe this is a “maturity” thing.

djm