Name the ornament(s) please?

Whistle
1

A couple of weeks ago I got hold of a CD, Na Connerys The Session. Really good stuff. Track four on that CD is a two-jig set (Mist on the Mountain, Walls of Liscarroll) and the whistle player sounds marvellous. As a recent beginner on the whistle, I’ve deliberately held off playing jigs (been concentrating on hornpipes to start with) because there’s a dearth of live Irish music around here, and I wanted a good example to listen to in order to ‘get the rhythm’ before trying to learn the things.

Anyway. Using slow-downer software etc I taught meself to play along with the Walls of Liscarroll on this track, and can now twootle away with it at full speed. But my playing sounds, well, really rather naff. Whereas the whistler on the album (I think it’s Sean Og Potts, but the CD label doesn’t name the musicians) is of course brilliant.

I’ve told meself that although I may be “playing the right notes” at the right tempo and with the right rhythm, it’s his use of ornamentation that really makes the piece sound so alive. But the trouble is, even with the slow-downer, I can’t seem to identify what he’s doing and how he’s doing it.

With a few more years experience under my belt I might be able to pick this stuff up, but this is the first time I’ve broken down a tune like this and started learning from it.

I didn’t want to post the whole track for copyright reasons, and if I’m on dodgy ground with the couple of bars I’ve posted here please let me know and I’ll take the clip down. But in the attached MP3 (220kb) you can hear the first couple of bars played full speed, followed by the same couple of bars slowed down by 50%.

What’s he doing? Are these multiple super-fast cuts, or rolls? A combination of both? And is that incredibly fast staccato sound before the D at the end of the clip a crann? Or what?

http://www.gjk2.com/stuff/clip.mp3

Any help gratefully received.

PS I know I’ve got a good few years (decades?) of practice to look forward to before I can hope to sound anything as good as this chap, but if I knew what he was doing it’d be a start I reckon :slight_smile:

2

The player may be Sean og but Paul Mcgrattan was in there as well so it could be him playing too.

The clip didn’t come through all that weel and I didn’t spot anything much unusual, A’s seaparated by cuts.

Look at the transcriptionpage at Steve’s site for loads of this kind of stuff, soundclips with explanations of sorts.

3

Thanks Peter, I’ll check out the site.

I’ve posted a copy of the clip on to my other server, which may be a bit faster and give better playback.

There’s something that sounds like a silenced MAC10 going off between the E and the D towards the end of the second bar… bit like really fast flutter-tonguing (but it’s a whistle, not a flute).

it’s click here

4

the transcriptions are on

http://www.rogermillington.com/tunetoc/index.html

5

Peter…I could get lost in there for hours (and probably will over the weekend!). One quick question…I can’t help noticing that a lot of the transcripts note that the ‘original’ piece was played on an Eb whistle? Pardon my tyro’s ignorance, but is the Eb whistle/flute generally preferred for solo playing or is it a common pipe when playing with accompaniment?

6

The e flat generation is a very responsive clear toned whistle, Micho Russell used it a lot as did Mary Bergin and a few others. It’s just a lovely player for solo stuff. My first whistle was one, I still have it, over thirty years old now and I don’t think you can beat it.

7

The slowed-down section might lead you to think he’s doing triple-tonguing, but I think this is a distortion caused by the electronics.

Listening to the standard-speed piece, there is a decoration on an A and then on a G that I would bet are produced by the fingers only. Hard to tell exactly what they are but they could be

a) simply short rolls, or
b) a kind of top-hand cran produced by cutting the note twice using the top two fingers, or
c) even a combination of these two devices, a “double-cut” short roll but I doubt it.

I’d bet on b) myself. This is a useful trick for decorating an A in all sorts of situations!

Best
Steve

Edited after rereading your original question. The thing on the first high d is simply a cut between a pickup d and the main beat, I think. And the thing on the A sounds simpler than I first thought, maybe a single cut or a short roll. These twiddly things often sound more complicated than they really are - most of the time you just move one finger a fraction, then move another. You’ve just got to get your fingers moving snappily - lift them as little as possible for the cuts and whack 'em on and off again at light speed for the taps.

8

To my wooden ears, it’s a tongued double cut. .{AB}A

9

Am I the only one wondering how Gary knows what a silenced MAC10 sounds like going off? :boggle:

I thought drive by’s were rather rare in the UK…but then that might account for the silencers, something folks here in the states wouldn’t bother with :laughing:

Loren