Well, that is so true - if we could only play all the little nuances that we hear in our head, wouldn’t it be wonderful!
Didn’t I hear someone on this board stating that ornementation serves the melody while articulation serves rythm. That made (and still makes) sense to my beginner’s ears.
Pascal.
It’s a great blessing to have something to do that is both difficult
and beautiful, the mastery of which will take you
the rest of your life.
To me, cuts, pats, and rolls are not “ornamentation” at all, in the sense that an “ornament” is by definition something superfluous to the melody which is added for decorative effect. These cuts, pats, and rolls are rather a form of articulation which happens to be done with the fingers rather than with the tongue. I prefer the somewhat ponderous term “digital articulation”.
“Ornamentation” in its strict sense is very little used in Irish traditional music. The only thing I can think of is the trill on F# favoured by uilleann pipers and some whistle/flute players, and things such as double-cut rolls. Even crans could be thought of as rythmic, rather than ornamental, devices.
Yes the cuts and pats are done crisply enough that their actual pitch is immaterial, “blips” I suppose.
There’s nothing wrong with that. I think sometimes too much is made of ornamentation and that traditional flute players often over ornament. I agree that’s a matter of personal taste and mine is to be sparing with ornamentation.
Niall Keegan made a very good point in a workshop I attended a couple of years ago, that the music is basically dance music and it is vital to maintain a sense of rhythm. My understanding of what Grey Larsen says in his book is that the “standard” ornamentation (cuts, taps & rolls) are as a way of stressing the pulse in the music in what is otherwise a legato style of playing.
To Diane: I’ve not been playing the flute much longer than you have, but I have been playing recorder for over 25 years which has been a help in my approach to the flute. Once I could get a reasonable sound and was fairly happy with the basic fingerings, I have been concentrating on embouchure, getting a good tone and playing tunes simply and as well as I can. I think that until you have a tune comfortably under your fingers, adding ornamentation is likely to make things worse. My view, FWIW, is learn the tune properly first, then think about ornamentation. I know some will disagree, but I think in the early stages of learning an instrument, it is very easy to overload your brain by trying to concentrate on too many things at once. So it is better to do basic things well, then look at the embellishments later once you have achieved a certain level of competence.
Being able to join in a session with some degree of confidence is not a bad target to aim for IMHO.
Geoff
Dang tunes in my head are driving me nuts! But at least they’ve finally drowned out the transmitter in my filling so I no longer have to wear the tinfoil hat. 
SB–thanks for bringing up this topic. I too am learning from Grey’s book, found his approach/explanation to “ornamentation” very helpful. From my listening, I have also heard a tremendous range of ornaments and sounds, things I did not think possible on the flute, many of which I still do not have a clue how to do, e.g. the “popping” quick triplets that Matt Molloy and others of the Roscommon school do–I know they ain’t triple tonguing but I think they are using very focused air. Same on some rolls being spikey which I think comes from allowing the “grace notes” within the ornament to fully breathe…I don’t know exactly. The range of sounds is staggering.
I wonder how much one’s flute determines the possible ornaments one can produce (of course much of it has to do with the player). Certainly, I’ve found that ornaments sound completely different on a wooden flute as compared with a silver/Boehm flute. Moreover, I believe the Pratten and its big holes make “popping” precise ornaments more challenging, where as a Rudall or the Grey Larsen/Casey Burns small-holed flutes have their particular tendencies towards certain ornamented sounds and potentially “tighter” ornaments (I believe this why Grey plays smaller-holed flutes). SB–I think I’ve seen you with a Tipple with its very large holes and extreme diameter, all of which probably hinder ones ability to create a wide range of ornament timbres unless you have large quick fingers and a tremendous amount of air.
What do others think?
Regarding ornamentation and Irish Trad flute playing in general, I think of it as dancing on the flute. Just as dancers (Irish dancers, tap dancers) may do the same steps, the exact execution and sound of these steps differs from dancer to dancer, tune to tune, tempo to tempo. I feel it’s the rhythm, the dance, that counts when playing a tune; thus, the ornament serves the tune and must maintain and compel the groove of the tune. If the ornament does this, it’s cool; if not, it must changed or removed. Whether the ornament sounds exactly like Matt or Grey is just an exercise in categorization and imitation and less to do with music making/dancing.
Also, (is this post long enough yet…) Grey mentions that the sound of one’s ornaments will change over time and the sounding of the cut/tap notes will diminish as one practices and plays over the years.
I’d love to hear how folks practice ornaments and which practice methods they think are best. I’ve been elongating rolls and slowing them way down to practice them, i.e. fully sounding the cut and tap notes, making sure they fall on the beat (which means they are not classical grace notes that are to be sounded before the beat of the home note).
SB–I just read you also have a Burns folk(?) and Burns Rudall–you cover the whole gambit of hole size/diameter/bore with those 3…Do you notice a difference when playing ornaments?
I don’t notice much difference between the two Burns’s except that the Rudall is slightly more spaced apart than the Folk Flute, which is a small-handed model. I hardly notice it.
The Tipple flute is hard to do ornamentation with my left hand due to hole size and my finger size. My index finger sometimes protrudes into the hole because it’s just a little smaller. I feel ok on the right hand. It’s a big stretch but I can get good coverage with a piper’s-type hold on my right hand, and can feel/hear the plunking sound of the holes closing under my fingers.
I’ve watched other players play a little bit despite there being not too many of them around here. I’ve seen other kinds of ornaments than the basic cuts, taps and rolls, or perhaps I have just seen them done differently from what I’ve been attempting to do, or maybe because I don’t hardly watch myself play I just don’t know what it looks like, but it sure seems like there are some flickery finger thingies going on when certain people play, and the sound is more fluttery than crisply articulated. Not that they are being sloppy, but that they are being fluttery on purpose. At least that’s how it seems.
Diane, I wonder if your “fluttery” ornaments are when a player plays a main note of the melody and immediately cuts it at the beginning, returning of course to the main note. This is a little different from attacking the same main note by briefly playing the note above it before playing it at all itself. In classical notation the former would be written with two linked grace notes - the note itself and then the one above (being fingered as a cut): the latter would be a single grace note - the one above the main note used as a cut. I’m not sure if the former is what some would call a “double cut”. I certainly use both of these to articulate emphasised notes. For example on the top notes of the “eyebrow” figures in the B music of Paddy’s Trip to Scotland I use the two note version. This is rather different in effect (though the technique is effectively the same) from using a cut to separate two repeated same-pitch notes.
Perhaps the fluttery triplet being referred to is Matt Molloy’s distinctive B-C-D triplet. Traditionally on flute and whistle this triplet was done open and legato, the C being a C sharp regardless of the tune’s key signature. Listen to the playing of Mary Bergin (and really most any older flute or whistle player) to hear it in action. It could be diagrammed:
xoo ooo
ooo ooo
oxx xxx (or xxx xxx).
On the pipes, this triplet is also done with a C sharp, but normally done staccato:
x xoo xxxx
x oxx xxxx
o xxx xxxx
with the chanter momentarily closed between each note, thus the staccato.
Matt Molloy, I suspect, was trying to find a way to suggest the staccato sound without tounging, and came up with:
xoo ooo
xxx xxx
oxx ooo
oxx xxx
the G being a very very short blip between the B and the C, not long enough to disturb the effect of the triplet being B-C-D. Note that Molloy’s triplet uses a C natural rather than a C sharp.
I’m crediting Molloy with inventing this only because he’s the first person I’d heard do it- perhaps others did it earlier but just didn’t get recorded and spread around.
In analogy with this, I came up with a way to imitate the pipe’s rising F sharp-G-A triplet on the flute. Once again, traditionally this was done legato on flute and whistle but staccato on pipes. My thing:
xxx xox
xxx xxx
xxx oxx
xxx xxx
xxo oox
where the F sharp, G, and A have bottom D’s in between. Actually, as in the B-C-D triplet, it’s really only necessary to have the blip in between the first two notes of the triplet, so often it really comes out:
xxx xox
xxx xxx
xxx oxx
xxo oox
Anyhow the quasi-staccato B-C-D triplet, crans on low and middle D, and trills on F sharp are the distinctive hallmarks of Molloy’s style and all but crans on middle D are inspired by the pipes.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I’ll bet that is indeed what I’m hearing. It’s not a Grey Larsen “it must have no pitch” articulation, but an honest-to-goodness decorative effect. To be fair, I believe Grey mentions these as well, but he still hammers home the “it must have no pitch” message.
Back to ornaments:
Here’s how brad Hurley does a roll on low E.
XXX XX0
X00 XX0
XXX XX0
XXX XXX
XXX XX0
I think what Grey meant was that the ornamental notes (not the note ornamented) shouldn’t have a pitch you can identify as particular notes. The tap isn’t held long enough to be identified as a note. It is a rhythmic “blip.” It will have a pitch, but if you can identify it as such then you’re probably holding it too long.
Oftentimes when describing a particular musical event, the right hemisphere of the brain - that thinks in pictures - is overshadowed by the left hemisphere, that thinks in words. It’s better to hear the ornament (or to be shown) and then to try to reproduce it from dots or abc’s. But if this is the only way of learning I suppose it’s better than nothing. Too often people play stiffly rather than fluidly, which I think comes from trying too hard to play the way they think they should be playing (by the book), rather than by following one’s instincts.
The psychologist, Jonathan Schooler, says: “When you start becoming reflective about the process, it undermines your ability. You lose the flow. There are certain kinds of experience that are vulnerable to this process.” I think ITM is this kind of experience.
That sounds rt.
Here’s a cran on low D.
XXX XXX
X00 XXX
XXX XXX
XXX XX0
XXX XXX
I think Gray is being held accountable for language used to convey something that must be heard and felt, which - as John said - is the only way to really learn this stuff. Gray was (I believe) trying to describe the fact that - played correctly - a roll sounds more like a drum roll on the root note than a wavy roll on the upper and lower cut/tap notes. However, there are many ways to play about with a roll, once you know how to do one right, that make this hard/fast rule not so hard and fast. Sometimes the cut note, or the tapped note, is brought out for melodic purposes, and there are also ways to add melody where a roll might otherwise be used, a triplet s or a slur… In other words, the melody and rhythm are of paramount importance because the use of ornaments are selective, not mandatory in any fixed spot. So if you don’t really hear the basic tune in your head, ornaments are just clutter you’re trying to learn that are not actually part of the melody.
This stuff is hardly a secret, but it is harder to describe in words, in a book, because it’s less a technique than liberties taken once you understand the form. There are techniques you can learn and use, and then there’s playing about within the style. Like everything else, you have to absorb the music. Learn tunes, learn all the techniques, and then forget the rules and play the tunes.
So Brad Hurley raises two fingers at the same instant to create a cut? I’ve never seen anyone do that on pipes, flute, or whistle.
A caution to beginners not to think that that is a normal or suggested way of doing cuts.
Does anyone have the CD titled Musical Travel Ireland? (It’s one that got me started in all this. I’ve had it for about 10 years or so.)
If you do, there’s a track called Boys of the Lough - Touch Me If You Dare (The Laurel Tree). I think most of what the flute player is doing on Boys of the Lough can be described as the ordinary ornaments, but in the second tune (which I believe is this one http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/596 ), in the A part, I think where it goes up to the G note, the flute player does these, I guess maybe triplets? I don’t know, but he (or she?) runs up the scale with a flourish and emphasizes the G and I don’t think he plays the note after that but leaves the G emphasized.
In the B part of that tune I can hear the fiddler playing the tune a little more straight while the flute player is breathing after every high B, with a flourish of course. Leaving that high B to ring out and be emphasized.
These are the kinds of things I was trying to bring up. These kinds of flourishes. I think these things, whatever they are, are what the flute uniquely provides to the music that the other instruments do not.
I got Grey’s book a few months ago, and have spent some time at going through it. And, on the one hand, I have much appreciation for what he has compiled, in that I did learn a thing or more, with my thanks to Grey. Yet, although I certainly do recommend his book to anybody interested in ITM, he at times does become pedantic, at teaching, and although I do see him as a fine teacher, perhaps his approach could at times become somewhat, er, dry.
And while I can easily understand his saying so, I frankly do object to his saying that there could be an effective limit on the C# cut (on a D flute).
Good observation, sbfluter!
Edit: On second thought, perhaps his saying that certain ornaments must have no pitch could well illustrate the relative speed at which those ornaments are commonly played. That is, other music forms can employ ornaments which are played more slowly, to the point where the individual tones of the ornaments can be more easily heard. So, just to get the point across that some ITM ornamentation can be very fast, perhaps at times more as a percussive effect than as a tonal effect, GL seems to have done well in his choice of words, to get the idea across in plain language.
The decidedly ‘he’ flute player in Boys of the Lough on those tracks is Cathal McConnell - one of the best fluters in the business. Also a very inventive one; knows the tradition and how to break it all at one elegant time. Great player, and a really nice guy; he crashed at a friend of mine’s house in NYC about 10 years ago, and sat in on a band rehearsal, politely noodling behind us (if playing great on the fly can be called noodling). That said, he’s a tough one to imitate, stylistically speaking, because he does precisely what you’re asking about - knows a tune inside and out, then plays all around it. He tried to show me and a small group of bewildered onlookers how to do this . I’d probably follow him better now, but at the time, I was just learning how to play the tunes.