I am a beginner that has been obsessively following Ryan Dunn’s video tutorials on YouTube with some degree of success. I’ve only been playing properly for about a month but in that time I have seen some considerable improvement and I have been really pleased. In addition to Ryan’s lessons I have downloaded a few slow airs and they have turned out OK (albeit a little simplistic). Now I seem to have hit a brick wall.
Ryan’s tutorials on how to perform a roll are crystal clear, but no matter how much I practice the sound that emerges sounds more like a strangulated hen than a decent roll! I know from learning other instruments that I need patience and lots of practice, but I am also hoping that some of you here have some tips on technique.
It seems that my primary problem is that I can’t co-ordinate my hands quickly enough. Is it simply a case of keep plugging - you’ll get there? Or should I pay attention to finger placement prior to the roll? Is it better to practice a roll as part of a tune or while doing scales? What practice routine should I utilise to improve my roll?
Hello Welshman
I’m struggling with rolls too although I’ve been playing the whistle for years.
The problem is I cheat by playing multiple cuts instead of rolls, and this has taken away the possibility of learning rolls.
One day I found a videoclip that shows very clearly how important it is to master a proper roll.
This tune could be played using cuts only, but it will never sound properly.
Personally I think it would be a good idea to use this particular tune to practise rolls as well as using other tunes. Practising scales incorporating rolls is also a good idea, perhaps folks like us should set aside 10 minutes each day just for practising rolls?
One thing is for certain . . . practising won’t make us less competent players,-rather the opposite.
Play the component parts of the roll separately and repeatedly:
Do the cuts over and over until they’re nice and clean and sharp. The cut should sound mainly like the note your playing with a little blip from above. It should not sound like two separate and equal notes.
Then, do the strkes/taps again and again. Here too, you should hear mainly the fundamental note with a little blip, from below in this case.
This is not music-- you’re training the muscles that control your fingers.
Once you can play the cuts and strikes nice and cleanly and consistently, try putting them together into a roll, slowly at first.
Ditto the advice above. The trouble happens when the roll becomes, in your “muscle memory”, a single blob or spasm. The solution is to keep the component parts seperate.
Listen to Paddy Keenan on the pipes. His rolls are very precise, the eighth-notes absolutely evenly spaced as on a metronome. He does a lot of “piper’s rolls” where instead of
note-cut-note-pat-note
he does
cut-note-pat-note-pat-note
If you play the same passage of a jig alternating between the two styles and playing all the eighth-notes precisely the same length to a metronome you’ll have rolls licked. For example, play the beginning of the Kesh Jig with both sytles (Paddy uses the “piper’s rolls” on the famous Both Band recording). The point is to respect the timing of the melody notes and not let the cuts and pats influence the timing.
that was actually a bit of the initial confusion. He describes them as evenly spaced but i’ve heard a lot of music where it would appear that there is a longer first note on the rolls.
When you’re learning, IMO evenly spacing them really helps get the finger motions down pat. Once you can do that without thinking, then you’re positioned to start messing around with the durations and timings of the notes.
Exactly, start by spacing them evenly first then eventually you can mess around with the overall timing of it. You’ll want to be able to do it both ways depending on the rhythm of the tune. Jigs for eg. that typically use a longer first note of a set of 3, sound better if any rolls have a longer first note too.
i know this is not the answer you want, but in just a month of practicing is normal that you cant get a perfect roll… it needs time to work out, not much, but anyway more that a month… follow the advices given till now, but dont struggle too much, take your time
Breathnach used the analogy of a rubber ball bouncing ever slightly slower on each bounce.
Like Pan said, tho, listen to recorded examples. I find fiddle rolls as the model to hold in my mind’s “ear.” You never quite sound like that on the whistle, but they sound so natural and inevitable that you can’t imagine the music without 'em.
You’ll get it, I promise, if you keep at it. At a certain point, you let go of the mental control and let your physical mechanism take over. It becomes a feeling, more than a thought. And, they get better and better.
Not sure I ever did get around to explaining why on a later page, or talking about these swung rolls… sorry for the confusion. Time for an update (don’t hold your breath ).
Whether you “swing” long rolls by lengthening the first note, or making it sound like a bouncing ball, depends on your personal style and on the rhythm of the tune you’re playing. For example, if you are playing a hornpipe with a nice swing, an evenly spaced long roll just won’t work. You have to swing it.
(Thanks to Bloomfield for pointing out to me that this was what I was doing in a hornpipe I was teaching at a workshop a good few years ago. I hadn’t realized it, and promptly forgot about it until I was flipping through Grey Larsen’s book, where he talks about this.)
If you play a hornpipe very straight, however, as some musicians do. esp. for step dancing competitions, etc., then you’ll need an evenly spaced roll.
Swung long rolls can work well in jigs and reels too, it’s a matter of taste. In the fiddle world, for example, a lot of Sligo-style players will swing them, while W. Clare players (Bobby Casey is a good example) tend not to.
The one place where I think a swung long roll doesn’t work is on “off-beat rolls” in reels. I’ve heard a couple of trendy-young-dude-style players doing this and it jars.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been practising rolls for months now and still can’t get it right all the time… Especially my left hand (I’m a righthander) seems to lead a life of its own at times.
My teacher makes me do my rolls very slowly and evenly (and time and time again). Now I’m several months down the road, he starts to tell me to prolong the first note in some tunes (just like bro. Steve writes. Btw, bro. Steve, thanks a million for your site, extremely helpfull !!!).
So I’ll just keep at it and I’m hopefull in a couple of years, I’ll be able to get it right
!
sorry for the confusion. Time for an update (don’t hold your breath 