My left-hand fingers don’t seem to want to operate independently for rolls on B; my middle finger doesn’t seem to want to come down, certainly not at speed. Oddly, I don’t have as much trouble with rolls on A, possibly because bringing down my ring finger directly after bringing down the middle finger helps me in pulling that middle finger down.
(Did that make sense? I’m thinking all fuzzy this morning. Need more coffee.)
Any hints on rolls starting on B, or is it just one of those “Practice, practice, practice” things?
I had the same problem… it’s just a dexterity issue with right / left handed as far as I can tell. Just find a tune that has a good roll in it right there and play it at a slow pace over and over and then LEAVE IT. Just play something you normally enjoy playing… then come back to it, do the same thing, and you’ll get used to it.
Anyhow, that’s how I did it. Buried my wife and dnaced on her grave helped me out a lot, and Rolling in the ryegrass… 2 of my absolute favs. the B part of Rolling in the ryegrass will give you a purdy good workout.
Does the middle finger move when doing a roll on A? I thought you hold the middle finger stationary on the hole, cut with the first finger and tap with the ring finger, like this:
xxo ooo
oxo ooo
xxo ooo
xxx ooo
xxo ooo
For me it’s harder to do a clean roll on A than a roll on B.
Whoops! You’re right; I just air-whistled a tune with an A-roll, and I do them (it turns out) like you’ve posted above. Amazing what I don’t know about how I play. . .
So, on the flute board, James posted the pattern:
xoo ooo
ooo ooo
xoo ooo
xxx ooo
xoo ooo
for the B roll, which I can do – and thought I’d been cheating, doing it that way – since the problem for me seems to be moving my A and G fingers independently on the B roll. (I’d thought tapping the B-roll with xxo ooo, rather than xxx ooo, was the “proper” way of doing it; I was probably wrong.)
I don’t know why I seem able to do a cleaner A roll than a B roll, now, come to think of it. Go figure.
In my humble experience, there is no such thing as cheating when it comes to roll’s. Even if there are patterns for how to do a proper roll, many whistle teachers recomend you find out for yerself how you do it. And if you listen to a good whistle player, two rolls seldom sound alike.
For me, things started working out with rolls when I learned to play the Donnybrook Fair jig. Everything suddenly fell into place and I started out with just taping and cutting with no sertain pattern. I experimented a bit and have now found the rolls wich sounds almost like those of the proffesionals. I’m not saying I’m a roll “master”, It can still be hard, but I’m saying I can do it and I have never practised rolls by any pattern written in a tutorial or anything like that. Just flick your fingers fast, almost at full speed and I think you’ll find out how to do it.
Oh, I have no trouble with the speed, or the execution, of rolls in general. Just that B-roll, which, when I play it with the
xxo ooo
cut, is either sloppy or nonexistent (sometimes my A finger doesn’t even make it all the way onto the hole if I play it with that fingering).
I wonder if there’s no audible difference, though. Seems like if we’re just aiming for the “blip” of sound, it’d be easier to roll just by cutting or tapping the same finger twice in succession. Or to cran by just bouncing a single finger, instead of the “classic” way.
That is, why not roll “B” like so:
xoo ooo
xxo ooo
xoo ooo
xxo ooo
xoo ooo
if there’s no audible difference?
I know we’re not aiming at getting distinct notes out of the cut and tap, or the cran, but surely we’re able to hear that the cut is higher, or at least different, than the tap, and the alternate notes in the cran are different from each other. Aren’t we? If not, I’m really deluding myself, because I think I can hear the difference!
Wouldn’t be the first time, though (the self-delusion thing). . .
This is apparently more of a widespread problem than you’d think; I too have trouble on the B rolls sometimes. You might try coming down with both L2 and L3. Everybody’s hooked up a bit different tendon/ligament-wise, so maybe the two will move more freely and with more of that drum-tap control together.
Actually… my mistake… it doesn’t I was thinking about how it helped me learn rolls period. One of the easiest songs in the world to learn rolls, and my buddy who taught it to me, originally taught it to me while he played it on the bagpipes.
There’s a good clip on Clips n’ Snips that sounds preetty darn close to the way he played it.
You’re right; I just air-whistled a tune with an A-roll, and I do them (it turns out) like you’ve posted above. Amazing what I don’t know about how I play. . .