I am trying to pick out the bagpipe part, for playing on whistle.
It’s just one note that I can’t get right, it doesn’t matter which hole or half-hole I press my finger to it just sounds wrong. They don’t have the notation on The Session.
The bagpipe part begins att 2.44, and goes (that which I’ve figured out, please bear with my lack of correct notation skills, I just type out the keys):
E - F# - G - G - F# - E|
D - E - F# - G - A - G - F# - E - D |
G - G - F# - G - A - B - A - G - F# - E - D |
E - E - D - E - F# - ? - ? - ? - ? - ? |
This is not the whole bagpipe part, but only up to where I have lost it. After the question marks I get back on track again.
So, what should be behind those question marks?
Thanks
Bear in mind that the pipes don’t have quite the same scale that your whistle does. A whistle is tuned to a tempered scale like a piano. A bagpipe chanter’s scale is tuned to a natural scale–the harmonic series of the drone note.
Ahh, does this mean that the pipes don’t have a pitch similar to the whistle (or other tempered scale instruments) at all, or just that it has SOME notes that can’t be played with the aforementioned? Because I think playing whistle to the pipes sounds quite unison until the song gets to the part that I fail to play.
What Simon said. It’s probably the intonation that’s throwing you off. Google for “Equal temperament” (ET) and “Just intonation” (JI) to find out about the differences. Often, a flat-sounding F# and B (relative to ET) are clues that you’re dealing with a just-tuned instrument.
Some whistles are tuned closer to ET and some closer to JI. In any case, when playing with other instruments, you need to control your intonation with the breath and fingering to blend well with the other instruments.
There’s nothing too strange about that piping part:
X:1
T:The Yew Tree
M:3/4
K:Em
E3G A2|A3G E2|D2E F2G|A2G FED|
G2 GF GA|BA GF ED|E2 ED EG|B2 BA GE||
A3B c2|A3G E2|F3G A2|F3E D2|
DG GF GA|BA GF ED|E2 ED EG|B2 BA GE||
AA2 A2A|G6|AA2 A2A|B6|c4 d2|B3A G2|A6-|A6|]
This may sound strange, but I haven’t the slightest idea how to count rhythm.
I know 4/4, but that’s as far as it goes.
Can anyone tell me the rhythm of “The Yew Tree”, posted in the first message? I’m trying to nail it, as a practice session, using Cubase, but I think I need a metronome to keep the pace.
I thought the rhythm of the notation was primarily for the pipe part.
It seems to be a change of rhythm when the pipes start playing… but it works nice to play for the rest of the song too so I must be mistaken.
Thanks.
I thought hemeola effect is the quantum phenomenon that will allow faster than light travel in the 22nd century. At least, that’s what a novel I read recently said. Oooooh, picture a huge space ship shaped like a high G whistle. The hemeola drive sounds a third octave F# which warps space-time and allows FTL travel. It could work…
Checked out hemiola effect. Understood nothing, but maybe I don’t have to at the moment.
It seems common in classical music mostly.
But could someone explain to me the metronome notations?
What does 3, respectively 4, stand for in 3/4?
Maybe it’s not within the scope of the whistle forum, but since I didn’t find any explanation on wikipedia that I really understood, I thought I’d ask here.
The hemiola is a common trick in Renaissance dance music. But it’s a kind of polyrhythm, which can occur in any kind of world music, including ITM. If you have 6 notes, there are basically 2 different ways that you can group them:
a) 123 456 b) 12 34 56
If you alternate between these two groupings, you have a hemiola. Check out the Solas version of “Wind That Shakes the Barley” from their “Sunny Spells” album. The song is one long hemiola.
Time signatures …
Top number: The number of beats per measure
Bottom number: The kind of note that gets one of those beats.
4/4 - 4 beats per measure. A quarter note (crotchet) gets one beat.*
2/2 - 2 beats per measure. A half note (minim) gets one beat.**
3/4 - 3 beats per measure. A quarter note gets one beat.
2/4 - 2 beats per measure. A quarter note gets one beat.
6/8 - 6 beats per measure. An eighth note (quaver) gets one beat.
9/8 - 9 beats per measure. An eighth note gets one beat.
12/8 - 12 beats per measure. An eighth note gets one beat.
Also called Common Time, represented by the letter C.
** Also called Cut Time, represented by the letter C with a vertical line.
These are the common time signatures for Irish dance music.
Also, jigs and slides are usually counted by mentally grouping eight notes into groups of 3, and each group gets a strong beat:
Jigs (counted in 2): 123 456
Slip Jigs (counted in 3): 123 456 789
Slides (counted in 4): 123 456 789 10-11-12
This is just a peculiarity of standard notation, because the bottom number of the time signature must be a multiple of 2, and there is no such thing as a “three quarter” note.
A.
dha dhin na / tha thin na
dha dhin na / tha thin na
dha tin / ta tin / dhin dhin
dha tin / ta tin / dhin dhin
dhage dhina gena / dhage tuna kena
dhage dhina gena / dhage tuna kena
tanadhin ta / terekete ta / dha digiridha
tanadhin ta / terekete ta / dha digiridha
B.
dha tere kete / dha ge na
dha ge thin / na ke na
tha tere kete / dha ge na
dha ge dhin / na ge na
dha tere kete / dha ge na
dha ge thin / na ke na
tha tere kete / dha ge na
dha ge dhin / na ge na
MT, (speaking tabla) so the A group is “hemiolic” percussion articulation but B is not “hemiolic”?
Have I understood that term properly? Thanks.
What I don’t understand is why the last digit of the time signature matters so much.
As I’ve gathered, the last digit in for example 4/4, stands for how long/short the notes in the bar are.
But 4/4 at 120 BPM takes as long as 2/4 at 60 BPM. So why not just count beat and BPM, since speed (tone length) obviously varies?
4/4 at 120 BPM is twice as fast as 2/4 (or 4/4) at 60 BPM.
Think about it. When you set your metronome to 60 BPM, the bottom number tells you what kind of note gets each of those beats. In this case, a quarter note (crotchet) gets one beat, and each beat lasts one second (60 beats per 60 seconds).
The top number tells you how many of those beats are in each measure, either 4 beats or 2 beats. But that doesn’t change the speed of the beats, only the grouping of the beats into one measure.
Remember, the time signature is not a normal fractional number as in mathematics. If you double the playing speed with the same BPM, then 4/4 becomes 2/2, not 2/4. That is why 2/2 is called “Cut Time” - “cut” means that the duration of each note is cut in half.
2/2 is the normal way to count reels, with 2 beats per measure, and a half note (minim) getting one beat. The metronome is typically around 120 BPM. Which means that each half note (group of 4 eighth notes) gets one beat, there are 2 beats in each measure, and each beat has a duration of 1/2 second (= 2 beats per second).
Again, the bottom number tells you what kind of note corresponds to each metronome beat. That is the importance of the bottom number.
Counting time signatures in triple meter (3/8, 6/8, 9/8 etc.) is slightly different, but I won’t go into an explanation of that here.
So in 3/4, 3 means that in each measure there is three beats.
And 4 means the duration of each beat?
But then, changing BPM should regulate the speed of each measure, and therefore the length of each beat? Therefore the bottom number is closely tied to the BPM?
How should one practically know what the bottom number means practically? How can one say how long a crotchet is, when it’s all dependant on BPM?
Note that if I again am wrong and this is getting tedious you can tell me to go read a book.
I saw a “music theory for dummies” on ebay..
I’m not stupid, I just find this hard to grasp by some reason.
