Question about bouncing notes

Whistle
1

Ok, “bouncing notes” is probably not a good technical term. I’m talking about those sections of notes, notably in reels, where the notes bounce tween the upper and lower octaves on the whistle.

I was forced to think about these more while evaluating Jerry Freeman’s tweaked Sweetone, and I remembered something that’s has puzzled me since I started going to session.

Let’s take one tune as an example, the Glass of Beer. Here’s an ABC of it from JC’s:

X:1
T:The Glass of Beer
R:reel
D:Oisin: Over the Moor to Maggie.
D:Frankie Gavin: Up and Away
Z> :id:> hn-reel-77
M:C|
F:> http://jc.tzo.net/~jc/music/abc/Contra/reel/GlassOfBeer_Bm.abc
K:Bm
|: fBB2 > fBaB | fB> B2 e2de | fBB2 f3e |1 dfaf e2de :|2 dfaf e2fe ||
|: d3e f3e | defd eAA2 | d3e fgfe |1 dfaf e2fe :|2 dfaf e2de |]

The section I’m spcifically referring to covers the first 2 measures, where I’ve bolded the notes.

When I hear fiddles play this, the B sounds more like a drone note than a distinct note. When I hear whistles play this as written, each note is much more distinct, as a matter of course. But my question has more to do with how this bounce is executed on woodwinds. I’ve heard a number of flute players and whistlers totally remove the “drone” note when playing this kind of passage, and lengthening the upper octave note. Things end up getting played like:

|: fBB2 > f2a2 | f2> B2 e2de |

I’ve heard the “bounce” removed in this way from various players on tunes like Glass of Beer above, Drowsy Maggie, Tam Lin, and Gravel Walk, just off the top of my head. Is it a matter of someone’s ear not catching the drone note when they learned the tune, or more of a matter of giving more emphasis to the non-drone notes like a fiddle does? I guess my question is, is this a common or recommended thing to do in some circumstances?

Thoughts anyone? :slight_smile:

2

Try playing more legato for a change :smiley:


(that was serious, practice a tune like the Morning Dew, try minimise tongueing in the phrase that have your ‘bounces’ or ‘rocking pedal’ as Steve calls them)

3

Removing the drone note kills the tune, making the passage sound lame and leaden.

Playing more legato will help. I’d particularly suggest not tonguing the “bounce” notes - the ones in the upper octave in your example. I often tongue them in pairs, but tonguing the “pedal” note (the B in your example), which is basically how I’d articulate many of these passages on the fiddle.

Such passages are sometimes rephrased to avoid the “rocking pedal” figure on a particular instrument, or to swap a difficult note with another that fits. (Just listen to fluters playing The Traveller and see how many avoid playing the B in the passage that starts the second part: g2 dg Bgdg). But you shouldn’t need to do that very often with a whistle.

(BTW Peter I got the rocking pedal term years ago from Graeme Smith, an ethnomusicologist in Melbourne with a particular interest in Irish music, and AFAIK he coined it.)

Steve

4

I agree with Steve. I do everything I can to RETAIN the fiddle “pedal” effect. The upper notes standout and it gives melodic shape. Seen in another way, its almost as if you are playing percussion and using different drums to separate the upper notes and the pedals.

A great tune for playing around with this effect is Franks Reel, the second part.

5

On the other hand, quite often new ones are introduced by whistleplayers eg Mary Bergin playing the second part of the Up to your knees in sand, Willie Clancy taking the Morning Dew to the cleaners etc etc

6

Thanks Steve..this is the kind of information I was looking for…I’m of the same opinion about the drone.

I guess I was asking a style question, and not so much a “how can I play this easier” question…I had just heard enough people drop the drone note that I was starting to think that perhaps I’d missed that lesson somewhere. I was fully expecting someone to post “gee, all whistlers do it that way you ninny.” :wink:

I remember reading (a couple years ago maybe?) your advice on tonguing the drone rather than bounce note..I wasn’t able to do it very cleanly then, but did pick up tonging them in pairs around that time. Maybe I’ll give your suggestion another try now that I’ve got some more skills and see how it goes

7

Gee, all whistlers do it that way, you ninny. :smiley: (feel better now?)

On a more serious tone, you have to look at the inherent agility of each respective instrument in order really answer why some instruments do certain things better than others. Octave leaps on a Piano are substantially different than say, a Trombone, or a Guitar or even a whistle. Various string crossings will enable a note to be held in position or even let to ring freely actually sustaining the drone through the next several notes. As far as raw agility goes, I would think that whistle, especially high D, would be among the most agile instruments around. There really wouldn’t be a reason to leave those notes out. Perhaps it is just lazy/inexperienced playing. The instrument will support the leap, the player simply isn’t executing well.

8

Hey Wanderer, let’s talk about this on Friday.

9

Okee doke :slight_smile:

I used to hear this a lot in Houston from certain guys, and after a while, I just quit thinking about it, though it’s always niggled at me in the back of my mind. When I posted the sweetone review, it reminded me :slight_smile:

Incidentally, Joe of the Flying Fish Sailors (for those who know this ren-faire band) drops the drone note on Drowsy Maggie on their Remnant Stew album..which is when I first ran into the phenomenon and started thinking about it.

I’ve made some small clips (<10 seconds, should be legal Fair Use under copyright since this is a scholarly discussion)
Flying Fish showing what I mean by dropping drone note on Drowsy Maggie.
L.E. McCullough in his 121 irish session tunes set, with the drone note in.

10

Been thinking about this tonguing in pairs business since my last post and wanted to say that I really think that tonguing “patterns” (or bowing patterns) aren’t an answer in themselves.

In fact there’s any number of ways to tongue or not tongue passages like this and have it sound good. The same patterns can also be made to sound, um, not so good. There are more subtle things at work I think than simply where you tongue, and only your ears (or someone else’s) can tell you if something is working or not.

In other words doing what I suggested above won’t of itself guarantee a good flow or feel. In fact I just tried that passage in the Glass of Beer at home and was surprised to find that I generally don’t do it like that at all. :slight_smile:

The flow is definitely the thing!

11

This advice keeps haunting me. I can’t even imagine how you would tongue in a pattern like this; it seems like it would be going completely against the grain of the music. I don’t suppose you could provide a recording?

12

You know, I was just thinking of asking that very question. I guess I just can’t figure out how to do what’s described…

13

Guys, it’s really not very complicated, you know - just do what it says :slight_smile:

OK, here](http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/clips/pairs.mp3%22%3Ehere) are few examples recorded in haste, starting with an easier passage (Boys of Bluehill) to show you the principle. In The Gravel Walk, I tend to tongue the first high A, which is on the beat, but then use the pairs pattern. I also usually tongue the high A in Glass of Beer but didn’t here for the sake of the example.

But as I said in my later post, I’m not sure whether patterns matter very much. This is the just the way I tend to do things, probably based on my fiddler’s instincts, take it for what it’s worth.

Does this help?

14

Well, at least it makes it clear it is possible to do it and make it sound good.

Don’t think I’m going to start tonguing passages like this, though. :slight_smile:

15

To answer your previous comment about “going against the grain of the music”: much in Irish music is counter-intuitive, or goes against the grain if you like, for people coming from another background. I feel qualified to say this because I learned violin before taking up fiddle.

But as far as “the music” is concerned, there shouldn’t be anything surprising about this pattern, because slurring across beats and bar lines is almost a defining feature of most styles of playing Irish music, esp. in fiddling but also in flute and whistle playing.

I think it’s safe to say that a majority of fiddle players from the south and west of Ireland anyway would not change bow on the downbeats in passages like this.

Many people learning Irish music on the whistle would instinctively tongue the downbeats, but that IMO is much harder to make sound good (if indeed it’s possible to make it sound good - I’m not sure it is) than the reverse, and that is why I suggested this alternative approach to Wanderer.

S

16

It’s not slurring across beats I find odd, it’s tonguing off-beat. Especially because you’re tonguing the note that shouldn’t get the emphasis. I think that’s something only a fiddler player would dream up. (But obviously you can make it work!)

Many people learning Irish music on the whistle would instinctively tongue the downbeats, but that IMO is much harder to make sound good (if indeed it’s possible to make it sound good - I’m not sure it is) than the reverse, and that is why I suggested this alternative approach to Wanderer.

Seems to me the natural approach is simply not to tongue in these passages.

17

FWIW I had to think really hard what I was actually doing (I never learned the whistle in a conscious way, more as an on the fly/on the side thing) but I found that if I tongue these movements at all I tongue the off beat (or if you like the drone) notes.

18

Actually, it does. I just couldn’t quite get how you meant it when I read your explanation, but it was immediately obvious how you were using your breath and tongue the instant I heard it. I was able to duplicate it right away. Sometimes you just gotta use your ears :slight_smile:

And, of course, after hearing it and experimenting, I realized that I already play this way in a few reels, such as when I play the 2nd octave BFAF in the B portion of Otter’s Holt. I just picked it up somewhere without thinking about it, I suppose.

Now that I have something concious to think about, I can experiment and see where I like using that particular advice. Thanks Steve!

19

LOL. I can assure you it wasn’t “dreamed up” but like almost everything else in my whistle playing it just happened. Like Peter I started playing the whistle on the fly and on the side. The only reason I even know that I do stuff like this is because I’ve had to deconstruct my playing in order to teach.

I have found a number of other parallels between bowings used by fiddlers and articulation used by whistlers, and I’m not talking particularly about my own playing here.

An example would be the common tonguing pattern for jigs used by a great many players, including Mary Bergin, Moloney and Potts to name a few well-known exponents. I explain this technique on Brother Steve, calling it the slur-tongue-tongue pattern. This is an exact counterpart of a bowing technique used by many west of Ireland players in jigs.

Again, I didn’t consciously adopt this pattern to match what I did on the fiddle, nor did I analyze what other whistle players were doing. It just happened, and I realized what I was doing and that I had probably unconsciously copied it from other players much later. The fact that it matches fiddle bowing is merely a nice confirmation of its rightness.

Another parallel with fiddling is articulating off-beat rolls in this way:

B .(E {a}E{D}E) with the dot indicating articulation with the tongue or a new bow stroke and the bracketed group indicating legato

Not done by every whistle player, nor by every fiddle player, but by a considerable majority, I’m fairly certain.

Forgive the long-winded reply, just wanted to counter your implication that I dreamed stuff like this up just to be unnatural.

PS Colomon If you take the whole “bouncing note” passage without tonguing, then you can’t say you’re slurring across the beats - you’re just slurring everywhere. To make a slur across the beats, in passages like this or elsewhere, you have to articulate somewhere off the beat. It seems to me.

PPS Wanderer Glad it makes sense.

20

Before I ever read that I was supposed to avoid tonguing, on this Forum, I was tonguing in a natural but not every-note way. Frankly, I wish I had never read it because it messed up everything for me and made it unnatural. I find myself trying to bring my tongue back into playing, except for BSteve’s good advice on jigs, which really helped to direct a way to articulate on jigs.

Somehow I think that tonguing doesn’t go in what would seem to be obvious places, like on prominent strong beats, because it makes them TOO strong.

BTW, on some jigs I use that method, but on other jigs, where it seems right, I do a notecutnote on repeats. Like Scatter the Mud, I tongue or at least separate (cant grab a whistle right now) with emphasis, the high note then notecutnote. I think it works there, perhaps because of the fact that its more than a third away, in a minor mode and seems dramatic. Scatter always seems like a “war tune” to me, whereas other jigs are happier. I think I also accent the first three 1 notes of the triplets (and notecutnote on 2,3) on “Trippin Up the Stairs” because it reminds me of going up the stairs! It almost seems like there is a fine line between actualy tonguing a note versus “thinking” it tongued or emphasized with air.

I am not sure about beat patterns and such for other kinds of places to tongue. But one thing I have been meaning to wonder aloud here is that:
I find myself tonguing C naturals on strong beats sometimes because its a weaker note, like on Bank of Ireland. Also, sometimes when I am playing an arpeggiated pattern and it feels like its sloppy, I find that inserting a tongued note helps shape it. I guess its usually on a strong beat or sub-beat. I also find myself tonguing short rolls on certain notes because they seem too formless without it (mostly in lower octave).