I have listened to Paddy Keenan alot lately. Sometimes he does these super-fast 2nd octave E ornamentations. I cannot figure out exactly what they are. Ideas?
t
Rolls? Crans? Tight Triplets? Open Triplets? Cuts? Pats? Slides? Shakes? Lifting the chanter off the knee? Overblowing? Vibrato? Mordents? Trills? Squeals? Popping? Off the knee playing? Regulator notes in harmony?
Yes. Thank you for narrowing it down for me, Sgt. Rietmann! 
Name a tune on one of his records where he uses this ornament. Paddy uses all kinds of stuff in his playing, after all.
Hey once agin all;
What’s a Pat? or a Mordent? Or a Trill? (I think I know what that is, but what the hell, I’m on a roll…no wait…).
I understand the idea of a squeal, but I don’t know how you make them purposefully, as opposed to how I tend to do it, which is accidentally, in a really bad spot in a tune, and usually when I’m playing with someone else in the room.
Mostly serious,
Mark
Kevin Rietmann wrote:
“Name a tune on one of his records where he uses this ornament. Paddy uses all kinds of stuff in his playing, after all.”
Yes very good. On the B part of Out on the Ocean on his , god what is that album called now, it’s the one with the snowy forest picture and the fiddler and the stone painting…it’ll come to me by the end of this writing maybe. Second measure of the B part. Sounds like five Es very rapidly. The other place is on “The Brown” album on The Ace and Deuce of Pipering. That ornament sounds like an EGEG kind of thing, maybe but more than a triplet. It is at bar five.
t
i think that he’s playing consecutive rolls - he often plays double rolls (especially on ‘g’ i think) but on this tune (out on the ocean) i think he does as many as 4 back to back
JQP, the different ornaments mentioned are available in the Denis Brook’s tutor from the Seattle Irish Pipers’ Club. If you are not already a member I would highly recommend it. Their newsletter, “The Pipers’ Review”, is always very good - what one could have hoped that An Piobaire would be.
http://www.irishpipersclub.org/
djm
“Out on the Ocean” Jig in G (and A) Na Keen Affair track 11:
I don’t know many, if any, pipers who do rolls on E (upper or lower) because, although the action is easy enough, the results are not desired. You’re not looking for a roll that involves Eb (on the knee) or E# (off the knee.
Denis Brooks and Todd Denman showed me this one: an “action” of the fingers which “fakes” a roll on the E (kinda like K. Burke fakes a roll on the open E string of the fiddle) which involves holding the knee on the chanter and fluttering the middle and index finger of the lower hand (alternating the two fingers to the rythm of a long roll). I think this is what he’s doing…it sounds right, works for me, and is the way I have always seen it played.
But Paddy is never to be underestimated. He could have a compound trick up his sleeve. There is a technique which actually graces the E note with the 3rd finger of the upper hand (A note) at the same time you are fluttering the other two fingers. Years of practice renders some of these tricks undistinguishable from other things that sound like rolls.
When Paddy changes into the key of A, again I don’t know of many, if any, pipers who roll the upper because of the undesired results. The F# goes natural if you lift the lower fingers. He does several things here, including a running triplet from F# to A. In the lower octave, the F# rolls fine. There is a technique which also involves using the 3rd finger of the upper hand (A) with the lower F# long roll (a combo grace-cran again), which sounds pretty cool, and which give a certain lilt not otherwise obtained.
I do this at the beginning of “The Mountain Road” (gracing an F# roll). 
Rolls on E, open or closed, upper or lower are easy. Especially easy for Paddy Keenan. Paddy does a lot of stuff on E, but you may be describing a double-cut roll, which uses two cuts before a tap. The tap can be either staccato closed, or usually a roll down to ghost D done by lightly tipping the right ring finger.
What I hear in the forum called a “cran” more often than not is what I’d call a “doubling” or “double-cut” which is sort-of hybridized GHB technique and Keenan occasionally uses a double-cut roll, or two cut on A, followed by a tap to G to pull off a “birl” pattern on A or any other note. GHB players call these “shakes” usually, a combination of a doubling and a slur.
He could also be playing a staccato tipped E, with as many as three tipps after the melody note, just breaking the long E into a triplet or so by closing the chanter in an insanely clean and fast fashion.
He also does an odd cran/tip/roll thing where he plays a G staccato to an E staccatto followed by one or a couple of tipped staccato E’s a lot. He does this all the time on F# as well.
Royce
Try this… Imagine you are doing a fast vibrato with your two e fingers but you are tapping the holes, lifting the chanter of the knee alittle to rise E towards Fnat (2nd 8ve). Shazam, a fast succession of notes rising in pitch. One of the benefits of Concert Pitch, not that you can’t do it on a Flat, it just ain’t so good…
Alan
Sounds painful! You should get together with the guy who’s holding the chanter upside down!
Who, your uncle? The one who, as you say, “…could speak backwards, full speed?”
pssssst…hey, drink more water and less beer, I mean…well, try flushing out the pipes, and hammer out those tunes with your knee off the chanter, off and on, like you did the first time! It’ll make you want to start all over, again.
Read the post “D#” key for the upside down chanter.
I did have an uncle who could speak backwards. looC! I reven tog ot raeh mih, yleftanutrofnu.
I come from Alabama, with a chanter on my knee…
