A fine whistle tutorial that I am using says to play a roll for an upper octave D as a cran like so:
X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X
X O X X X X X
X X X O X X X
X X X X X O X
X X X X X X X
Is there a different way this could be done?
Also a roll on C nat is something I have not seen show either.
Thanks.
Plenty of old stuff on C nat rolls here and on the Flute Forum - use the search tool.
(Edit:here’s one for you.)
I tend to pseudo-cran 2nd 8ve D but use the vented fingering oxx xxx as the core and cut with L3 then R1 then R2:
oxx xxx
oxo xxx
oxx xxx
oxx oxx
oxx xxx
oxx xox
oxx xxx
You can do a D roll rather than a cran if you like and want to work at it… Sequence is:
oxx xxx
xxx xxo
oxx xxx
ooo ooo ( or ooo xxx)
oxx xxx with a C#, or replace penultimate stage with
oxx xox (or other C nat variant) for a C nat lower element in your roll. With practice a satisfactorily crisp effect is attainable.
Of course, these and the alternatives anyone else may suggest all work just as well on low whistle and on flute as on high whistles - nothing special about the high variety!
(Edited with computer access to clarify/improve - originally posted by mobile phone)
Theres something seriously wrong with your diagram tin-titan, unless your whistle has 7 holes. You seem to have an extra column and at least one extra row. 
A normal cran on D (low or high) which has the same timing as a standard long roll (one cut and one tap separating 3 notes) can be done easily like this where the 2 O’s are 2 quick cuts. Just think of these lines as your 3 notes:
XXXXXX
XXXXOX
XXXOXX
For a longer cran which would have the same timing as an extended long roll separating 4 notes by a cut/tap/cut you can just add another cut to your cran like this:
XXXXXX
XXXXOX
XXXOXX
XXOXXX
You can use any combination of the above 3 cuts in any order you like in any cran long or short. Personally I use the above order as I find it the easiest but I know others do it differently. Basically it doesn’t matter which of those 3 fingers you use for your cuts, or what order you decide to do them in.
The following is information on the C rolls and cuts that I copied from this forum into a text file, I don’t know who originally posted what but here it is, it’s probably better if you think of the following as series of taps which are as good as you’re going to get to emulate a cut sound.
C-Nat cuts:
oxx xox - c-nat
oxx xxx - cut
oxx xox - c-nat
If you use oxx ooo for c-nat:
oxx ooo - c-nat
oxx xxx - cut (plop all three fingers down, may take a little practice)
oxx ooo - c-nat
C# cut:
ooo xxx
oxx xxx
ooo xxx
or
ooo xxx
xoo xxx
ooo xxx
C-Nat Roll:
oxx oxx <–Cn
oxx xxx <–cut
oxx oxx <–Cn
xxx oxx <–tap
oxx oxx <–Cn
Or other way around which I prefer.
Thank you very much for your knowledgeable responses. These give me a lot to work and practice with. Sorry Blaydo. I showed my fingerings vertically. Jem and you are showing them horizontally. In the future I’ll show mine horizontally. The book I own shows them vertically.
Ah I see… horizonal vs vertical… here it’s most common to do it horizonally, with the mouthpiece facing towards the left, the bottom open end of the whistle facing towards the right.
I do the same things on middle D that I do on bottom D, true crans and what I call semi-crans.
From uilleann piping, the “rules” about crans are than any of three digits can be used: the lower-hand’s middle and index fingers, and the upper-hand’s ring finger; and they can be used in any order, but not the same digit twice in a row. A true cran has three cuts, a semi-cran or pseudo-roll, only two cuts.
So on bottom D or middle D you’ll see cut sequences in crans like:
xxx xox
xxx oxx
xxo xxx
or
xxo xxx
xxx oxx
xxx xox
or
xxx oxx
xxx xox
xxo xxx
(these diagrams are omitting the intervening D’s for brevity’s sake.)
All of these can be used on middle D too.
Now, for semi-crans /pseudo-rolls on D you can use any two of those three digits in any order, save using the same digit twice.
xxo xxx
xxx oxx
or
xxx oxx
xxo xxx
or
xxx xox
xxx oxx
or whatever. The actual cuts don’t matter, only the timing does. If you time it like a roll it comes out sounding like a roll, and blends perfectly with fiddlers doing a roll on that middle D.
What’s cool about these psuedo-rolls on middle D is that they sound different if you play the D open opposed to playing D closed. Open, both cuts are actually pitched around C# so technically are pats I suppose; playing D closed and the cuts come out as vague notes higher than the D.
Which leads to playing something that sounds like a true long roll on D: play any two of the cuts above (doesn’t matter which) and if you start the pseudo-roll with the D closed but open the D halfway through (by lifting the upper-hand index finger), the first cut comes out above the D, the second cut below the D, voila a true toll, done without any change in the cutting digits.
Really slowed down, with all the inteving notes notated, it could be diagrammed like this:
xxx xxx
xxx xox
xxx xxx
oxx xxx
oxx oxx
oxx xxx
Once again the exact digits used to do the cutting doesn’t matter to the effect; as long as you lift the top index finger in between the two cuts (shifting middle D from closed to open) so that one cut comes out above and the other cuts comes out below.
Ah! Showing whistle fingering tabs vertically when set above or below standard musical notation is quite normal, sure (for fairly obvious practical layout reasons). We tend to do them horizontal here (and in text generally) because it makes for far easier typing and often avoids the need to tabulate… the convention for horizontal layout being as pancelticpiper describes (which has the added attraction of making good sense to fluters!).
Doh, should have spotted that, we’re just so used to doing them horizontally. To be fair theres no right and wrong way 
If you go to this page: http://www.kerrywhistles.co.uk/dl.php?group=15# and scroll down to “Tutorial_3” the first thing covered in this video is a cran. Download it so you can enlarge it to full screen and see exactly what’s going on. He explains the shorter of the 2 crans explained to you on this thread and you should note that those equal in timing to a standard long roll.
There’s also a pseudo cran which is a combination of a cut and a tongue (Micho Russell). And then there’s “shake” that Grey Larsen describes in one of his books. Mary Bergin does it on her Feadoga Stain album track 7, second jig (Sean Tiobrad Arann) [correction, she does it in the first jig, John Joe’s].
Speaking of seven holes, does anyone roll their D on those whistles having a pinky C hole at the bottom?
If you’re thinking of the “Russell roll”, that’s really more a pseudo-roll than a pseudo-cran. It’s an imitation of a closed roll on the pipes, with the same timing - where the cut doesn’t produce a lower note blip, but stops the sound completely. On whistle, the tongued stop substitutes for the piping tap.