I have a questions about rolls. I purchased Grey Larson’s “big book” about 6 months ago, and as many of you no doubt know, he has a number of different types of rolls listed. To be completely honest, at this point in my piker flute playing “career,” most of it is over my head (i.e., ability). However, I would like to try to master the long and short rolls. The short ones I think I have sort of down, but I have no clue how he is doing the long rolls. I’ve listened and listened and listened again, read his descriptions a million times, but I still just don’t get it. Is he playing a full note, then another of the same but rolling it? I just can’t hear it for some reason and I’m starting to think I’m a bigger moron than I’ve always known that I am. Anyone have any tricks, suggestions, or advice. I’m ALL ears!!
I have the book and am at a similar stage. Grey makes the point that short rolls are actually harder than long rolls because you need to prepare for the first cut.
The thing about long rolls is that they take up 3 quavers (eighth notes). In a jig, they are the same as a “triplet”. In a reel, they take up one and a half beats.
There are three separate “notes”:
The first one is sounded as you would normally play it if you weren’t going to play a roll. “As normal” here means that it might be tongued, or it might be cut, or it might be slurred into from a previous note
The second note starts with a cut
The third note starts with a strike
To take an example, the Kesh Jig starts with a G after a pickup from low D (? I think? I am away from my flute here). If I roll this G, I would tongue the first G, cut the second one and strike the third.
Hope this makes sense (and I am a beginner too, so I hope it is correct as well!).
A short roll drops the first note, and starts with the cut, so you have to be ready with the cut finger off the flute a split second before playing the first note. Depending on what was immediately before the roll, this can be tricky, which is why Grey says they are harder.
My first post to this forum, though I’ve been lurking for a few months!
Seems to me that advice above is sound except for point that a long roll takes up same space as a triplet. A triplet in a jig or a reel is three notes in the space of two: e.g. instead of playing BD, one might play play BCD in same space of time. Whereas a long roll takes up space of three quavers: in a jig, one might play a long G roll instead of GFG or G-G etc. A triplet and a short roll would be ‘equivalent’ in time.The key to keeping all this together is to have some means of keeping regular time: tap your foot or whatever in a regular beat to the music and fit in your notes, ornamentation, variations into that time frame kept by your foot.
Long rolls sound like “dah-blah-blah.” I don’t play them quite as evenly as Steve advocates (I usually hold the first “dah” a bit longer) but the concept works well.
Short rolls sound like “diddly”
For a long roll on G, the “dah-blah-blah” translates as G-G-G…those are the main notes you hear, and they are separated by cuts or taps (note-cut-note-tap-note).
For a short roll on G, you start with the cut (the “di” in diddly), then G, then the tap, then back to G.
For short rolls, it helps to come to a dead stop just before you do that first cut. Cut off the end of the note that comes before the cut, either with a glottal stop or your tongue – if you listen carefully to most good flute or whistle players you’ll hear them doing this. It adds lift to the music.
I haven’t seen Grey’s book, so I don’t know what’s going on there, but with regards to Brad’s comment above, I think it may be important to note, for those who are new, that “long” rolls come in more than one phrasing (as alluded to by Brad): For example the very measured (evenly spaced) Daah-blaah-blaah (as on BS’s site), and Daaah-blah-blah, as sited by Brad. Both fit within the same time/note spacing, at a given tempo, in a tune, however they sound very different and, while debateably somewhat interchangeable, I’m not certain this is really the case. Certainly playing ALL of your rolls one way or the other leads to somewhat less insterseting sounding playing, IMO. Question: How many folks play the long A rolls at the start of Silver Spear exactly the same way that they play the g and f# long rolls later in the tune?
Having learned long rolls initially in the Daaah-blah-blah fashion, I have recently come to understand that I would have been far better served to have learned to play very evenly measured long rolls Dah-blah-blah first, because it seems more difficult to even out rolls after learning them the unevenly first, and more importantly, the finger control necessary to play evenly measured rolls gives one the solid co-ordination foundation to learn an play both even and un-even long rolls more precisely, particularly when playing up-tempo and really slow tunes.
That’s been my experience, anyway, fwiw, which probably ain’t much
This is exactly what Grey says in his book - pay attention to getting the rhythm very even when you first learn the ornaments. Later on he has a section about varying the timing (and also varying the “depth” of cuts and strikes - Grey leaves no stone unturned).
Agreed, playing evenly measured long g and f# rolls at that point in the tune wouldn’t sound right, so the “Daaah-blah-blah” is most apropriate there.
And yes, I start on F#, then long (even) roll A and then cut the B. One can’t really play a the Daaah-blah-blah roll on the A, hence my example, but the measured roll does work. I suspect I’m doing the first cut in the space you take to “stop” in preparation for the beginning of your short roll Brad.
I used to play it F# then a two finger cran on B and A (don’t ask ) but my current flute teacher gave me what for about that, and put me on the above program directly!
By the way, for a really nice example of evenly spaced roll application, check out Molloy’s playing of Drowsy Maggie on the WFO #1 (Originally from his Heathery Breeze recording I think.) I’ve been using this track as the inspiration to really drill my evenly spaced rolls. Love hearing that low flute too
I found that studying the book and his CD’s became confusing to me. I read it over and got the basic idea. Next step, for me, was hearing what I had been reading about in the music I listen too - OH there it is! Then the trick is to find one tune you know,and find a spot that you can execute a roll in, and then learn to do that in that song - actually use it. Then find another. Just do that with one of the ornaments and then come back later and work on the next step. Take your time.
Don’t feel bad if the rolls don’t come to you easily – Rolls are by far the hardest thing for most people to get right. I know people who’ve been playing for four or five years and still don’t play rolls correctly, while others can pick it up fairly quickly. Give yourself time to work on them and be patient. Listening closely to recordings or live players does help…it gives you a better sense of what to aim for.
i agree! you COULD play that first A as a long roll, and fit the timing… but it wouldnt sound right. for the g and f# rolls, sometimes i even hold the first f# longer in the f# roll than the first g in its. sometimes i even do a cut at the end of the f# instead of a roll.
the real question is do you do a short B roll at the section that goes:
|dfed B2A2|
i’ve see and heard it played |dfed B3A|, but i think that i like it more with 2 quarter notes (crotchets) rather than a dotted quarter (crotchet) followed by an 8th (quaver).
Actually I tried it and it works very nicely as a variation (going directly from the long A roll up to the second octave d), but I wouldn’t play a long roll there normally.
For that B I usually do a “bounce,” sort of a B-C#-B triplet, by lifting my B finger and putting it back down again, rather than an actual short roll.
However, this tune is a work in progress for me: Tearing it down and essentially starting from scratch, working on a bit at a time with my instructor, so much is changing. I now take a sorely needed breath in that spot so I’m currently playing B(breath)A However, in a week, that might change again!
I’m not too happy with the phrasing in some places, but I guess it’s just habit. It’s funny too, I’m learning this on the pipes and play it more the Seamus Ennis way (with two Ds at the end of the first phrase instead of C# D) and it sounds more right to my ear that way. But I’ve been playing the C# for so long on the flute I can’t seem to lose it!
Okay, I’m completely befuddled by this. How is F#-A (stop) short-roll-on-A effectively different from F#-long-roll-on-A, other than being much more awkward to play? Unless your timing is off, it’s the exact same combination of notes and articulations, only with a pause added. Sixteenth | sixteenth rest | cut | eighth | tap | eighth
versus
eighth | cut | eighth | tap | eighth?
I can see why you might argue that it calls for an off-beat long roll – the sort that’s swung a little with a longish tap that’s more-or-less another note. (My impression is that this is what LE McCullough was trying to capture with all those eigth-triplet patterns in his tunebook.) Whether I’d play it that way or as a straight long roll would probably depend on how much swing I was playing with.
Or is this yet another concept of rolls that I’ve not run into before?
) but my current flute teacher gave me what for about that, and put me on the above program directly! 