scales on the pipes

Uilleann Pipes
1

Hi,
I’m migrating this thread here from the uillean discussion list, cause no one there wanted to take a stab at it. Here goes…

Would someone be willing to list out the scales which one could play on the chanter, starting from the most common /keyless ones ie. D or G on to less common (A) then to ones that require more chanter keys or half-holeing. An alternative way is to list them by skill level and practical use. So for beginners have just the couple keys you will find in most tunes in the tutor books, then for intermediate, list some of the less common
but still occasionally seen keys, then advanced have the “try this hotshot” keys. It would be a big help as this topic is not really touched on in any of the tutors I’ve seen.
Thanks,
james

2

I heard a tape of Kieran O’Hare and Jessie Smith, pipes and fiddle, where they played a tune in F#. I didn’t really pay attention to how it all worked.
Scales? Willie Clancy could play the Dublin Reel in C. Perhaps key is a more apt term or consideration, I don’t think pipers care about scales per se. Major, Minor, and modal scales such as D Mixolydian, the major scale with a flattened seventh. Even this is an inadequate description; consult Tomas O’Cainian’s book “Traditional Music of Ireland” for an excellent description of the system of Irish music.
The tutors don’t cover playing in alternate keys much because it’s painful enough trying to learn to play in D and G. Fiddlers and box players waste their time with A a lot.

You see this a lot in sessions. G minor is sometimes inflicted on us, also D minor. A is like G, only a tone higher in pitch. When I play A tunes in G I inevitably get the old line “It sounds better in A.” Whatever. Ever hear Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in C Minor?

3

A bit of explanation…
This whole thing got started because of the article in the latest “An Piobaire” by Mick Coyne in which he advocates playing “scales, arpeggios, runs and triplets” as separate exercises to enhance technique and general command of the chanter. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really give any examples of what he’s talking about in the article. Someone on the uillean list who had Mick Coyne as a teacher at Willie Week enlightened us to some of the triplet exercises and some homebrew arpeggio exercises. I was just digging for info on which scales might apply to the pipes. Esp as Coyne seems to advocate doing “unlikely” scales which might require keys and/or half holeing of notes to achieve.
J.

4

I only know the major scales by heart, never bothered with minor though i remember them to be similar only with lowered notes.. :astonished:

here they are:
The key the scale is in being the first letter of the row.

C D E F G A B C
G A B C D E F# G
D E F# G A B C# D
A B C# D E F# G# A
E F# G# A B C# D# E
B C# D# E F# G# A# B
F# G# A# B C# D# E# F#
C# D# E# F# G# A# B# C#

A# is obviously also B flat (Which you can get a key for on the chanter)

With the proper keys fitted and/or halfholing you could play all these scales.
If you take the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of each scale you got that chord.
If you add the 7th note you get the septime chord.
Not that you play many chords on the chanter but just to show how it works..

Now if someone would put up the minor scales that would be great.
Or i might have to rummage in my old music stuff from 20 years ago.. lol

I hope this is what you mean and it helps.. :smiley:

5

James, you are running up against an old conundrum in UP playing with the words used versus the intent. Most of the best players used to learn by ear, couldn’t read music, and barely knew what the names of the notes were, let alone give you piano scales.

I believe what they are driving at is that you improve your familiarity with the chanter, and invent your own exercises to increase your dexterity. That’s where the problem lies for many of us: trying to invent exercises to improve our ability to do something we don’t yet know how to do.

Many advanced players who already know what the triplets in UP playing are, who know and recognize familiar passages or arpeggios that appear in many tunes, will invent their own exercises for their own practise, but never pass these on to less experienced players. They just tell you to invent some exercises, ignoring the fact that you are not experienced enough to effectively do so.

The only thing I have found that seems to help a bit is to try to learn as many tunes as you can. Sit down with as many ITM books as you can get your hands on and try to work through every tune. If your sight reading skills are as poor as mine, this will not be a pleasant experience. However, it is only through immersion into the music that you can start recognizing common phrases, and thus build up some exercises of your own.

As well, use books like the Dance Music of Willy Clancy to learn ornamentation and how to use it. Study how the better known pipers decorate their tunes, and what variations they have come up with. From these you can discover what triplets are available, and then practise them.

If you are thinking to yourself that it would be much more productive for the learner to have this information already distilled and written out, I couldn’t agree with you more, but it would be a lot of time and effort to come up with an intelligent study plan to include all the above, and cost a fortune to print it. However, there were musings about doing just that in the latest An Piobaire, with NPU finally starting to listen to the many voices calling out for a more structured learning method for beginners. Hopefully this will include a method of scales, arpeggios and triplets appropriate to the study of UPs.

djm

6

Mick Coyne article was an extract from a presentation he made in Derry on the teaching/learning of [advanced] uilleann piping.

The points most relevant are that teaching [in his opinion, among others] should be aural and piper to piper, and that all other ways are “less”.

I might not agree with all that he has written, but I know that what you can get person to person is vitally important at the start of your piping, never mind all this achieving excellence at advanced level stuff.

All the other teaching media are not worthless or without merit…just not as good or not as effective.

I don’t think group teaching is terribly effective always…that may be the way it has been done this century, but 1:1 is really the ideal…and of course 1:1 is just about impossible to get unless you’re born in the right place.


Boyd

7

Seamus Ennis gives some interesting exercises in his tutor ‘The Master’s Touch’ (NPU). These apply to the basis of tight playing technique as used by himself and players such as Reck , Hannan, Mulligan etc. to varying degrees (mostly with the bottom hand in the second octave). He called such tight technique as laid out below ‘Nipping’.

He starts by introducuing ’ a movement of the f and G’

Play all staccato, in 6/8 time, second octave: fgf gfg fgf gfg…

He says “speed up (this movement) untill you have mastered the nip”.

The next exercise he explains as a nipping movement ‘coming down from g to d’.

Play staccato, 6/8 time, second octave: gfe d. gfe d. gfe d. …

He then combines ‘the two nipping movements’

staccato, 2nd octave: defgfedefgfed…

He says 'speed this up until you can play it very rapidly, and in sequences like this:

Play staccato, 12/8 time, 2nd octave: bag agf gfe fed efg fed e.

All very conducive to nice ‘poppy’ playing, especially on flat chanters.

Regards, Harry.

8

Harry, the exercises in the Ennis book are good, but a person starting out on UPs with no other piping experience, and no teacher available, really needs to hear what these exercises sound like, both slow and fast, to understand what was intended. As someone already experienced in playing ITM, you clearly have a much greater understanding of what Ennis wanted to get across. Imagine yourself trying to learn UPs as your first instrument, with only a couple of Chieftains CDs as your background in ITM, and the nearest experienced player 200 miles away. I think NPU was very much on track with their videos. When the videos get moved to DVD, they will be even more useful, as then the user can cycle over and over per track.

Boyd is exactly right. The one on one input at the beginning of your piping is really essential. No tutor, whether CD-ROM, video, or written that I have seen comes anywhere close to teaching what a raw beginner needs to know or practise.

J Dasinger made a comment on another thread about the NPU videos, being told the versions there are too ornate. Personally, I find the H Clarke versions of tunes attrocious. The point is not to slavishly learn only that one version of the tune, but to learn the techniques being demonstrated there, and then use them to your own tastes later. This point is not made clear anywhere for people who are not only new to UPs, but who also don’t have a deep background in ITM.

I can see a role for an entire introductory course on how to sit, how to hold the pipes, how to play each note, how to play scales, what to practise, how to practise it, what it should sound like when you start off, what it should sound like before you attempt to progress, etc.

No-one seems to be addressing variations, or the importance of them, how to develop them, or how to create your own. I believe that a better teaching method would be to start with one tune, then redo it with techniques, then again with more techniques, then a variation with techniques, then another variation with more techniques, etc. A training method like this would pass on a better understanding on many levels. Although the user would come away with less tunes initially, they would be in a better position to develop with this more thorough background. (IMHO)

I would welcome more discussion on this.

djm

9

It was I who made the original post on the UP email list.

When reading Coyne’s article in An Piobaire, his mention of using arpeggios as a means of gaining knowledge of the chanter got my attention.

It got my attention because just a month earlier my Irish trad music teacher (primarily flute/tinwhistle but now adding pipes to his instruments) suggested that I and another player would benefit from some exercises that would assist in “gaining knowledge of the instrument”. He wrote down some arpeggios, I put them into ABC, created a jpeg and put it on my web site.

Anyways - when two separate persons who have much more experience with the pipes/trad music than I do say the same thing in a relatively short time span, it gets my attention.

DJM’s replies in this thread are excellent and have lots of content. Re-read them!

The books mentioned in the thread are good for examples of triplets, etc. I’ll add the Patsy Tuohey book to the list in addition to the Willie Clancy book for examples of triplets and ornamentation. I have both books. Tuohey’s book also included examples of backstitching, an ornament he employed in his playing style.

At Irish Week 2001 at Augusta Heritage Center, Eliot Grasso gave me some ideas for exercises. He suggested doing rolls all the way up and down the chanter as were possible.

Coyne’s point in the presentation/article was that pipers coming to NPU for scholarships didn’t have enough musical background or understanding to receive the scholarships, and the arpeggios and other exercises would have helped them get a better knowledge of the instrument.

10

Yep, djm, I agree fully. I am fortunate to have a teacher, but for the 1st 2 months I started out with the Heather Clarke book, a great chanter, but with a reed unsuited to my climate. To say the least, I was in a muddied area of almost complete frustration. Kowing nothing about reeds or adjustment, I spent those 1st 2 months trying to squeeze what seemed to me to be a bag filled with heavy chocolate. Five minutes and I was totally worn out! All I got was squacks and squeeks. I thought I had an instrument which bore no resemblince to the one I heard being played on CD. So, the importance of buying a set of practice pipes from someone nearby, for the beginner is paramount… besides having a teacher, or a piper easily accessable, and cannot be stressed more.

Then having a teacher to show you how to hold the thing, how your fingers should go and very importantly, how to keep the bellows/bag combination working without thinking about it. These things are not really covered in the tutors… especially if one is completely new to any kind of instrument.

There is so much involved in learning to play these pipes, even just getting through the 1st octave, with every note being fully realized and sounding steady, without breaking up or being lost. How to master the bag and the air-flow, learning to back off on certain notes, squeezing a bit harder, getting back and forth through both octaves, seamlessly… For an absolute beginner, learning the instrument can be daunting, without help… or without being slightly, and persistently of unsound mind.

Which, I might add to, by saying that learning to read music, is an almost indispenable aid to getting one’s fingers to learn the instrument.

It’s kind of like learning the alphabet. You make a lot of sounds, each letter different, your mouth twisted into different shapes, your tongue going nuts, and finally you can read and pronounce all the letters in the alphabet… then you learn words, then phrases, and eventually you learn how to speak. Whew!!

I think, in essense, the 7-7-7 year program, may be closer to the truth, than just being a old pipers slogan. The old pipers probably learned from scratch.

11

djm, I think that the excercises are quite straight forward in that there is only one way to play those notes staccato on the chanter. In terms of style these excercises might prove of more use than fairly obscure arpeggios and scales. Such abstract practice may be of some use to advanced players, but the scale of D major, G major and some basic understanding of the staccato possibilities of the chanter strike me as a better reference point to begin from. This leads me to the question ‘should any universal learning method be legato or staccato?’… as if the diversity of piping styles isn’t in rapid enough decline already!

I was merely posting something that I found useful when (re)approaching the pipes. Anything I have learned from Ennis has been due to closely listening to his recordings and trying it myself allied to information from written sources. Common sense can prevail in the absence of the man himself! I have never had a 1/1 lesson on any instrument.

I have’nt seen the NPU vidoes but have heard much praise of them.

Getting back to the wider point of standardised teaching- Gay McKeown suggests in his current ‘An Piobaire’ editorial that a model such as the Ennis book could be used as a framework for a standard piping course. It would have been interesting if Robbie Hannan (who was closely involved in finally publishing the Ennis tutor) had put demonstrations of the technique outlined in the tutor book onto a CD for learners. Or learners could do what Robbie and others did and immerse themselves in listening to the recordings of the old masters often and closely until it starts to make sense.

A basic level of competence could be taugh almost by rote… constant air stream, scale of D major (legato), scale of G major (legato), top hand high notes… but after this you are into the realm ‘of which way now?’ Do you start teaching basic staccato technique or legato ornaments (rolls etc.)? Do you teach notes to be separated by taps or by closing the chanter in the tight ‘style’?etc. These factors could greatly effect the learners style in the long term. I suppose up to a point there could be separate teaching modules for tight playing focusing on the styles of Ennis, Reck , O’Malley etc. and another modular route for legato playing, the Dorans, Keenan et all…

The most important thing a teacher can give a student is the ability and cofidence to listen and learn themselves. Even just listening to a recording of good playing is a lesson in itself on some level (even if not an entirely conscious one yet!). IMO the best thing a student of ITM can do is get the basic mechanics of playing in whatever way the can and then focus on the style that appeals to them the most through listening to recordings of it and trying it. It’s not quick, it’s not easy but you acquire the ability to teach yourself after the initial struggle of developing the fairly acute listening skills required. Tutor books, like slow down programs and written notes are there to be used to a point then cast aside to be kept as an occasional reference. The great thing about the likes of NPU is that the piper in the southern states of the US can have at his or her disposal the exact same resources that I have to Learn from here in Dublin (even if it does take the books and CDs a while to arrive). :stuck_out_tongue:

Regards, H.

12

Sorry Harry, I did not mean to sound like I disagreed with you. I think what you mentioned about the Ennis exercises is quite true. I was simply pointing out how it could be made better from the perspective of someone coming to the pipes totally new, and having few resources for reference.

I am one of the people who has been egging Gay McKeown on about a standard of instruction for beginners. My point of reference is going to piping weekends at great effort and expense, getting into an intermediate class, and finding out that half the people attending can barely hold a chanter. Intermediate? The teacher loses the whole day on stuff that should rightly be taught in a beginners’ class, and I have wasted the trip and enrollment fees.

But there are no standards, you see? I understand that Willy Week tests and segregates each student into the correct class, but other piping events/classes do not. They don’t feel confident enough about how to do this, or what to make a judgement on. They have no point of reference (like a standard). Note that this is only for beginners, not for people who are at a stage to start learning how to play any particular style.

When to start teaching stacatto? When people can. Why would you only teach someone to play one style? Give them the tools first, and then teach them to play in styles. That way they learn to play any style, and know the difference. Do your really think Ennis, or Hannan, or Keenan, or anyone else you name can only play one style? I’ll bet Ronan Browne can run rings around anybody in just about any style he chooses. I think it would be better to prepare students to play in any style.

Good discussion, though!

djm

13

The idea of ‘style’ is often confused. More often, in the spirit of these times, people prefer to think of style as a restrictive factor to playing, as a set of rules that must be adhered to to retain unfashionable ideas of ‘authenticity’. That it is more often the sum of a lifetimes playing, listening, interpreting and exploration can be lost to individuals if it is not swaggery enough to be widely appealing to consumers of the current vouge in accompaniment, exoticism or whatever. You can’t teach personal style. You can explain the componants of other people’s style, you can make detailed transcriptions of it, and probably even play passable impressions of it, but to actually develope and promote whole, inspired personal style is to develope listening skills, general musicality, respect and acceptance of more experienced musicians and an understanding of the stylistic history of piping plus the changes that occur in popular ITM that so affect it.

At no point did I suggest that people should only emulate one person’s style long term!!! But many players Ronan and Robbie H included have doubtless gone through stages of closely copying their various mentors. This knowledge is then assimilated into their own personal approaches. There is not a thing wrong with this, it’s a very prolific way to learn and absorb influences.

There is no doubt that pipers before Ronan could take each other off in an impersonation contest, does this really have any lasting artistic value though? I’d rather hear Ronan Browne play like Ronan Browne.

I think it would be better to give students the facilities to develope their own, informed and ecclectic styles through the wider context of a grounding in the history of piping style and the developement of listening/interpreting skills. There is so much there that is generally just not being picked up on. Arpeggios could come after that! :smiley:

Regards, H.

14

Okay. Thanks, Harry, for clarifying what you meant by “styles”. I was thinking more in terms of Sliabh Luachra vs Clare vs Sligo etc. as in fiddling styles. Learning the methods of individual players is a much different matter. I believe Gay McKeown mentioned something along these lines in a previous An Piobaire article.

This comes closer to what I was referring to about learning variations. As I understand it from reading Joe McKenna and Paddy Moloney, they were encouraged from an early stage in their learning to not only pick up a new tune, but to come up with their own variations on the tune. The difference is that they had instant access to experienced players and could be told they were on track or out to lunch. Lots of us don’t get any direction on what is kosher in a variation and what isn’t, or even how to go about it. This is somewhat beyond what I would think of as suitable for beginners, but maybe you disagree.

Thanks for some thought-provoking ideas,

djm

15

These ‘regional styles’ you mention don’t actually exist in a big bible on there own somewhere. They don’t exist at all. While there are certain stylistic characteristics that may be said to be roughly peculiar or more specific to certain areas, style is actually the musical property of those who define and redefine it i.e. the master players. It exists solely in them and their musical output. The sparse regional technical traceables pale into insignifigance in the contributions of the likes of Paidraig O’Keefe, James Morrison, Coleman etc. Morrison and Coleman where from just down the road from each other and they had a hugely different approach! The idea of regional style is a comfortable fallacy. What does exist is ‘the Ennis style’, ‘the Coleman style’, ‘the Reck style’ etc. and (in piping’s case) the slightly thornier ‘tight’ and ‘open’ piping approaches (I won’t call them styles actually, they are merely facets of real, tangible, personal styles).

Re. learning variation for beginners: a beginner is learning variation every time he/she listens to one of any number of great, inspired recordings (Ennis being my personal favorite in this respect). To do this often will probably prove more productive than simply trying to do it from thin air. Again, intially copying variations that seem attractive will help promote the ‘feel’ for it and what works/ what doesn’t.

Actually, Ennis apparently used to advocate pipers recording themselves then listening back to it comparatively and critically- this combined with a lot of listening to great playing is productive and can be done in any country where there are CD players and tape machines.

Regards, Harry.

16

Wow, thanks for that, Harry! I’ve been listening to a lot of pipers, and piping music, and I don’t really seem to be able to pick out “styles” of playing. That doesn’t strike me at all (is that bad?) I seem to be hearing tone more than anything else… the tone of the pipes, and how that tone is the result of any players mastery of the pipes, and what they do to the music they play. Am I missing anything by not knowing styles of piping?

17

Elbogo,

Let your ears discern. While it is interesting to be able to trace elements of a pipers influences in their playing (eg. the Ennis cran, the Rowsome regs, a Clancy variation) this is not to say that they are playing in any distinct style other than a general, ecclectic piping style (if they are). Some players play more faithfully to older players e.g. Jimmy O’B Moran plays quite closely to Clancy of times, but in Jimmy’s case it would be unfair to just categorize him as playing in ‘the Clancy style’ as he has more varied influences that show through… and he’s not Willie Clancy! As I said, styles exist solely in people, so approach each player with an open mind expecting to hear something new.

Some players play more tight and staccato in places, while some play more open or legato. It is good to be able to discern this from listening. ‘Open’ and ‘closed’ are not styles in themselves though, as I mentioned earlier they are only aspects of style. People who have played more ‘closed’ have played very differently from other ‘closed’ players, the same is true of the diversity in more ‘open’ playing.

This all from someone who is tired of hearing people talk about playing ‘the travelling style’ after learning a few tunes from a Paddy Keenan or a Bothy Band album.

Regards, Harry.

18

Not on Uilleann Pipes.

Royce

19

Thanks Harry for the articulate explanations. Have you ever tried explaining “back-stitching?” KenR and Patrick D did a pretty good job and helped me a lot, but it’s “time” that turns technique into habits. I remember KenR saying that it wasn’t really that hard, as if it’s something he doesn’t have to think about anymore. It just becomes a habit.