When I play notes A and B in the second octave, my flute is much louder, and I don’t seem to be able to tone it down, as I can lower notes. Would this be a common occurrence?
If you want, have a listen to my playing of Lord Inchiquin and tell me if you think those notes in the B-section of the tune are suffering from bad embouchre or possibly poorly tuned flute, or none of the above. Maybe I just need to practice more.
I posted two clips of the tune, one with my Olwell Pratten and one with my son’s Folkflute. I also posted two reels that go up to those second-octave notes.
Sounds to me like you’re trying to blow harder to get the higher notes, and that’s not how it’s done. High notes have faster, cooler air, whereas low notes have slower, warmer air (more like an exhale). Faster air is a product of embouchure (tighter), not a greater volume of air from blowing harder. You can get the upper octave this way, since blowing harder will, in fact, give you faster, cooler air. It will also, however, make you louder. Practice playing your upper octave softer than your lower octave and the problem should go away. It will also make you upper octave sweeter due to the greater control.
Overall, though, it sounded fine to me, if not a little too precise. It was so perfect, it almost sounded computer-generated. On Carolan tunes, as with slow airs, you can play with the phrasing a bit to get the beauty out of the tune. You obvously have the ability to play, but I think you can be more expressive.
I’ll work on playing those notes softly and see where it takes me. As far as preciseness, I guess I was trying to be precise with my intonation, but, indeed, I do find myself lacking in variations while playing a lot of tunes.
Certainly it is louder on the higher notes, but sometimes it sounds like it should be louder, a crescendo.
Your folk flute example maybe demonstrates what you are asking about best. I think those two notes are just harder to hit on the folk flute, and having one myself I can tell you that the harder I try the harder it is. You certainly can’t force those notes, but sometimes I know I get into the wrong place and end up doing just that with bad results.
Playing my boxwood flute somehow has made me better at hitting those notes on my folk flute. That may be because my boxwood doesn’t hit any notes well, especially high notes, unless I’m more relaxed. I struggled for a while with trying to be more focused, tighter until I learned that my flute wants me to relax.
Years ago I played in an English Handbell choir. At one point, as you went up the scale, there became this huge difference in loudness between the smaller bells and the larger ones. All of a sudden one bell is quiet and the next one up is shrill and piercing. All there rest up from there are the same: very loud. It seems many instruments are like this. Probably has to do with physics.
Michael, My main recommendation is: slow it way down. Give the tune some room to breathe. Think of a stately waltz for old Lord Inchiquin, not a frantic jig. You’re cranking at around MM=66. Try around MM=52 instead.
Agree with MT. It’s nice now and it will be nicer still
when you play it a thousand more times.
I practice playing the top octave more softly than
the bottom. A concentrated stream of air, focused,
gets you the top of the second octave without lots
of volume.
Also playing a higher pitched flute, e.g. a Tipple
Bb or A (or a Sweetheart) really helps get control
of higher notes.
PS when I play this particular tune I imagine
a large ball room of people waltzing.
They’re very well dressed and it’s a lovely
waltz and I’m the hired musician.
Me and this blind harpist…
Actually, the tempo Michael takes this tune at is about right - or even just a bit slow - for a waltz as it would be danced at an Irish ceili. Irish waltzes are danced a good bit faster than waltzes at an American contradance, which is what most of you are probably more familiar with. Also, in Ireland at a ceili they will play three waltzes in a row, with a brief pause in between them. I never could figure out if you are supposed to switch partners for each new waltz or just stay with the same partner for all three, or even if that matters at all.
But for listening, yeah it would be okay to take the tune a bit slower if you want, and put some more expression in it.
Well, if you perceive that your playing is much louder in the second octave A and B, then you could lessen it by blowing more softly, while lipping up just a bit, to correct for any flatness.
Thank you everyone for replies, especially relating to my question about the 2nd octave playing. I’ll see what I can do about spicing up that tune and making O’Carolan proud.
Anybody want to share a clip?
I’ve been playing my Olwell for about 12 years, I believe. I took lessons from a respected flute player for a year or two, and took a few classes with John Skelton a few years back. I’m not a flashy player. I’m satisfied being able to play with more skilled players, and continue to look for ways to increase my skill level. I don’t always have the time or money (in the case of taking a class with a well-known flute player), to work on my flute-playing. I currently play a monthly gig with a guitar player who also plays the banjo or cittern on a few tunes. We’re booked for several gigs in March. We’ve had a few gigs where we’ve played with a piper, fiddler, harpist, singer. I think my playing usually rises to the occasion when playing with other musicians.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t know if my musicianship (is that the right word) always comes across in my recordings. I’m still learning about recording, and I know my playing doesn’t touch the likes of a host of musicians out there.
Anyway, I’ll continue to post, and I appreciate everyone’s comments.
My fault, John, I could have been clearer. I’ve played for both contras and ceilis, and agree that ceili waltzes can be faster. But the issue I was trying to address is expressiveness more than speed. From the clip, it sounds like mahanpots hasn’t quite come to grips with the structure and phrasing that underlie a more expressive interpretation of the tune. Hence, partly, the stiffness that Cubitt noted. More speed is probably not the best approach to remedy that.
Checking my recordings of the tune, I find both our approaches represented:
Brendan Power: New Irish Harmonica MM=45
Chieftains: Chieftains 3 MM=67
Deiseal (Cormac Breatnach): The Long Note MM=67
Gráinne Yeats: Belfast Harp Festival MM=45 (rubato)
Robin Bullock: Celtic Guitar Summit MM=45
Since Lord Inchiquin is a planxty and not a dance tune or waltz per se, I’d personally tend toward the lower end unless dancers were involved, with a tempo similar to that of a baroque minuet contemporary with the composition of the tune. But that’s just a preference. Used as a dance waltz, any speed is fair game, so long as the interpretation is under control.
Michael, I realize your original question was about the upper notes, not about the tempo and expression! But as long as it came up, I thought maybe the suggestions might be helpful.
As far as I know, no one can say exactly what type of tune planxty designates, except that tunes with planxty in the title are … planxtys. A tune “in praise of” so-and-so is really a functional, not a formal genre definition.
In my muddled mind, a planxty is a parlor tune in any meter in the Irish tradition contemporary with the European Baroque, probably intended more for listening than dancing.
Actually, are there any planxtys that are not O’Carolan tunes, or tunes attributed to him? In my limited experience, I’m not aware of any.
Since the waltz as a dance didn’t really break out of its central European folk roots until the late 18th century, I’d think of pre-Classical 3/4 dance tunes more in terms of earlier triple-time genres such as minuet, gigue, or galliard.
And nowadays any triple-time tune played and danced as a waltz … is a waltz.
Going back to the issue of the top end of the second octave - I personally find that practising the third octave improves the second one no end. Often the reason for problems that I have is a bit of fear - “ohmigod there’s a B coming up! Am I going to get it out right” - and then I either nail it fortissimo or underblow depending on which direction I overcorrect.
My Boehm teacher says to always imagine breath support etc for notes higher than the one you are actually trying to get (for high notes - low ones are a different issue). So in this case, it helps me get a controlled second octave B if I have just played a G from the third octave before it. With a bit of Zen (and practice) I no longer need to actually play the higher G - just thinking it is enough.
I’m a bit late chipping in here, I know. I too was going to say that O’Carolan tunes cannot be “Waltzes” as such as they predate the Waltz - which evolved out of the Austrian folk dance called the “Lendler” in the late C18th (O’Carolan died in 1738) and burst upon the scene (with scandalous effect - dancers holding each other!) round about the end of the Napoleonic Wars - the great peace conference “Congress of Vienna” being seminal in its acceptance and dispersal due to the high society international social scene that it entailed in 1814-15. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_Waltz.
That said, of course MTGuru is right that any tune played as a waltz becomes one for functional dance purposes, but I’d also agree that O’Carolan tunes in 3/4 are best interpreted by eschewing a “waltz” feel.
As to Michael’s main thread purpose, the issue of intonation in the upper part of the 2nd 8ve is often problematic for us fluters (I’ve certainly had this problem in the past and still don’t always get it right) - the reasons for the tendency to blow out of tune on high A and B have been well described by Cubitt. If you are playing your Olwell, Michael, I’d assume the problem isn’t the flute!
I seem to recall a previous thread on this problem with a link to one of James Galway’s Youtube tutorial videos (posted by Larry Krantz - there’s a bunch of them - very useful for technique on any flute - the one I’ve linked is just on head-joint, but I think there’s another with flutes put together too…) where he demonstrates the problem of in-tune octave playing and its solution - it is just as much of an issue on Boehm as on simple system flutes. There has to be a narrowing of the lip-hole to increase the speed of the airstream - its intensity - and the airstream also needs to be angled further down into the flute by pushing the top lip out further simultaneously. If you overblow simply by blowing harder to speed up the airstream, you will play sharp. Doing slurred octave overblowing exercises in front of a mirror is a useful first step (and ongoing practice technique) in identifying what you are and are not doing and experimenting with altering your methods. (Whilst of course using your ears to evaluate the sounds you make!)
Paddy Keenan calls the second one Lost and Found, and also plays it with Hag at the Churn on Long Grazing Acre.
Thanks MTGuru. My laziness and lack of great recall show. I knew those tunes’ names, and I refer to the second one above as Lost and Found, from that Paddy Keenan track I believe. When I look at your link to Boys of the Town, the first version there (also called Milltown jig, is one that I play also. I think I’ve heard Matt Molloy play it on an old record of mine, and when I can remember, I call it Milltown jig. I’m glad you sent me the link because I discovered a variation I could do with Lost and Found. Lost and Found: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1160
ChrisCracknell wrote:
Going back to the issue of the top end of the second octave - I personally find that practising the third octave improves the second one no end. Often the reason for problems that I have is a bit of fear - “ohmigod there’s a B coming up! Am I going to get it out right” - and then I either nail it fortissimo or underblow depending on which direction I overcorrect.
I don’t think I’ve ever tried to blow above a third octave E, maybe F, maybe G, but I doubt A or B. I’ll give it a try.
Jim Stone mentioned getting a higher pitched flute might help. I’ve got a really cheap fife, but I’m not sure that would help. I’ll keep my eye out for one. Thanks.
Jem, I’ll check that link to James’ tutorial. Thanks. Slurred octave overblowing is what I’d recommend to someone learning flute, and would indeed be appropriate for learning upper octave blowing, which is what I’m talking about, I guess.
There was a request for other renditions of Lord Inchiquin up-thread - how could I resist? Yur 'tis, rent ( ), no, I mean rendered - yep, at least I think so (rent apart; rendered down???) - on my late C19th Rampone 12-key. Would this make O’Carolan proud? (Apparently he liked Italians!) Enjoy! Brickbats graciously received…
Well I played Lord Inchiquin just now and to me it sound “right” at about 63. I don’t know why. To me it’s a sprightly tune, not a flowing elegant tune. I play O Carolan’s Quarrell With His Landlady much slower.
About Irish fluteplayers and high B, sometimes it’s “smoke and mirrors”. I say this because, a few years ago, I was playing Lord Gordon (the reel with a zillion parts) and a fluteplayer friend said something like “how do you get all those high B’s so nicely, I always struggle with them.” He was talking about the part in Lord Gordon where you have those arpeggios g-b-e. When I played that part more slowly we realised that I was just playing on an even breath and those B’s were sort of coming out between the octaves. Played up to speed, they came out like nice softish high B’s which blended with the rest of the notes in the phrase. Had I tried to “push out” or support those high B’s in a classical way they would have jumped out and, frankly, ruined the phrasing of the tune.
It’s a “classical” thing to think of each note as a seperate carefully crafted entity, with an attack, a core, and a decay, and feel a responsibility to play each note as written. It’s more “Irish” to play on a flowing even breath and have a “come what may” attitude towards individual notes. Anyhow that’s the theory I’ve come up with from teaching years of workshops, trying to get “classcial” fluteplayers to sound “Irish”.
The third octave fingerings can vary a lot from flute to flute - even on the Boehm flute, different models can have surprising differences in their response to alternative fingerings at the top end of the scale.
here are the discussions where I posted what works on my two flutes…
), no, I mean rendered - yep, at least I think so (rent apart; rendered down???) - on my late C19th Rampone 12-key. Would this make O’Carolan proud? (Apparently he liked Italians!) Enjoy! Brickbats graciously received…