I am all for tracing stylistic elements in whistling to stylistic elements in piping (and in fiddling, fluting etc). But I don’t think it helps to trace stylistic elements to (supposed) mechanics of the pipes.
Ah so. Perhaps that’s what I meant. Yes. (But I have at least heard the mechanical story.)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the whistle is older than the pipes!!
So why would whistling ornaments be based on the pipes?
Also, in spite of the fact that cuts are done very quickly, you can hear a slight difference in the sound when you cut with different notes. In my piping class, we actually listened to rolls done with different cuts, and some sounded much better (in our view) than others. I guess this is the “irish” sound that someone mentioned.
Justine
If I were to bake a really fine cake out of this thread, the recipe would be made from Beth’s superb explanation, and then covered with the Bloom’s succinct and pertinent icing. We can wax ecstatic forever concerning our technical issues, but in the end the beauty of the music is what’s really important.
It is so refreshing to read this thread. Brings back memories of C&F, long ago…
Best to all.
Byll
Re: elaborateness/simplicity and resultant difficulty of cuts, taps, rolls, and crans.
Quit making excuses and practice, people. Learn to do all this stuff and then decide to leave it in or take it out. It’s worth the effort.
Some pipe de-mystification for those who are interested:
BTW: Staccato and non-legato piping is achieved with the chanter bell sealed against leg and the player lifting only the requisite finger or fingers to sound the notes - thus every note has a definite beginning and a definite end.
We only pick up the chanter for the following reasons:
-To sound the “bottom D” (lowest note on the chanter) with or without graces, although to play it in proper style you should at least grace it with an A as you lift the chanter to produce a “hard bottom D”; it sounds like NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I cut the lower hand notes in the first octave with the A note (ring finger of top hand) on whistle and pipes. I use whatever sounds good in the second octave -predominantly the A but there are occassions to use the G (index finger of bottom hand) or even the F# (middle finger of bottom hand) for cuts. Figure out what sounds good and use it, just remember to vary what you do.
This is the way I was taught by my various teachers, including Al Purcell, Pat Mitchell, Jimmy O’Brien Moran, Pat Hutchinson, Debbie Quigley, Brian MacNamara, Kevin Rowsome, and Benedict Koehler. You will hear this if you spend any serious amount of time listening to solo piping CDs- which you should IMO if you really want to learn anything about playing ITM on the whistle.
-To swell certain first octave notes and/ or exploit certain tonal qualities of the chanter.
To “pop” certain second octave notes - usually e, f#, g, and sometimes a; this is the “yelping” sound that pipers exploit for dynamic and rhythmic emphasis.
is to want to use the finger for the note immediately above the one being played
That’s what I do, and what my whistle teacher suggests. He says it’s not as important on whistle but it becomes more important when playing flute and trying to get ‘crisp’ ornaments.
-Brett
I find this to be an especially interesting thread since I just began studying ornamentation. The web site cited in one of the other threads that has video was also very useful. However he moves his fingers much higher than I thought was the goal. I believe that my aim right now is to try and play them slowly and correctly and aim for speed as I get more practice is that correct? I am using the Bill Ochs book as my tutor and playing along with the CD.
Keep whistling
Ron
I’m probably gonna get chewed up and spit out different for posting this, but here I go anyway.
My real challenge in learning ornamentation wasn’t to teach what my fingers to do, as in “this finger comes up this high” or “let’s see, this is a G so I cut with the first finger.”
The real challenge is getting your mind wrapped around the idea of a cut, and what it’s really supposed to sound like. Making your fingers do the motions isn’t nearly as hard as understanding exactly what you’re trying to play in the first place.
And if, like me, you learned “grace notes” from classical training first, you have to completely forget it, totally unlearn it. A cut isn’t the same thing as a grace note, isn’t played the same way, doesn’t sound the same at all. A grace note is an actual note–it has a definite pitch, and takes a certain amount of time, which either comes from the note before it or after it. A cut has no definite pitch, and isn’t a note, but is really an articulation. It happens so fast there is no measurable amount of time taken from any note.
Sounds simple, but for me at least, it was the very devil to get my mind to really believe it. Once the mind finally got it, the fingers followed quickly.
–James
That’s it.
Not that bad I hope since I think the fundamental point you’re making is sound enough.
This is just the view I was calling exaggeration two (although not in as many words) in my first post here. Just think a bit about what you are actually saying and you’ll see that cuts do have pitch and it matters that they do.
In a cran you cut a series of different notes in quick succession. Although heard as blips, the notes are still heard as distinct in pitch. If pitch were not an integral part of the ornament, you could just keep cutting with the same note. That would not sound like a cran and it would not be a cran. Even blips have pitch and their pitch matters both to what ornament you are performing and to how well it sounds in the context.
I’d say peeplj is dead on right. “No definite pitch” is the key phrase – there is a (microscopic) pitch component, but it’s not a real note.
The main reason a cran (or a roll) does not keep cutting the same note is if you’re going quickly, it’s a hell of a lot easier on the fingers to not do the same thing twice in a row. In actual practice, the technique to execute these ornaments is pretty variable, and as long as you’re doing something which gets the rhythm and feel right, no one much cares.
I know there are lots of very small variations in the way people play ornaments and plenty of room for idiosyncratic touches. But I hear the movement in pitch in the successive cuts in a cran as absolutely integral to how it is meant to sound. Would I find it harder to do a double or tripple cut instead of a cran? Not at all.
I dont even know what ‘no definite pitch’ is supposed to mean. Even a squeaky door squeaks in some definite pitch or another. Being more sympathetic, I take it to mean that the exact pitch, in relation to other pitches in the scale, doesn’t matter. You can cut with this or that note and if it’s a bit sharp or flat who cares. This is correct. But it does matter to particular decorations that they have a certain rough pitch contour. When you are taught crans you are not taught to cut at random, which you would be taught if pitch were really inconsequential, you are taught to cut in ascending and descending patterns and those patterns matter, at least to my ears.
All of this notwithstanding, the function of ornamentation in dance music is largely rhythmic and if you made up your own variations which served the same function it might work just as well. But people learning the music want first to play what they hear others play and what they think they will be expected to play to gain acceptance. Let me ask you this. If you really think pitch doesn’t matter, how do you think someone would fare in a competition who always played taps first and cuts second where rolls would be expected? My guess is that the smart money would be on some other contestant.
Well, then you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din. I can play proper (or backwards) rolls all day long at tempo, but switching it to all cuts on the same note would break me. It is very significantly harder, IMO.
I dont even know what ‘no definite pitch’ is supposed to mean.
It’s just a break in the airstream of the instrument. Whatever pitch element it has is not properly tuned or sounded, and might well change from instance to instance of the cut, much less from player to player and instrument to instrument, even assuming they all use the same fingers to cut, which they probably don’t.
I’ve practiced a good bit at keeping rolls going for longer than three notes, so I don’t have a lot of problem reversing the order of cuts and taps in my rolls. Quite frankly, when I get them up to speed, I have a hard time telling an audio difference between the two ways of doing it – I have to look at my fingers to see what I’m doing. Maybe you can tell the difference, but frankly, I’d be surprised if most people would give a hoot which way a person plays it.
Your mileage on crans may vary. I know I’d seen or heard probably a half-dozen ways of doing them on whistle before I concluded that they weren’t really a part of the style I was interested in playing.
Nice of you to say so colomon, but I doubt it.
I think this stuff is all in muscle memory and people differ a great deal in what they find easy and what difficult. Why I find double cuts easier is that it requires less finger independence. Try trilling between two notes on piano. Now play three notes keeping one finger and note constant and alternating the finger and not for the other. I’d find the former much easier.
Of course, after I’ve been practising crans for half an hour, I’ll find a cran on D easier than a double cut on D.