the shake??? Secret ornament??? xD xD

Whistle
1

I copy to wikipediar tin whistle info.

THE SHAKE


There is a lovely ornament that I have heard in the playing of three great tin whistle players: Mary
Bergin, Donncha Ó Briain, and Breda Smyth. I call it a shake. It is an alternative to the crann on
the second D.
To play a shake you use a special fingering for C-sharp by covering the B1, B2, and B3 holes. To
get from there to the second D you simply add the T2 and T3 fingers. These two fingers are in
motion as a unit when playing a shake.
The shake is a four-note ornament consisting of three very rapid ornamental notes: C-sharp, D, Csharp
again, and then the principal note of D. It begins right on the beat. My symbol for the shake
appears below.

Cool!!.. but I don’t understand nothing!! :stuck_out_tongue: Grey Larsen explain a little confused… some post other explication mm very easy??

Thanks!!! :slight_smile:

2

Could you post an MP3 clip from one of said player’s playing of this “shake”?

3

sorry don’t have… but If you listen Mary Bergin’s recordins your hear :slight_smile:… so… I think… :-S

4

Sounds like it’s a very limited use ornamentation, since you could only use it on C#.

Basically, it looks like he’s saying you do this:
oooxxx
oxxxxx
oooxxx
oxxxxx

You just go C#DC#D (Ds in the second octave).

5

it’s not stated here but the shake replaces two eight notes on Mary Bergin’s vesion of Old Joe’s Jig. It’s the second measure of the B part, beats 4 and 5 (6/8 ), shake on high D then go to an E. You need to either see the music or hear it.

My bigger question is where are you able to access Grey Larsen’s copyrighted material online?

6

:-O!! type tin whistle in wikipedia and find this: http://www.greylarsen.com/services/tunebank/notationsystem.pdf

who’s uploading? I dunno… :confused: :confused:

thanks for the answer.!! :slight_smile:

7

Aha! I just found it in Grey’s book. It’s on page 253 and the sound file is track 86 on the first CD.

Interesting, hadn’t read that far into Grey’s, so i learnt something new today.

Thanks, Alone!

:smiley:

8

Yep, that’s all it is. But the thing is …

Those notes are indistinguishable from a double cut / short cran on vented d. Like this:

oxxoxx c#
oxxxxx d
oxxxox c#
oxxxxx d

In fact, listening closely to Mary’s recording of Old Joe’s (Feadóga Stáin 1, Track 7), I’d say it’s more likely she’s playing the double cut. You can tell by the quality of the c# on her Gen F. The note is darker and flatter with the oxxoxx / oxxxox fingering than it would be with the oooxxx of the “shake”.

So I wonder if Grey is just inferring from recordings, or if he knows for sure when a shake is being played? IMO, the double cut is much easier and smoother to execute, especially if you’re used to cranning Ds.

9

Yes it sounds from that verbal description that the ornament consists of two C# cuts on D:

oxx xxx

ooo xxx

oxx xxx

ooo xxx

oxx xxx

which is certainly interesting.

I usually “roll” middle D thus:

xxx xxx

xxx oxx

xxx xxx

xxo xxx

xxx xxx

and the advantage is that you can use either “open” or “closed” middle D.

Now I came up with an odd “shake” on C natural due to the difficulty I was having playing clean long rolls on that note up to speed.

It’s odd-looking but when played up to speed in a reel sounds quite roll-like:

oxx oox

oxx xxx

oxx oxx

oxx xxx

oxx oox

The advantage is that it’s easy to play at high speed.

10

Here’s Mary’s shake

and Grey’s shake

b a c# D c# D

They sound very similar, just Mary’s has a lot of reverb and i had to repitch

Grey states that this is played using…

xoo ooo
xxo ooo
ooo xxx
oxx xxx
ooo xxx
oxx xxx

But it seems to me to be simpler to play it thus…

xoo ooo
xxo ooo
oxo xxx
oxx xxx
oxo xxx
oxx xxx

Difference is obvious in that this way the second finger stays where it is thus facilitating a quicker and cleaner transition into the shake from the “a”

:smiley:

11

I need a milk-shake. :laughing:

12

-Fill your whistle with milk and follow the instructions in the previous postings… :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

13

I don’t know… I’m having a hard time choosing chocolate, or vanilla… :smiley: