Anyway, can or should gracenotes be tongued? McCullough’s tutor suggests that you can, and when I do this, the gracenotes sound faster and more like what I hear on recordings.
However, I cannot remember ever seeing this technique mentioned in some of the online tutorials that I have seen. More importantly, if tonguing gracenotes if a faux-pas for whistlers, then I would like to correct a potential bad habit sooner rather than later.
Charlie
Well, I sometimes do it, when I feel it fits the place. And I´m fairly sure even some great whistlers (Paddy Moloney springs to my mind, if I´m not mistaken) do it. It sounds different, and especially in band, it can give different feeling to it. You can emphasize certain part or note by that.
The simple answer is: sure, why not, if you want to stress that particular note in the context of a particular phrase, when it’s musically appropriate. Many players do this.
But … and I’m not sure how McCullough presents this … and this is an oversimplification … in a sense there really are no “gracenotes” in most ITM dance music. This is not just a matter of terminology; it’s a fundamental concept. You’re probably referrring to cuts, which are a kind of fingered articulation. In a legato stylistic approach, cuts are effectively a substitute for other kinds of articulations, including tonguing. So tonguing a cut gives you, in effect, a double emphasis of 2 simultaneous articulations. Of course, this is a matter of degree, ranging from gentle legato tonguing to explosive marcato tonguing. But it’s definitely one of the technical choices under your control that you can exploit.
Do keep in mind though that tongued cuts can hide beginner’s sins of poor timing and sluggish fingering. Which may be why they sound to you “faster and more like what [you] hear on recordings”. The real goal should be to learn to play cuts clean and crisp, without having to rely on tonguing as a crutch.
Hope that helps.
Although no expert, i agree with MTguru, tonguing cuts is ok as long as you’re. not trying to hide a poor articulation. I have listened to many whistlers who use very little tonguing, using only fingered ornaments. I find myself tonguing far too much instead of crisp timing of cuts, rolls etc. Pipers can’t tongue, so ornaments are very important, otherwise the tunes would be just strung together without rhythm or feeling
OK, so I guess that I should try to achieve the ability to perform “fast” cuts without tonguing as this will emphasize and train finger technique.
What I was hoping for in McCullough’s tutor was a set of exercises for the various ornaments. For example, there are great (not too boring) studies by Carcassi which work great with classical guitar and allow practice of technique without too much repetition, but also in a way in which the student is not bogged-down with learning a complex tune. Ah Well!
Charlie
Don’t confuse a cut with a Classical music grace note, even though they’re notated the same way.
I second what MTGuru has said inparticular, and most of the drift here thus far. I certainly sometimes add a tongue stroke of some character or other to cuts, rolls and crans though probably not to taps (?) tolerably frequently.
I fear your second comment above very much betrays a “classical” approach! In trad music generally, and particularly in ITM, you learn “on the job”. There are not (and probably should not be) study exercises as there are in classical studentship (though I’m unlikely to be alone in doubting their value!).
Sure, you can make up your own basic exercises like practising taps or cuts or rolls up and down the scale and cutting with different fingers etc., and sure, that can be helpful, but if you just keep learning tunes and working to interpret them idiomatically, gradually you will encounter, tackle and conquer each individual detail of technical possibility contextually and then have it for application when encountered elsewhere.
Thus you normally only have to learn particular technical details one or mabe two at a time, especially if you have a teacher selecting suitable tunes for you progressively introducing new challenges and reinforcing already acquired ones, (no teacher? either take pot luck or examine tunes you fancy, trying to see what they require and prioritise them accordingly for yourself) and you don’t waste time doing dry (boring and unmusical) technical exercises that could be spent learning new material whilst also extending your technical competence. It is also much easier to grasp the rhythmic value and importance of fingered articulations (their primary purpose) in the context of real tunes.
If occasionally you try to tackle a tune you can’t cope with yet, set it aside, or seek advice and exemplar interpretations. Learning by ear from a teacher, recordings or at sessions also to some extent removes this issue, as you simply try to emulate what you hear, and you’ll know whether or not you’re ready to tackle something either directly on listening or pretty quickly when you try to play along!
Like just about everything in ITM, it’s all about style and context; not so much what you do, but when you do it.
Like the line in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, when Roger Rabbit easily slips his hands out of the handcuffs. The cop says, “you could have done that at any time?”
“Not at any time” Roger explains, “only when it’s funny.”
So, I never break up a long roll with tonguing. (Though I often begin a long roll by tonguing.)
But I tongue the cut which starts short rolls, at least on high whistles.
And I often tongue single cuts, when I really want them to cut.
I, for years, maintained a dual style (as many do), tonguing a lot on the high whistle and never tonguing on the flute.
Now that I’ve given up flute for low whistle, what to do?
Initially I played it more like the flute, with little or no tonguing.
As I play low whistle more and more I find myself tonguing more, going for a more articulated style, and tonging certain cuts is part of it.
Grey Larson’s book (Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle) does, in fact, contain a section of exactly those sorts of technical exercises. They’re good as far as they go, though not at the level of Carcassi études (which I’ve also played).
But it’s easy enough to roll your own (no pun intended). You can certainly do just as Jem suggests, using scale patterns. Some of the Larson studies are exactly that, and they are quite useful.
Or, maybe more interesting, take favorite tunes and turn them into an exercises by playing them slowly while ornamenting them in a systematic and rather mechanical way. For example, choose a jig and systematically cut the first note of every 3-group. With a reel, cut the first note of every 4-group or 2-group.
The result will be musically suspect, of course, but technically rich. After just a few tunes, you’ll encounter many of the patterns that occur in actual playing, and in a realistic context. And when you can execute accurate cuts in every possible place, then playing and ornamenting musically becomes the rather different and empowering experience of choosing where not to cut.
Which is, oddly, in some ways very close to the thought process involved in executing and ornamenting a tune in real time. As you play, you constantly make split-second decisions to winnow down all the possibilities to the one that best expresses your interpretation. And the less you have to think consciously about the mechanics, the more you can concentrate on the aesthetics and creativity that make this music so challenging and satisfying.
Obviously, other articulations such as taps, rolls, slides, and tonguing patterns can be exercised with the same sort of approach.
I have received a lot of very good comments. Right now, I have no teacher, but will very likely take a class in the Autumn when the Irish Cultural Center in Phoenix offer one. Until then, I am stuck with listening to other players and learning a few tunes.
What I do like about exercises is that they allow concentration on a particular technique. For example, some of the Carcassi studies allow development of right hand finger independence through playing arpeggios. When I did a lot of practice on the classical guitar, these studies formed great warm-up pieces.
It is easy to get bogged down with exercises, but a couple of well thought out, more-or-less tuneful pieces that highlight a particular technique would be great for warm-up, as well as the breaks that are required from the tunes that will eventually form the repertoire.
I’ll also have a look out for Grey Larson’s book.
Meanwhile, I am having fun learning pieces such as The Foggy Dew, Merrily Kiss The Quaker’s Wife, The Frost Is All Over, Star Of County Down (easy to memorize this one), and Tabhair Dom Do Lamh.
Now the faster pieces are jigs (if I remember correctly) and could be ornamented on the first note of each group as an exercise, but I’ll be darned if I can play them well enough for this yet!
The slower pieces are more “fluid” and more air-like. I suppose that the addition of ornaments should be easier, although I want to be very comfortable in execution of cuts and taps before I begin to add them.
Thanks,
Charlie
Faster tunes are not just jigs, but also reels (importantly and probably fastest, at least for the fingers, if not in metronome count or BPM!). Polkas tend to be brisk too. Hornpipes and marches are more mid-paced.
Re: your last comment, I really do feel quite strongly that that is the wrong approach. When I teach tunes, (and when I teach beginners, totally new to an instrument or new to ITM musicians) I always include basic finger articulation from the very beginning, as it should not be seen as an optional extra! Whilst the approach you suggest may gain swifter command of the technical finger movements in vacuo, it will not be properly associated/integrated with the music. I’m not saying it is bad to do those kind of exercises - it is not and I do suggest to pupils that they do such things, but after, not before they start meeting them in tunes.
I’m not saying you should play tunes from the start fully larded with all kinds of “ornament”, but I would strongly advocate playing totally legato (no tongue - this isn’t forever, but as a means to understanding the proper use of finger articulation and to forcing yourself to adopt it where it is necessary) and using finger articulation in the appropriate minimum of absolutely necessary places whilst acquiring the techniques - and practice those tunes/passages of them as your exercises.
This may be repetitive of me, but I can’t over-emphasise that there is a minimum of cuts, taps rolls and crans (according to musical/fingering context) in any tune that are essential to trying to play it idiomatically and should not be seen as something to add! You can, when you reach a level of proficiency, remove some of them and use the tongue as a variation or re-inforcement, put more rolls etc. in according to taste and possibility in non-essential places, etc., but get the basics first! Play your faster tunes at moderate pace (just as in learning difficult classical pieces), loose your tongue and get the finger articulation into them.
Jemtheflute: Exactly
I have a feeling, that irish sounding tune is not sounding that way purely because of ornaments, but because of the very rhytm too - when I was younger, I met an irishman, who played with almost no ornaments - yet it sounded irish. Ornaments are not all, indeed.
Jem-the-flute,
Yes, I am fully aware that “faster” pieces consist of more than jigs, with reels being about the fastest.
You have a very good point. However, you highlight one of the problems of most written-down music I have seen - very little actually contains indications of where to place the finger articulations! Of course, I doubt there are hard and fast rules about where to place them. As a beginner, I can understand where they’re placed by a first-class player, but with a piece of music in front of me, it is difficult to figure out where. As a teacher, you have playing experience behind you. I expect that this gives you a good feel of where the articulations go and this is what you pass on to your students.
Until later this year, I will not be taking classes. So, I do not have the benefit of a teacher’s knowledge of where articulations should (or could) go - you see my dilemma? Furthermore, you likely put in considerable thought as to which pieces to introduce to students so that they are challenged, but not overwhelmed.
I like your idea of playing totally legato. Maybe doing this will give me a feel of where articulations should go. Right now, I do tongue some notes in order to get emphasis. I expect that the feel of my pieces will change when played fully legato. I’ll give it a go tonight.
Pyroh had mentioned about rhythm. I do remember reading somewhere that for jigs (maybe others), more feeling is expressed when the first note of each three-note phrase is lengthened very, very slightly. It is quite possible that the effect of this is to give more emphasis to the note, thus driving the rhythm. I have some jigs transcribed as midi files, and they sound extra bland when compared to airs in midi format. Maybe this is because midi playback cannot do what a skilled irish musician can do?
Thanks,
Charlie
I’ll admit I sometimes do this, knowing full well that it’s deliberately quirky. The effect is, of course, a note followed by a tongued short roll on that note. I like the bubbly effect, but only sparingly.
It’s not uncommon, I do this in reels sometimes instead of using a long roll, I’d tongue the first note then do a tongued short roll on it. Something I picked up from listening to Clare McKenna. It’s only in reels that I’d use short rolls. According to any tutor book, teacher or whistler players I’ve met, the initial cut of the short roll must be tongued in order to achieve the correct effect. Some might argue that but I know who I’m taking my advice from.
Anyway, all good advice particularly from jemtheflute and MTGuru. If I was you I’d forget about tongued cuts (unless you’re doing a short roll) and I’d keep all tonguing down to a bare minimum or even loose it completely during your beginner stage. It’s quite possible that the reason you think your cuts sound better tongued and more like the recordings you’re listening to is because your cuts just aren’t crisp enough. I’ve been through all this myself where I thought the cuts I was hearing were tongued and the only way I could mimic them was by doing the same. But when my cuts got sharper I realised that the cuts I was hearing were not tongued at all. By tonguing them you could well be covering up a poorly executed cut and just fooling yourself into thinking you’re doing it right. Work on getting your cuts nice and crisp first.
You’re quite right, and there are good reasons for that - chiefly that different instruments use different techniques and the dots are written out simply as a notation of the melody, with the expectation that a competent player will interpret them according to the appropriate and contextual techniques of his/her particular instrument, and will in any case vary what they do. Those collections like the Miles Krassen edition of O’Neill’s that have a lot of written-in “ornamentation” are generally a pain! Breathnach’s Ceol Rince series indicate where basic ornamentation is expected with generic symbols and have a key for suggested execution on the main instruments of each symbol but even those are probably not that helpful.
Of course, I doubt there are hard and fast rules about where to place them. As a beginner, I can understand where they’re placed by a first-class player, but with a piece of music in front of me, it is difficult to figure out where.
Hence my advice about playing totally legato - play through a simple tune like say The Leitrim Fancy (one I often have used with beginners or in workshops) totally legato (apart maybe from first notes after breaths, though try even those un-attacked as a discipline thing) and you will discover places where you need to separate repeated notes - those are where you put your first essential cuts or taps - just decide which works best for you in each context. Next there will be some places where you want to give some attack to a note, often when you jump up to one several steps higher - preface it with a cut. I’ll try to knock up a demo clip if I have time later.
I like your idea of playing totally legato. Maybe doing this will give me a feel of where articulations should go. Right now, I do tongue some notes in order to get emphasis. I expect that the feel of my pieces will change when played fully legato. I’ll give it a go tonight.
Good man! How did it go? It should be a revelation. It is certainly what I usually do for starters, especially with classically trained wind players, who usually find it particularly hard!
Pyroh had mentioned about rhythm. I do remember reading somewhere that for jigs (maybe others), more feeling is expressed when the first note of each three-note phrase is lengthened very, very slightly. It is quite possible that the effect of this is to give more emphasis to the note, thus driving the rhythm. I have some jigs transcribed as midi files, and they sound extra bland when compared to airs in midi format. Maybe this is because midi playback cannot do what a skilled irish musician can do?
Have a look here for some info on rhythm - not everyone necessarily agrees totally with this analysis, but it’s a good guide.
I think I remember that the midi player in ABCMus can have rhythmic parameters set to counter the problem you describe quite correctly with basic midi playback, or they may already be set to give an authentic lilt and are further adjustable - not sure, but worth checking out.
Charlie, I too am a beginner at this and am learning from recordings and books (Ochs and others). I’ve been at this about a month now but only yesterday understood the reason for playing legato – as far as I know this has not been explained to me, but I realized that much of the best whistle music originated with bagpipes and bagpipes do not have tongues. 
Thus the need for cuts and rolls etc. in order to separate notes of the same tone. This realization at least lit a light bulb in my head as to the reason for some of these ornamentations as well as their contribution to the nature, sound, and feel of Irish/Celtic music.
KAC
On this breaking up a long roll with a tongued gracenote, we might be talking about two distinct things.
In reels, there are long rolls proper, and things which have the same notes as a long roll but have a different effect, being in reality a short roll which happens to be preceeded by the same note as the roll.
In jigs and reels alike, the things I’m calling long rolls start on the beat:
jig: | G(cut)G(pat)G BAG | (just a made-up bar for example)
reel: | G(cut)G(pat)GA BAGA |
Short rolls likewise begin on a beat:
jig: | (cut)G(at)GA BAG |
reel: | BG(cut)G(pat)G BAGA |
(in this case the short roll starts on the second of the four beats in a bar of reel time)
It’s this second thing which I suspect people are talking about when they say they tongue the cuts in long rolls in reels. The cut is on the beat, so to me it’s a short roll, though preceeded by the same note, and having the same notes as a long roll.
The test is this: you can easily change
reel: | BG(cut)G(pat)G BAGA |
to
| BA(cut)G(pat)G BAGA |
demonstrating that the (cut)G(pat)G on the beat is really a short roll.
only yesterday understood the reason for playing legato – as far as I know this has not been explained to me, but I realized that much of the best whistle music originated with bagpipes and bagpipes do not have tongues
It’s also a piece of nonsense that keeps being repeated over and over on the interweb: the Irish pipes are fully capable of non legato and staccato playing if the player chooses to close the chanter, this would have been originally the style preferred by the old players so the whole story doesn’t fly.
So you can actually start and stop the airflow? (on a note by note basis)
Regardless of the answer, the technique remains and is still the core of the celtic style.
And for the record, as stated above I’ve never see, this “repeated over and over on the interweb(sic)” I’ve never even seen it once.
KAC