Trying to get back into playing low whistle after a break of several years and drawn more to slow tunes rather the normal fare, I came across this beautiful air played by Chris McMullan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rD6WyHiJrk )really my kind of thing) and sat down to try and transcribe it as something to practice. I’m not unexperienced in transcribing complex pieces but within the first few bars Chris’s ornamentation threw me. In the past people like MTGuru have been brilliant at this sort of thing. Would anyone like to take a stab at transcribing part of the air for me inclusive of all the ornaments; I can figure out the main tune easily but it is Chris’s ornamentation that makes it.
I can figure out the main tune easily
It’s a common air, whole generations of pipers had a go, classic stuff. Best start with the basic tune and take it from there.
Joe Heaney’s take 
That’s the problem. Taking it beyond the basic tune. Figuring out what Chris is playing.
If there’s anyone who can figure it out, you’re the man. 
Have you tried slowing down the playback on the video really slow to isolate the notes/ornaments?
Thanks for your confidence in me!! Chris’s ornamentation far more complex than anything else I’ve transcribed. Yes, I’m slowing down both video and audio versions of the piece. I’ll get there but it will take some time.
Ornamentation can be tricky. As you get better and better at earing tunes you will be able to pick up on it more. I’m still no master of it but I’ve improved a decent amount at it over time. Still not where I want to be but thats my fault for not feeling like figuring out new tunes most of the time lol. My best advice besides slowing the video down, is to not look at the video unless you have to. I find when I look at the video to try and see what they are playing it just jumbles everything even more. You can look sometimes to try and see what hes doing to try and see if its a roll, etc, but for general figuring the tune out, you dont want to look. At least in my experience, its helped.
He does a thing on E in both octaves that I do quite a bit, seems like he uses different fingers than I do.
It’s a decorative way of going from E to D, right before the note-change you do two quick gracenotes.
Here’s how I finger it
xxx xxo E
xxx oxo G gracenote
xxx xxo E
xxx xoo F# gracenote
xxx xxo E
xxx xxx D
I think he’s using A and G gracenotes.
Thanks very much for the help, Richard. Where does Chris begin this and Is there a name for the ornament since you appear to be familiar with what he’s playing? Is it a cran or a type of cran?
Narzog, thanks for your comment. Generally, I tend not to look at videos but listen to the slowed-down tune. In the past, I transcribed many tunes, many of them complex airs, but I’ve not played for three years and am very out of practice.
He does it quite a bit, the first instances are
0:10 Low E
0:35 High E
Yes I suppose in that specific case, from E to D, it’s a short two-gracenote cran.
I just think of it as a double-cut, because it can be done in many places on the whistle
B to A
A to G
G to F#
F# to E
E to D
the cuts vary of course according to which fingers are available.
It’s also done as a “short roll” I suppose you could call it, cut and pat, rather than two cuts.
And it’s not just in Irish music, every time a Bulgarian piper fires up the Gaida they play a cut-pat ornament from the note above the drone note down to the drone note.
A similar-sounding ornament is common in jazz clarinet, sax, etc though theirs only has one upper gracenote.
Thanks, Richard. Very helpful and enlightening!