…just a few days ago was quite surprised that (read: it took me 6 monthes of playing to realize that) almost every time you meet in jig something like gfg, you can play a long roll instead of it - ~g3.
So, e.g. you can play the beginning of 2nd part of “sixpenny money” like
~f3 gfg | afd ede | fef gfg
and then change to
~f3 ~g3 | afd ede | ~f3 ~g3
That seems to be simple and really well-known trick, but it helps a lot.
So, the question is: are there any other easy tricks of that sort? Playing variations in ITM is an art, I know, but I still hope it has some more “music for dummies” stuff
On the one hand, there are many things like this in the music – simple substitutions that are totally in the spirit of the tradition.
On the other hand, you really can’t do much of this in a truly mindless fashion – you always need to be listening and be sensitive to the times when the standard substitutions don’t work, or are kind of tacky when you do them.
On the third hand, dang, now I really want to write a Perl script that takes an Irish tune in ABC format and spits out a version of it which is clearly the same tune, but with as many of these substitutions done as is reasonably possible. It probably wouldn’t make good music, but it would be a very fun hack.
while (<>) { s/~?([abdefg])([a-g]\1|3|2\1)/~${1}3/gi unless (/[1]:/); print; }
This Perl hack (and I mean hack) will cruise through the non-header lines of a Norbeck-formatted ABC jig and substitute rolls for several different common figures. For example, Sixpenny Money
I actually wrote up, a long time ago, a chart of “roll equivalent” motifs for use in whistle, flute, and UP workshops I gave.
It’s much better in standard notation, and I reject ABC notation and all its evil ways, and all its empty promises. However I’ll post the following, which are, to me, as completely automatic and mindless as you had specified.
1)long roll: G(cut)G(pat)G
2)piper’s long roll: (cut)G(pat)G(pat)G (listen to Paddy Keenan playing Kesh Jig on the Bothy Band album for an example)
3) lower neighbor tone: GF#G
4) upper neighbor tone: GAG
5) lower tone in the same chord: GDG (g major) or GEG (e minor)
6) upper tone in the same chord: GBG (g major or e minor) GdG (g major)
7) postponed long roll, more properly a short roll preceeded by a different tone, often the lower neighbor tone: F#(cut)G(pat)G (this is very common amongst pipers)
8 ) “sharp attack” short roll followed by a different tone: (cut)G(pat)GF# etc.
9) round, legato short roll equivalent followed by a different tone: G(fat A gracenote)GF#
10) various touching or hammering down to hard bottom D: GDG GDD DGG etc etc.
11) various touching on a note below, usually in the chord: GEE etc.
12) the “long note”, a dotted quarternote G got to with a long upward glide
13) various ways of taking breaths, such as by leaving out the middle note: G(eighth-note breath gap)G or a quarter-note G followed by an eighth-note breath gap
There are, I’m sure, many more but these are off the top of my head.
All of these things are equivalent and should be in every player’s repertoire. Keep in mind that when you hear any portion of any tune using any of these (in general, there are exceptions) you can feel free to use any of the equivalents instead, and change which are used as you progress through the tune.
Interesting list. The f#(cut)g(pat) figure I know as a “rising roll” and can be heard clearly in the piping of Willie Clancy.
Another would be the (staccato) triplet: ~e3 becomes (3efg e
Other obvious ones are double-cut rolls and crans, or a short roll followed by a cut eigth-note.
Frankly, though: Especially in jigs I think the first task is to replace rolls with melody notes. Long rolls are to be used sparingly or avoided in jigs, some would insist.
I can’t agree with that. But they should be used tastefully – the tune shouldn’t be a big mess of rolls. (Maybe I can agree with “sparingly”, if by that you mean, say, once or twice every four bars.)
I think making a list like PCP has gives the wrong impression. It’s not like you put all thirteen of those variants in a hat, and pick one every time you get to something like that. There’s a sort of weighting to which are the most common, and most appropriate for that spot in that tune. So sure, you might well substitute a G long roll for the intial GBG figure in, say, The Old Grey Goose. But I don’t think any of the players I’ve learned from would substitute GAG or GFG there, much less one of the variations that involves switching one of the Gs to something else.
If you worked out the frequencies, it would be something like 90% of the time do GBG, 9% do a G roll, 1% of the time do something “crazy”. Note that those numbers are very very rough ballpark, but I hope it conveys the idea. Actually, after a quick survey of recordings of that tune, the ratios there are way off, but the point remains – I heard GBG by far the most often, then G-rest-G, quarter G eighth G, long G roll, and once just a plain dotted-quarter G. And Michael Coleman twice does some figure that seems to involve a triplet starting on D there. The other variations above, not at all.
Of course it’s not shake-and-bake, but I doubt anyone would think that anyway. I’m sure pancelt’s methodology was “run through some tunes and document some of the things I actually play”, not “make a list then see where I can fit these things in”. I also get the impression that breqwas is sophisticated enough to make proper and limited pedagogical use of a list like this. If it makes you think about and listen for options you might not have thought of or tried, that’s not a bad thing.
It’s like using a thesaurus to spice up one’s writing. Words like house, home, residence, abode, domicile, address, pad, and crib may be “equivalents”, but random substitution will make your writing worse, not better. The denotations and connotations are different, and knowing when and how to substitute is just part of the global skill of knowing how to write well (and read well). Most of the time, the best choice is still “house”.
Similarly, these roll variants all have different musical “meanings”. And their appropriate use is part of the global skill of playing and listening well.
I think a prescription like that is strongly a matter of style and taste. But I agree that “unrolling” ornaments melodically is an important technique, something I probably do too infrequently (I’m fond of the twiddly bits).
Here’s another obvious one: Use passing tones to fill in melodic jumps of a third. The most common one being the (3Bc#d “triplet” often played when crossing the register boundary on wind instruments. In jigs, it often falls nicely on the last two notes of a 3-grouping |x (3xxx x (3xxx|, and basically never between 3-groupings |xx (3xxx xx|. On fiddle, ascending (3EF#G (3Bc#d and (3f#ga are common because they fall nicely under the fingers 1-2-3. Passing tones often sound good when filling the scale gaps in a gapped pentatonic or hexatonic melody.
Hehehe. I wouldn’t go there, if I were you. People have DIED for filling in the scale gaps in gapped scales. Talk about HYBRIS and incurring the wrath of the gods. That is an evil practice AND madness lies that way. It’s like sleeping with bodhran players: just wrong.
No comment from on the PERL hack, but the results look heinous, especially the B-part of the Kesh. Shudder.
We almost speak the same language, you and I. Only I use “twiddly bits” in a more catholic (that’s LOWER CASE, folks) way, including not only basic ornaments but notable melodic variations, too - although melodic variations can also fall under the category of “nurbling”.
Twiddly bits and nurbling often often make parts of a tune more crunchy.
Imagine then, if you will, the dismay of knowing that two of ‘em are goin’ at it. I’ve had to live with that knowledge, and wondered if the reality was that they do indeed breed after all. And there was nothing I could do but wince at every unasked-for thought of it. Bodhráns in love…rhinos or Tasmanian Devils would be easier to bear.
Yes MT, in my list I didn’t go into the inserting of an extra note. For the “G roll situation” on my list, this would be:
Four notes in the space of three approx eighth, sixteenth, sixteenth, eighth:
GBAG or GEF#G
I don’t understand the idea that rolls shouldn’t be used in jigs- just listen to Paddy Keenan, or Matt Molloy, or really, any good player.
Paddy Keenan comes to mind first because I’ve been learning some jigs recently off of a tape of him made at a session. He puts roll in many places where the “standard session version” does not. For example, the common session jig, as you’ll hear played:
BGB BGB / AF#A AF#A / BGB AF#A / GBd gdC /
he is playing (not as a variation but as his “normal” version, which can be inferred because on the tape he plays the tune about four times through):
BBB BAG / AAA AdC / BBB AAA / GBd gdC /
The BBB and AAA being seperated by cuts and pats, timed out with complete metronomic precision (and therefore not “long rolls” in the way most people time them).
Also, when I heard Matt Molloy play “Jig of Slurs” he extensively modified the original tune, which is a Highland pipe tune that progresses (as many Highland pipe jigs do) by pairs of notes. Molloy changed all of these pairs to long rolls, thus recasting the tune in the Irish idiom (where jigs more often progress through notes in threes ie “long roll” situations).
The reason to consider carefully whether to add rolls to a jig is that the long roll will eat up three eight notes: a significant chunk of the tune.
The examples you are giving are telling: the beginning of Coppers & Brass repeats the BGB figure, and you could see wanting a bit of variation there, although I would sparse with rolls even there. The jig of slurs really has no melody at all, and rolls don’t make matters worse than they already are (not my favorite tune, as you can tell).
If you listen to Kevin Burke & Jackie Daly on the first Patrick Street CD playing the shores of Loch Gabhna, they do not start the tune with a long roll on B, as you most often hear, but play BdB, which gets the tune off in a lovely way. They vary it a bit (to (3Bcd B, for example), but they never put a roll there. In the second tune in that set, Contentment is Wealth, they only put rolls in the rather simple and unmelodic B-part, but not in the A-part, making the tune much more satisfying then Joe McKenna’s version on The Irish Low Whistle, where rolls abound and variation is absent (Overton A, if you want to know, with Mary Bergin joining in on a Copeland A).
