So what are the first couple of Tunes that pop out of your Flute when you start to practice every day?
For me the last couple of Months , Its Father O’Flynn and then the Hanover Hornpipe played as a reel. The version of Hanover I play is the second Version here at the Session Website. I see it is also called Minstrels Fancy. Ive never heard it played at a Session, but anyone who has played in a Fife and drum Group will very happily hop in with you if you start to play it. Not to say that Irish Musicians don’t play it as it is on the Session Site. But anyhow what are you playing. By the way I’m looking for new fun Tunes to play
Side Bar.. Its funny how you start off practice and its different for each Instrument
When I played the GHB’s it was slow 3/4 Tunes
Clarinet, I played Scales and a few Pop Tunes from the 50’s
For me it’s not a tune but a warmup which gets my embouchure dialed in quickly.
I learned it from professional Boehm fluteplayers.
The short version is just playing Bottom D. Start as quietly as possible, build to as loud as possible, and return to as quiet as possible, all on a single long breath, and most importantly staying exactly on pitch the entire time (in other words quiet isn’t flatter and loud isn’t sharper).
pppppp I suppose it would be written.
Oddly enough this improves my high notes as much as it does my low notes, because it improves focus, and all good things come from focus.
Not to say that Irish Musicians don’t play it as it is on the Session Site
I don’t think a tune’s presence on the session.org will necessarily tell you much about whether Irish musicians play it or not. A lot of people will submit anything there.
That said, that particular hornpipe was recorded by McKenna as ‘the Buck from the Mountain’ (and more recently, after him by Frankie Gavin) and wellknown. And not just among mountainy men.
It’s always different for me. I play whatever tune I feel like playing. Sometimes it is something I recently learned, and sometimes it is just some random tune that is in my head.
However, there are some tunes I have a tendency to play more often as soon as I pick up my flute. One of my favorite things to play is a set consisting of The Green Mountain/The Limestone Rock/The Humours of Loughrea. This is a set I have been playing almost daily for several years now. I usually like to end the Green Mountain at the end of the A part the third time through, often ending the A part on a cran before going into Limestone Rock.
The way the first tune transitions into the second this way really sounds good to me and starting off my practice with this set always gets me excited and in a good mental space for playing.
I’ll have to try the low D exercise…sounds interesting.
I tend to start off playing a nice waltz - something like Drunk at Night Dry in the Morning or a locally written tune Place in the Heart. Then, I move to whatever I’m currently learning.
I start with something I don’t feel especially attached to. I find playing a brisk tune as slowly as I can but still in time is a good way to warm up breath and focus—it can tend to ruin a favourite, though. At the moment it’s a cheery old march called The Bold Fenian Men. Then a reel to warm up the arthritis, literally the first one that comes into my head.
It started off as a habit from classical training on the clarinet, but I came to appreciate the value of arpeggios when learning tunes with a series of successive jumps.
Wow thank you Richard - I tried that at practice last night and it’s a really good way of jump-starting the embouchure. Hoorah for the Chiff & Fipple knowledge pool!
I’ve been having to do a lot more work on my embouchure with the Olwell I got a few months ago (definitely the most demanding flute I’ve owned), so I usually spend about 15 minutes doing: 1. scales (D & G major + Em), 2. sometimes a few arpeggios, and 3. this exercise: starting on G in the first octave, then slurring up to G in the second octave, then back and forth, playing the upper G softly and the lower one with more volume (this came from lessons with Blayne Chastain). A few times a week I’ll also do the same scales, slurring each note from the lower to upper octave.
Richard: I’m going to start incorporating this exercise into my practice regimen as well, so thanks for passing it along!
As for tunes, for some reason or the other, I like starting with these two:
Carolan’s Welcome
Condon’s Frolics (aka The Thatcher)
