I’ve been playing whistle 2 or 3 years. I’ve got some understanding of ornaments but wanted to “bone-up” on and expand my knowledge so I looked on the web to see what the current instruction books are like. I saw the word “hammer-ons” included in the usual listings of ornaments, rolls, cuts, crans, etc. I had never come across it before. What is it? How do you play it? Is it a carry-over from guitar? Thanks.
I have no idea, unless it’s another term for a tap/strike
I dunno, but it sounds kinda dirty…
It’s hammering with a Hammer of Bonking with a whistle attachment. I thought everybody knew that.
http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/hammers_of_bonking.html
Steve
I don’t know either but it sounds a lot like what I do to my dulcimer.
Kathy
Banjo players use them, as they do pull-offs never heard the term used on flute/whistle/pipes in Irish music
Peter is correct the term hammer on or hammer off means to place your finger on a string that is already sounding and thus changing the tone. Hammer off of course is to take a finger off a string already sounding and again change the tone.
Hi, I’d agree with Bretton, sounds like another name for a tap/strike.
Cheers, Mac
Not to be confused with a “hammer-in,” which is a sort of seminar of knife makers to present and teach forgeing techniques.
Philo
On 2002-10-12 13:57, PhilO wrote:
Not to be confused with a “hammer-in,” which is a sort of seminar of knife makers to present and teach forgeing techniques.
weird how you never hear of a term, then you hear it two or three times in a month. I just found out from Roy what a hammer in was!
And the education continues. . .
I’m with Peter and Wizzer… heard it on stringed instruments, especially guitar. Some players noted for this style: Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai
Hammering on and pulling off, as describe by others on this thread, are standard techniques of clawhammer banjo playing (frailing). Unlike tenor banjo, mandolin and plectrum-picked guitar you can’t really play tunes in clawhammer style without those techniques as well as some others.
Steve
I believe the term refers to a kind of rapid-fire double-cut where you bring the finger down hard on a tone hole so that it bounces slightly.
Terms like this often don’t have set definitions that are universally agreed upon. Other such terms I have come across but think different musicians are using to describe different things are a “thrill”, a “backstitch”, and a “doubling”.
Best wishes,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
James, you know more about musical terminology than anyone should! 
Backstitching is a term taken from an Uilleann piping technique, it is actually not a double cutand is not really appilicable on the whistle . It is a technique used most natably by Patsy Touhey to round up a tune with ‘a great shower of fingers’ and involves an elaborate run of tight triplets which cannot be executed on the whistle [not to the same effect anyway]. The lower hand notes are ‘stitched up’ turning them into triplets by adding a tight played c A to them, the top hand notes get a G F stitch. But by now I will have lost you. Never mind.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-13 08:55 ]
Wow! Funny how you ask a little question and now I know more than I wanted to know about a wide range of topics! Seriously, thanks one and all for your input.
Second question-there are lots of instruction books in the beginner to intermediate range for whistle but not anything further than that. what does everyone do beyond the intermediate level? go to workshops and get a “slow downer” program?
–quote–
Backstitching is a term taken from the Uilleann piping and is not really appilicable on the whistle. It is a technique used most natably by Patsy Touhey to round up a tune with ‘a great shower of fingers’ and involves an elaborate run of tight triplets which cannot be executed on the whistle. The top hand notes are ‘stitched up’ turning them into triplets by adding a tight played c A to them, the lower hand notes get a G F stitch. But by now I will have lost you. Never mind.
–endquote–
Peter, thanks for posting that. I had wondered about the term.
Flutist Rob Greenway uses it to describe a triplet B A G with a fast gracenote G on the A. With that as a starting point, I think I see what you are describing on the pipes.
For anyone who has never seen a fingering chart for the pipes, it helps to know that unlike a whistle or flute where you leave the holes open beneath the tone hole for the note being played, on the pipes the fingers below the open tone hole stay down.
Best wishes,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
On 2002-10-13 07:02, peeplj wrote:
For anyone who has never seen a fingering chart for the pipes, it helps to know that unlike a whistle or flute where you leave the holes open beneath the tone hole for the note being played, on the pipes the fingers below the open tone hole stay down.
Which is not entirely true in all cases, it is whne you play a clesed or tight style of piping but you can well leave them open is you choose to, for reasons of tone and effect and all sorts.
The triplets I was referring to do occur in a ‘tight’ fashion’ where a minimum of fingers is taken off and the chanter is fully closed [i.e.e. silenced] between notes.
a rune from the second part of the Harvest Home which would normally go something like
eAfA gAfA
would appear as
[3ecA [3fcA [gcA [3fcA
when stitched
or in a jig a run going
g3 f3 or gbg faf
would appear as
[3gca g [3fca f
when stiched, and all notes played very musch staccato.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-13 10:01 ]
I think uillean piping must be like sex: you have to do it to get it.
Maybe, those stitches and some of that triplet stuff is definitely a bit kinky.