When appeared rolls and crans?
What was ther firs person using them?
What was the origin? Perhaps pipes ornamentation?
What do you think/Know about this?
In the old recordings I’ve listend the ornametation is based on cuts, I suppose the “modern ornamentation” is not so far in time.
Serafin.
I invented all of it, January 15, 1995. I was bored that day, needed something to do, and decided to invent some ornaments.
Modern? I consider the “ornamentation” (such as it is) of the Baroque style and on to the present -what is often for convenience, if erroneously, called in trad circles the “Classical” or “Continental” tradition- to be the modern thing. I understand the ornaments of the Gaelic tradition to predate this. There is a modern trad style, though: generally more ornate and dense in ornamentation than was deemed necessary in the past by some.
I agree with Nano here. A roll is known as a “grupetto” in classical music. Band people tend to call it a turn. A cut or a tap (at least on adjacent holes) is a “mordent”. Crans, I dunno, I’m not sure theres a classical or baroque equivalent for that.
Nope, a roll at least on the flute, is not a grupetto or turn. The roll is a rhytmic device, not a melodic device. Same for cuts, taps and cranns. If your rolls are sounding like turns, then you’re not playing them right, and i’m not joking here.
Good question, and actually, probably quite difficult to answer.
A lot of the tunes we know as reels, for example, originated as port-à-beul songs (“tunes from the mouth”). Port-à-beul is a lot like modern lilting, I guess, in which the singer uses fancy tonguing (basically) to articulate the notes. Port-à-beul was ported (to coin a phrase) over into instrumental traditions, particularly fiddling, and the instrumentalists developed rather complex gracing which imitates the articulations used in the port-à-beul. Hence rather complicated articulations, particularly in Scottish fiddle styles, on an instrument which has no trouble articulating notes without gracing.
On other instruments, it’s another story. Highland chanter fingering uses a system called half-closed, meaning that if you’re playing notes fingered with the top hand of the chanter, the bottom hand keeps its holes closed. That facilitates very complex gracenotes, all of which are named with their port-à-beul syllables. Maybe that’s not all that clear. What Irish flute players might know as an A roll, for example, is similar to the Highland chidere, which is a three-part gracing that sounds like CHI-de-re. ANYway, fiddles and pipes have no problem. Uilleann gracing isn’t as complicated as highland gracing, but there are definite similarities between the two traditions (with crans/cranns/bubbly notes existing in both, for example).
From listening to Irish flute players play their tunes, you’ll hear a very wide variation in the way tunes are graced. Chris Norman uses quite complicated gracing (he comes from a Scottish tradition); Molloy is also quite fond of very pipe-y sounding gracing. Other folks play different styles . . . one of the strengths of the Irish solo-ensemble model is that individual players can develop their own styles of gracing, unlike Highland pipe bands in which everyone has to play exactly the same gracenotes at the same pace for ensemble unity . . . man, I love to digress.
So I think there’s evidence that the gracing/articulation you’re talking about has a double origin. One: it existed in the mouth music which predated the use of the instruments. Two: it’s obligatory on Highland pipes, and it facilitates uilleannn playing, so those instruments (and fiddles) have helped to make it part of what we think of as the Irish/Scottish style of playing.
As for an originator, I think that’s a hard question. I’ve heard people more experienced than I muse that Molloy may be responsible for some of the popularity of uilleann-style gracing in Irish flute playing. I’ve heard some older recordings from the first half of the 20th century, and the few people I have heard definitely aren’t quite as fancy as Molloy is. I have by no means a representative sample, though, so who knows.
If you want to hear some VERY heavily-graced flute playing, listen to the piobaireachd on Chris Norman’s Caledonian Flute. Very nice. Really REALLY pipe-y.
Just my own thoughts.
Stuart
Oh yeah. Grupettos and mordents are not the same as everyone’s rolls. And, in Baroque playing, the gracings tend to fall in very different spots . . . I guess I see them (or hear them) as being quite distinct.
Stuart
Very interesting comments, Stuart, I suspected the story about the Highland bagpipe but I didn’t think about Mouth Music as a possible origin. Mouth music was very important in scotland, perhaps the origin of all this matter was Scottish , rather than Irish wich was more influenced by baroque music in some periods.
I had thought that the “baroque” influence in Irish music is mainly on the harpers that played for aristocracy in O’Carolan’s time and not so much of dance tunes and their related ornamentation?
Puirt a Beul has lyrics. Not interesting ones but lyrics nonetheless. An example is Open the door for the tailoring fiddler, Open the door for the fiddling tailor, Open the door for the tailoring fiddler, The King’s son-in-law is the fiddling tailor. Not too exciting but the rhythm and melody when sung in Gaelic makes a great jig. Puirt a beul means mouth music but it isn’t lilting.
There is a Scottish lilting tradition called mouth music which probably has the relationship with ornamentation as discussed but Puirt a Beuls are generally songs with lyrics. If they originated as words put to dance tunes or if the dance rhythms grew out of the singing, I’m not sure.
As for ornamentation on flute and whistle in Irish traditional music, a lot of it is not new to piping and fiddling but new to flute and whistle. It’s only been in the last century or so that these instruments have been played together and because of that the musicians have had to learn these new tricks. Matt Molloy is credited for importing cranns and the hard D from uilleann pipes to flute. How long pipers and fiddlers have been playing a lot of those ornamentations is beyond me.
Cheers,
Aaron
I did mean port-a-beul when I mentioned the adaptation into fiddling and piping. I didn’t mention the lyrics because they’re incidental; I guess I didn’t want to add that layer of complexity. There is a big treatise on the port-a-beul into graced fiddling and piping thing, which also mentions lilting and other forms of non-lyric (for lack of a better phrase) singing that I found on the web and bookmarked at home but can’t find now.
I first learned about it only when I was looking into the origins of a reel I know as Throw the dead cat under the rug which actually did come from a nonsense port-a-beul song . . . the lyrics of which had nothing to do with dead cats.
Stuart