Who plays such things and how do they finger them (especially in slower tunes)? Same fingers as you’d use to cut the notes (where the pitch is effectively immaterial because well-executed cuts have no discernible duration or pitch) or the ones you’d use to finger them as, well, notes? Or a bit of both (horses for courses!), depending on speed and discernible ‘note’ quality?
No, it’s not a daft question, but something bothering an experienced player listening critically to himself and thinking he might have been doing horrible things for years. Like playing neat but not negligibly short grace notes in slow airs with ‘cut’ fingerings when they don’t give the ‘right’ note but don’t sound overtly ‘wrong’ (eg ornamenting an A or B in a G major tune by lifting L1 when that should be sounding more C# than C but works as a kind of aural illusion*).
*Similar to HIP baroque recorder trills, where you take the simple options rather than fancy, more ‘accurate’ trill fingerings.
Dunno if that makes sense or not, so please don’t answer unless:
It does.
You’re clear that I’m talking about ‘proper’ grace notes and not just sloppy cuts.
You know.
And, yes, this could equally well have been posted to the whistle forum, but it’s here because I’ve been playing (+ recording and listening to) almost exclusively flute for the past fortnight!
‘Non’ notes (as described by me), ‘real’ ones (as suggested by Denny) or a mixture?
No, but lifting L1 from A to leave just L2 will give you the ‘Piping C’ described on p27 and pp361–2 of Grey Larsen’s book…
L1 for B is fine as that is C# to B
But you might want a C natural. Although the ‘sharp’ grace note in such circumstances seems to accord with Larsen’s positive endorsement of C# as ‘a quick passing note between B and D’ in any key, with him describing it as ‘an important element of style’ and recommending that Boehm flute players also do it for trad. when they don’t ‘have’ to! Which is analagous to the HIP recorder trills I mentioned, where (for example) you’d start a C natural to B trill on descant recorder with ‘proper’ C appoggiatura (L thumb + L2) before continuing to trill with L1 (effectively sounding C#s and Bs).
Haven’t got beyond dipping into Larsen’s huge ‘Ornamentation’ section yet, but seems like he’s got just one later short chapter (two pages) on playing slow airs, with nothing on ‘grace notes’ (in the context of this thread) at all! Which (despite the huge value of his book) seems typical of such tutors in stressing the snappiness of cuts and taps as articulations without providing much guidance on more relaxed graces.
So perhaps I should just stop worrying about it and use my ear? But that’s what I’ve been doing recently and (slight crisis of confidence here) I dunno… I just dunno!
Yeah, I’d originally thought to change your B to a G…Jem posted while I was futzing about in my mind. That high up the bore most things sound like notes.
On the lifting L1 from A for a C to A. I don’t know if I’d call it a grace note if it’s more than one step off.
Surely if you want to play a grace note as a true appoggiatura, then you’d just play the two notes as written?
Your description of a CB trill is intriguing. I’d just play it CB using the easy (and very well in tune) alternative fingering for B, although I believe that in the old days they would trill with a gap of up to a minor third to express the affect of a piece.
In any case, I find that slow airs often sound better on the recorder than on the whistle, since the recorder offers much more subtle control of dynamics and expression, and a better balance between the octaves. But that, as always, is just me.
Absolutely! But the ones I’m questioning are neither true appoggiaturas (long) nor cuts (the shorter the better!), but something more like easy flicks (so not acciaccaturas either)…
Your description of a CB trill is intriguing. I’d just play it CB using the easy (and very well in tune) alternative fingering for B
So would I for a modern piece, but always the other way for baroque!
although I believe that in the old days they would trill with a gap of up to a minor third to express the affect of a piece.
Think there’s something of that in the more open sound of the trill I describe, and possibly also in my ‘grace notes with cut fingerings’ (which is maybe why I’ve always found them so tempting).
In any case, I find that slow airs often sound better on the recorder than on the whistle, since the recorder offers much more subtle control of dynamics and expression, and a better balance between the octaves. But that, as always, is just me.
For some slow airs, perhaps, but I can’t think of many offhand and would struggle to give Mairi Bhan Og (for example) the wistful quality I can get on whistle with recorder fingerings and tone. And this is the flute forum anyway, so (much as we both love recorder) better watch that ‘more subtle control of dynamics and expression’!
Think I’ve got it sorted after reworking some details of the tune, with the L1 ‘graces’ on Bs retained because they’re pretty necessary, those on As changed to L2s and ‘cut’ fingerings only used for things approaching cuts…
