Tin Whistle . Basic Ornamentation Techniques 18ww

Tin Whistle - Basic ornamentation techniques CUTS What is a cut? By "cut" I mean a single grace note produced by momentarily sounding a note that is (nearly always) higher than the main note being decorated (or being cut, if you like). Cuts have a variety of uses, but before looking at these, here's my basic rule of thumb for playing cuts. In both octaves of the whistle's range:  

Use the G finger (3rd finger of your top, normally left, hand) to cut the notes D, E, F# and G. Use the B finger (1st finger of your top, normally left, hand) to cut the notes A and B.

You can use other fingers to cut various notes, and there's nothing to stop you from trying other options, and sticking to what sounds best for you. There's a section on this later in the page. I recommend these two mainly for simplicity and because they will work in pretty much every situation and on every whistle. A C-natural cannot be cut in this way. And it's hard to do much with a C#. We'll worry about these notes later.

Cuts on D through to G Some examples. Let's take the notes D through to G in the first (lower) octave. We cut these using the G

finger. Click the icon at left to listen to cuts on D through G (30K) I play each note twice, but without tonguing the second note - this is indicated by the "tie" or "slur" mark underneath. The articulation is provided by the cut - in other words the cut separates the two notes. To perform the cut, you lift your G finger for the tiniest fraction of a second. Lift it just enough to uncover the hole and then put it down again. It will take you a while to get the hang of this, because the 3rd finger is quite weak, and you're not used to making this slight movement. It's a very simple, effortless movement, but people often make it more complicated by imagining that it's difficult! to keep your hands and fingers very relaxed. If you're squeezing the whistle between your thumb and fingers, it will be very hard to do a nice quick and easy cut. You will notice that I indicate these cuts on the staff as an A. This is just to show you which finger to lift. Lifting the G finger normally sounds the note of A. (You may be surprised to realize that what I call the "G finger" is actually sitting on the "A hole".) In fact, despite what is indicated on the staff, the cut doesn't actually make a musical note, because (a) we play it too fast, and (b) we don't lift our finger enough to uncover the hole properly.

Let's try these in the second octave.

Click the icon to hear cuts on D through G in the second octave (20K)

Note that I'm playing the high Ds in this example with all my fingers down. That way my cut sounds an approximate high A. If you play the high D with your B finger lifted, you'll get a very different sound. You'll hear an example of this different sound later in this page, in the third clip from The chanter's tune. If you only ever play high D with your B finger lifted, I strongly urge you to read the section Not lifting a finger.

Cuts on A and B Now for the notes A and B in both octaves. Cut both of these notes by lifting the B finger. We'll try these in

both octaves.

Listen to cuts on A and B, both octaves (20K)

You may once again find it awkward, because we're using a new finger. But to lift your B finger for the tiniest fraction of a second. Since you don't lift it more than a a millimetre or so before putting it back down, you needn't worry about dropping the whistle, so stay very relaxed.

Now here's an exercise to practise all the cuts we've tried so far. I don't think you need a sound clip for this.

Uses of cuts So much for the mechanics of cuts. Now where can we use them?

1. Using cuts instead of tonguing to separate notes of the same pitch The exercises give us a clue to one very important use of cuts. We can use them to separate two notes of the same pitch without having to tongue the second note. The first line of The chanter's tune has a number of repeated low Es. These are a good place to practise our

cuts.

Listen to line 1, with cuts on low E (50K) , use your G finger to cut the note of E. And for our current purpose, don't tongue the second note, but allow the cut to separate the two quarter note Es. This means you have to time the cut to fall exactly on the second beat. 2. Using cuts and tonguing at the same time for extra emphasis For a different effect (a "crunchier" sound) we can tongue as we cut. Here's the second line of The chanter's Tune:

Listen to line 2, with cuts on low E, plus "tongued cuts" on B. (50K)

In this second part, I am cutting and tonguing at the same time in a couple of places. Look at bar 3, and at bar 7. There are two quarter-note Bs. I have cut these and tongued at the same time (using my B finger, of course).

Why do I treat these two Bs differently from the two quarter-note Es later in the same part of the tune? You'll notice that the second of these two Bs falls on the the third beat of the bar, whereas the second E falls on the second beat. The first and third beats in a 4/4 tune are strong beats ("on" beats), and I like the extra emphasis I get by tonguing here on this "on" beat. (But it would sound fine slurred also.).

3. Using cuts simply to draw attention to important notes 4. Using cuts when the same note occurs three times in succession In bar 8 of both the first and second parts, you'll see another handy use of cuts: when the same note is repeated three times, instead of tonguing three times, tongue once or twice and then use a cut for the third note. This is not only easier on the tongue, it sounds less monotonous. 5. Cuts as a component of rolls Another important use of cuts is in playing the ornaments known as rolls... But don't worry about them just yet. Get used to playing cuts whenever you want before you even think about trying to play rolls. And also get used to playing taps.

Alternative fingerings As I mentioned above, you don't have to stick to the fingerings I have shown you. The advantage of using the G and B fingers is that you can practise using two fingers only, and they will work in just about every situation and on every whistle. Some fine teachers recommend using the finger immediately above the last - e.g., use the your 5th finger ("E finger") to cut D, your 4th of "F#" finger to cut E, and so on. I don't generally do this, but very often I use the B finger to cut all the notes in the first octave. Try cutting a G in the first octave, using the G finger, and then using the B finger. You'll probably find that the B finger gives you a much crisper sound, which I like. However, this won't work so well in the second octave. Trying to cut the high D with the B finger will not work - you'll get another high D. And cutting the high E with the B finger will produce similar results, or a slight variation in pitch, not a nice crisp cut. On louder whistles, including many "high-end" makers' whistles, using the B finger to cut the higher notes such as high G and A may cause the whistle to squawk. I suggest you master using the G finger in both octaves for everything up to and including G, and the B finger for A and B. Then experiment with your own whistle(s) and see what suits you.

What do we do with Cs? The decorating of Cs (both C-natural and C#) in general calls for a little ingenuity, and I'll discuss options other than cuts in later sections. Playing a sort of cut on a C-natural is not too difficult, provided that you are playing the C using crossfingering rather than by half-holing. I recommend using the full (two-handed) cross-fingering pattern for Cnatural [|oxx-xox] wherever the speed of the tune and the particular age allows you to do so. (And your whistle: some of the newer, louder whistles available are designed to give a true C-natural using only the top

hand, and sound horribly flat if you use the two-handed fingering.) If you're using the two-handed fingering, simply tap the second finger of your bottom hand onto its hole to sound a momentary high D. If you're using the top hand cross-fingering only [|oxx-ooo], you'll need to tap all three fingers of your bottom hand simultaneously. To get a similar effect on a C#, you could, I suppose, slap down your bottom five fingers momentarily to cut the C# with a high D. Now, a five-fingered cut sounds a trifle excessive but, as you will realize if you have studied the topic Not lifting a finger, you could play the C# with all the fingers of your bottom hand down, meaning that you'd only have to use the 2nd and 3rd fingers of your top hand to sound a momentary high d. While both these options will work, I cut C-naturals only rarely, and C# virtually never. (There's only one tune in my repertoire where I feel the C# is crying out for a bit of extra welly, and that's a northern polkatype thing anyway.) The effect of cutting Cs is much weaker than on all the other notes, and I don't mind letting these notes sound different.

More uses of cuts As I mentioned earlier, cuts are an essential component of "the ornaments known as rolls" and I've written a whopping big topic on these last-mentioned little animals. But you can also use cuts in one or two other tricks described in these pages. 1. you'll need cuts to perform the "no-tonguing" exercise I describe in the topic on Tonguing 2. cuts are used to form what we can call "false triplets", discussed on the page on triplets. 3. you can combine them with rolls: see the not-yet-written topic on Combining ornaments.

TAPS OR STRIKES What is a tap? A "tap" or "strike" is a way of decorating a note by momentarily sounding the note immediately beneath it. This is a very simple, subtle, and yet highly effective way of shaping the note. Taps can also be used for the purposes of articulation - to separate two notes of the same pitch. Also, together with cuts, taps are also used as components of a more complex ornament known as a roll.

Example 1: The south wind Let's start straight away with some examples in a tune. Here's a simple air in 3/4 time, The south wind. On the score, the tiny "grace" notes are the taps. The taps I play here serve two purposes. Most of them are there to shape, add interest or draw attention to the note they precede. But those in bar 4 of the first part and the last bar of the second part are there to separate two notes of the same pitch. You can spot these because they occur between two notes "tied" with a tie mark.

Click the icon at left to listen to The south wind ornamented with taps (170K) To play the tap preceding the first note in the first bar, B, (and all taps in front of subsequent Bs), place the two fingers of your top hand down as if to play an A. Sound the A, and then immediately lift your second finger so that the main note, B, is sounded. Just lift your finger straight up -- don't slide it sideways or upwards. This draws attention to the note and gives it a little more shape and interest than it would otherwise have. The speed at which you lift your finger off the tapped note changes the effect. If you lift your finger more slowly, you'll probably find that the effect is like that of a slide upward into the note. This is because you are uncovering the hole gradually. Practise doing faster and slower taps, and note the different effect in each case. There is a separate topic on sliding into notes proper. At the start of bar 4, the tap separates two As. Instead of tonguing the second A, "tap" your G finger down on to its hole to provide the articulation. This kind of tap always sounds best played quickly. In the remainder of the first part, there is another tap on a B, and one on a low E, executed by tapping your D finger down. In the second part of the tune, there is a tap on the high G starting the second bar. I could have slurred the previous note into this one, without tonguing, as I did with the two As in bar 4 of the first part. But I didn't, just to give a little extra emphasis. The remaining taps are similar to ones we have already played, with the exception of the last bar, where I use a tap on the low G to separate two notes without tonguing. Although I have demonstrated using taps to separate two notes of the same pitch without tonguing, in general I prefer to do this using cuts. I tend to reserve taps for shaping or emphasizing a note. But it's nice to be able to vary what you usually do, so it's worth ing that you can separate notes with a tap.

Example 2: The britches full of stitches Now for some examples in a simple polka, The britches full of stitches.

Click the icon at left to hear the tune (no repeats) ornamented with taps (70K) You can spot the taps here easily enough. The ones in the last two bars of each part are used to separate notes of the same pitch without tonguing. Practise this, although once we've looked at cuts, I would recommend you use cuts rather than taps for this situation. This tune sounds a little flat with nothing but taps to decorate it, but there you go.

Uses of taps The two tunes above give just a few examples of how to use this technique. Experiment with it in all your tunes - it will soon form an essential element of your "ornamentation spice rack" that you can use to flavour a tune to your taste. Notice how playing the taps more quickly or slowly gives a different effect. You'll find taps particularly useful in slow airs, but once you get them up to speed, they can be used to great effect in dance tunes too.

Related ornaments Taps are related to other ornaments: slides, or glissando, and "doubling" (topic to be added). They are often used for some of the same purposes as the next twiddly bit on the menu, cuts.

SLIDES or GLISSANDO The slide is one of the most striking and characteristic devices used by whistlers. Gives a tune a yearning quality - "lonesome", if you like. In Irish music, the term "slide" also means a kind of single jig popular in Cork and Kerry. That has nothing to do with what what we're talking about here. Sliding into a note (glissando, or more strictly portamento, to use standard musical ) is used in many styles of music. You can think of it as a way of decorating, or drawing attention to, an important note, or of imbuing the note with added emotional weight. On a whistle, there's little you can do to vary the volume or intensity of a note, and so slides are a particularly useful element in our spice-rack. I like judicious (read: sparing) use of slides. I have a record of a highly rated young whistle whizz whose playing is so suffused with slides, even when playing reels, that after a time I feel seasick listening to him.

Definition A slide means an upward glide into the note you want to play, generally starting from whatever note lies immediately below the target note. In most cases, this means the slide covers a semitone or whole tone. For example, you will generally slide into an E from a D (whole tone), into an F# from an E (whole tone), into a G from an F# (semitone) etc. Cs and Ds require special treatment. It is doubtless possible to break out of this mould (for example, by half-holing the note below to slide up by a semitone instead of a tone, or by sliding up more than a whole tone) but such techniques go beyond the scope of these pages (which basically means I have never tried them!). Does one ever slide down into a note? Traditionally, in Irish music, no. But in recent years fiddlers have taken to doing this on occasion (to the consternation of some grey eminences, who consider it nontraditional), because it is easy to do on the fiddle. On the whistle you can manage it to some extent, perhaps in certain slow airs. You can probably achieve a similar effect, especially using a low-pitched whistle, by using the breath to make the pitch of a note fall. I do, however, enjoy sliding up into a note and back down again - see A sneak visit, below.

How is it done? A slide is produced by gradually uncovering a tone hole. You can do this in a few different ways. If you play with the flats of the fingers, as I do, you can simply slide your finger forwards (away from the palm, in line with the finger). As you push forward with your finger, keeping your thumb in the same place, the curve of the whistle body causes your finger finger to lift off the hole gradually. This is what I do most of the time. I use another technique for the index finger of my top hand, and occasionally that of the bottom hand. Under the index fingers, the tone hole lies closer to the fingertip. So here I flatten (straighten) my finger, which causes the tip to lift away from the tone hole. Another way of sliding is to push the finger upwards (along the axis of the whistle, towards your mouth). I tend to do this with my ring fingers, because I find that pushing forwards with the ring finger tends to destabilize my middle finger. But that's just my fingers. I have also seen people, particularly those who cover the tone holes with their fingertips, pull the finger towards the palm to uncover the hole. Basically, I don't think it matters much how you execute a slide. How it works musically is much more important. You can often achieve an effect similar to that of a short, snappy slide by executing a tap. Lifting your finger slowly when doing a tap causes the tone hole to be uncovered gradually, producing a slide-like effect. See the topic on taps.

Why slide? And where? In my book, you use a slide for the same reason you use most other ways of decorating or a note: to emphasise or draw attention to it. In other words, you slide for the same reason a singer would slide into, or swell into, a note - because the note is musically or emotionally important and you want to highlight it.

It follows of course that you don't slide just anywhere and everywhere. Not all notes in a tune are strategically important or carry strong emotional impact! A while ago I was asked into a studio to record a age of about a dozen notes on a low whistle to give a "Celtic" feel to a TV theme tune. To me, musically, there were only one or two notes that deserved to be slid into. But the composer asked me to slide into practically every note, even the ing notes going up the scale, because he thought that this would sound more authentically Celtic. If you're not sure whether the note really warrants a slide, try singing the tune. You'll easily feel the note's importance - not necessarily because you slide into it when singing, but because of how much emotional weight you want the note to have as you sing. Slow airs lend themselves very well to slides - partly because of the feeling they can convey, and because, being slower, you have plenty of time to execute slides effectively. I do use slides in dance tunes, but to a more limited extent.

Examples I have no examples to post at present! I may get around to posting some at a later date. Just listen to your favourite whistler on record. He or she will demonstrate much better than I could.

Sliding up and down again - a sneak visit I use this trick mainly using the index fingers, either to slide up from a B to a C-natural and back again, or from an F# to a G and back again. Both these intervals are only a semitone. In the normal run of things, I only rarely use half-holing to play C-natural, but in ages consisting of B-Cnat-B, I slide up to a halfholed C and back again. Sometimes, using this technique with the bottom hand to slide into a G, I don't uncover the G hole fully, so that the note produced is a little flat. It's almost a quarter-tone slide. The flat G gives a very special effect (extra lonesome!). I use something similar, but in reverse, to perform microtonal slides down and back up from various notes, using non-standard fingerings. For want of a better term, I call this trick a "wah-wah", and intend to devote a future topic to it!

Problem notes For most ornaments, the notes C and D often require special treatment. In the case of slides, C-natural is dealt with easily, sliding from a B into a half-holed C-natural. C# is no problem either, involving a wholetone slide from B. The note of D is a little different. Sliding into a bottom D is not really on. Actually you can hook your little finger around the end of the whistle, partially covering the end of the pipe, to play a low C# and then slide into a D. I can't see a real-world application of this trick, although probably some 11-year old prodigy somewhere is perfecting the technique as I write this. (Not on a low whistle though, I think!) Similarly, I can't see sliding into a high D from C# as a practicable option. You can however, in certain tunes, slide from a B or a C-natural to a C#, and then immediately whack down all the fingers you need for a high D. This can gives the effect of a slide into a high D. For occasional use only!

Don't make sliding a reflex! You'll occasionally come across a player who seems almost unable to lift his or her fingers cleanly off the tone holes of the whistle - practically every note seems to get a sliding treatment. I speculate is that this is

because, when the player started on the whistle, he or she discovered the slide, and liking the effect, began to use it instinctively. For playing dance music, this habit can be a considerable hindrance: your reel or jig or whatever is likely to sound woolly - if not seasickness-inducing - and it will severely restrict your speed. So don't let your fingers slide unless you consciously want to produce a slide. Just lift them off, upwards.

VIBRATO Definition You all know what is meant by the term vibrato. It's the technique of adding a "wobble" or vibration to a note by making rapid microtonal variations in pitch. You can hear this in the singing of old ladies in church, or operatic sopranos, and in the playing of nearly every trained violinist (except those of the baroque school). In my opinion, vibrato is one of the most overused and overrated devices in music. I think it's a pity that violinists and singers use it systematically and seeming uncontrollably -- it's almost as if they don't like the true sound of a violin or voice! The use of vibrato in Irish traditional music has been the subject of a great deal of debate. There are those who think it has no place whatever, those who think it should be used sparingly, and those who have no problem with it whatever. As a fiddle player, I like next to no vibrato. I love the sound of a slow air played with the bare, plaintive sound of bow on string. I think this carries more emotional weight than vibrato. But then I don't like sugar in my tea. My attitude to vibrato on the whistle is similar. But it all depends on how you do it -- see below.

How is it done? Vibrato can be produced in at least three different ways: 1. In the throat. Please don't do this. At least not while I'm in the room. It sounds ghastly, adding a horrible tension to your sound. 2. Using the diphragm. This is the technique used by classical recorder and flute players. I wouldn't bother with it on the whistle. (But then I don't bother with sugar in my tea.) 3. Using the fingers. You can produce vibrato on certain notes (basically those that leave at least two tone holes uncovered) by shaking your fingers up and down above the exposed tone holes.

The third of these techniques is the only one I would recommend. Depending on the note, and the whistle, you may be able to touch the whistle body while doing the vibrato. Or you may have to keep the fingers just above the whistle body. To experiment, play a low G on your whistle. Then start shaking using the 2nd and 3rd fingers of your bottom hand. Try an F#, shaking with the 3rd finger of the bottom hand. This type of vibrato actually works better with lower-pitched whistles. There's the basic technique. Up to you to listen for it and in the playing of good players and copy it if you like.

Examples I have no examples to post at present! I may get around to posting some at a later date. Most players of low whistles use finger vibrato to a greater or lesser extent. A good example is Paddy Keenan. If you want to hear some extreme vibrato, find a recording of Finbar Furey playing his trademark slow air, The lonesome boatman, on a low whistle. I'm pretty sure he's using throat vibrato all the way through this tune, and although he does it spectacularly well, I think I'd rather hear him play the tune without. (But I don't like sugar in coffee, either.)

ROLLS: AN INTRODUCTION Before we begin: you have read my thoughts on the relative importance of rhythm and ornamentation, haven't you? You have? Good! No? Then read this section before you even think about learning rolls:

On rhythm and ornamentation: the good cake theory

One of the first things you'll notice about Irish traditional music is the infectious dance rhythms. Another thing you'll probably notice is the unusual quality of the melodies, which is often the result of their "modal" nature (the scales they use, if you like). But when you start playing the whistle you will surely start to notice the intricate ornamentation that most good players use. And in tutors, and workshops, and talking to other players, you'll soon hear like "cuts" and "rolls" and "crans" being tossed about. You'll quickly form the idea that these devices are an essential part of playing Irish music. And so they are. But -- and this is a very big but -- rhythm is far, far more important than ornamentation. Make no mistake about this. By and large, ornamentation should serve to enhance rhythm. But it is no substitute for rhythm. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing! Put time into mastering all the ornaments, by all means. But make sure your rhythm is good. And that means, one: make sure your rhythm is steady (you keep a constant beat, without speeding up or slowing down), and two: make sure your rhythm is acceptable for the type of tune you are trying to play. You can play great Irish music with next to no ornamentation. There are many fine players who do. But you cannot play good, or even mediocre, Irish music without good rhythm. If your rhythm is good, everyone will enjoy listening and tapping their foot, even if they know nothing about Irish music. If your rhythm is not good, nobody, but nobody, will enjoy listening to you. I often compare the situation to a cake. Your rhythm is the basic cake, your ornamentation is the icing. A good cake can be delicious without any icing at all. But putting icing on a bad cake won't hide the fact that it tastes awful. So make sure your cake is good. How can you be sure? If you've done enough years of listening, you'll know. If you haven't been listening for years, politely ask good players to give you . Ask them in private, so they'll feel free to give you an honest opinion. ("So, Joanie, how is the rhythm of my jigs coming along?")

Now that we've got that little point straightened out, you may continue.

What is a roll? A roll is a device very characteristic of Irish music, and comes in many flavours. I'm not going to describe it or define it here - we're going to start by doing. For many people learning Irish music, rolls assume a kind of mystique. They are considered to be difficult, complicated and elusive. While it's true that mastering them fully will take years, they are actually very simple, especially on the whistle, and I have developed a method of teaching them which reflects this simplicity. If you keep things simple, and follow my method, there's every chance that you'll be playing perfectly acceptable rolls very nicely in a very short space of time. If however you fail to follow the simple instructions to the letter - usually because you bring preconceived ideas into the process, or because you like to think too much - you can easily succeed in making them difficult, complicated and elusive. It's up to you! Rolls are very much at home on the whistle, flute and pipes. They can sound very good on the fiddle too. In

my (not very humble) opinion, they often don't sound all that great on accordions. I can't recall hearing anyone attempt one on the banjo, which is probably just as well... Before attempting to learn rolls, you should be able to execute "cuts" and "taps" easily and quickly. (See the topics on these ornaments.) If you can't, you'll be wasting your time trying to learn rolls. All clear? To learn rolls using my celebrated "dah-blah-blah" method:

ROLLS: THE "DAH-BLAH-BLAH" METHOD As I said in the previous page, we are going to learn by doing. Follow the instructions here carefully. When you get to the next page I'll tell you what we've been doing! History of the dah-blah-blah method. In the 1970s I spent many hours sitting next to my record player figuring out how to play rolls on the fiddle before I cracked them. A few years later a fiddling friend showed me a method used to teach kids in Ireland. It was so beautifully simple! I used this method to teach rolls to fiddle students and have now adapted it for the whistle, adding the vocal component - and given it a silly name. Advantage of this method. Apart from being easy, this method allows you to develop complete control over the separate components of the roll. This is a very significant advantage because it means you can adjust the speed of your roll to suit the speed of the tune. For example, you can play slow reels or jigs and have the rolls sound just right. Many players are unable to slow down their rolls in these circumstances, because they learn them as a single reflex, all crammed into a short space of time.

Step 1. Mental preparation. A. Forget absolutely everything you think you know about playing rolls. (For example, if you think that rolls consist of a note decorated first by a higher note and then by a lower note, deprogram yourself immediately! If you think that a roll is like a classical or baroque "turn" or "mordent", flush that notion down the memory hole now.) B. Now tell yourself, rolls are very easy to play on the whistle. (They are.) C. Now tell yourself, I have plenty of time to play rolls, I do not need to rush them or get tense. (You don't. In fact you mustn't get tense.) D. Now read the above steps again, slowly, three times. <

Step 2. Listening preparation. If you are not alone in the house, and you have any pride at all, you might want to close the door of your computer room before trying the next step. Now say out loud, slowly, "Daaah-Blaaah-Blaaah". (I'm not joking!) Each syllable is equal in length and there are no gaps between syllables. Do this five or six times.

Step 3. Practical preparation. Having got over the embarassing bit, we now do the same thing on the whistle. Take a low F# for starters, it's perhaps the easiest note to roll. A. For the first syllable, "Daaaah", play a long F#. Say about two seconds. Tongue the note -- the tongue represents the "D" in Daaaah. B. In the second syllable, "Blaaah", the "Bl" represents the cut, which we will play by lifting our G finger momentarily and putting it back down again very quickly. The "aaah" is another two seconds of F#.

C. In the last syllable, "Blaaah", the "Bl" represents the tap or strike, which we will play by quickly dabbing our E finger onto its hole and lifting it again. The "aaah" is another two seconds of F#.

The three syllables together should sound like this (click the icon at left) Make sure you are keeping the same rhythm as when you spoke it. The key to the whole process is the "Bl" bits. You do not play a musical note here, you merely interrupt the main note (in this case F#) with a little blip above or below. I find that students often have trouble getting the "tap" part of the roll snappy. This is absolutely vital, and your roll will never sound convincing unless the tap is very rapid. Your tapping finger should dart down and just bounce back off the body of the whistle, immediately returning to its place one or two centimetres above its hole. That's all there is to it. Believe it or not, if your roll is sounding like the sound clip, you are a very short way from being able to execute expert rolls in tunes. Of course, you have to speed things up a bit - but not that much. Caution - speed restrictions! In speeding up your roll, you shorten the "aaah" bits but keep the same proportion between the syllables. Progress first to "daah-blaah-blaah" for a few minutes, or until your spouse has thrown something at you, and when you can play that... ... you can go to "dah-blah-blah". You're practically home! If you can make your roll sound like the last clip, you're ready to move on to the next page. If not, or if you're not sure, skip to the troubleshooting paragraph at the bottom of this page.

Troubleshooting Since I can't hear your efforts, I can't tell if you're doing it right. Listen carefully to yourself. Does your roll sound like dah-blah-blah? If not, don't go on. Start over. And - you need to throw out all your preconceived ideas about rolls and just follow the instructions. The most common errors that beginners make in learning rolls are: A. Cramming the roll into too short a space of time. , I advised you to forget everything you thought you knew about playing rolls! Repeat the whole learning process, starting with Step 1, and make sure you are making three distinct syllables, all of approximately the same length. B. Sounding five distinct notes. The cut and tap should not form an audible musical note. They merely interrupt the main note for the briefest interval of time. If your roll sounds like "Daaah-Bee-Daaah-Bee-Daaah" (listen to the clip below), your cut and tap (, Bl, Bl) are not snappy enough. You have to get your fingers working very quickly here, and for this your hands (and your mind) must be relaxed. Go back and practice your cuts and taps. Read the topics on these ornaments. C. Not sounding the first note long enough. This is a variant of "A" above - read what it says there!

If your roll sounds like this, go back to the start. (Do not collect $200.)

SOME "LONG ROLLS" AND HOW TO USE THEM Before reading this page, you need to be familiar with my method of learning to play rolls - the dah-blahblah method. As you know, the previous page was devoted to doing. Now you are permitted a little thinking, a little intellectual fodder. (Just a little mind you.) If you have reached this page, you should be able to do a convincing "dah-blah-blah" on a low F#. So, how about some non-infantile language? The device I showed you how to execute on the previous page is generally known as a long roll. What you did, in effect, was to play three F# notes of equal length, articulated by tonguing, by a cut, and by a tap respectively. That is your basic long roll - it's that simple. By the way, long rolls are often played in a slightly different manner, with the three notes not evenly spaced. For now, though, I think it's important for you to master this basic technique of even spacing. I'll explain why on a later page. Also, there are a couple of important varieties of roll that are not "long rolls". We'll look at those later also.

Notation for long rolls Before we go on to look at what you can do with a long roll, let's reinforce what we learned in the dah-blah-

blah method by looking at the proper notation for a long roll.

The first example shows you the whole picture. The three eighth-note F#s are your three syllables ("dah_ah-_ah") and the cut (grace note of A) and the tap (grace note of E) are your "bl"s to fill in the blanks in the phrase, if you see what I mean. And just to drive home the point, the second example shows a cut tacked on the front of an F#-E-F# sequence. This is a perfectly valid and lovely-sounding ornament - one that you should use - but it is not a roll. Now that you've seen how a roll could be written out, we can forget all about it! I won't be using this full notation much in these pages. I'll use shorthand, and you'll use your ears... However, if you look at some meticulously transcribed settings of Irish tunes (such as those in Brendan Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol. II), where the rolls are written out in this fashion, you'll know what's what.

May 2004. In his Essential guide to Irish flute and tin whistle, Grey Larsen argues that the notation shown above left (among others) is misleading, and goes on to propose a complex alternative system of symbols for notating rolls and other ornaments. While he does have a point, the alternative is... well, a complex system of symbols! Which, in my view, is not really necessary. As we all know, musical notation cannot convey everything about musical performance, and we accept it as a series of conventions. The convention above is widely used in Irish music circles and I think it illustrates what I showed you on the last page pretty well. (As I just said, I'm not actually going to use this notation again in these pages, but with this aside I'm hoping to stave off a flood of emails telling me I'm wrong, according to Guru Larsen!)

Using long rolls on F# OK, so we have learned to play a nice, evenly spaced long roll on an F#. Where can we put it? Since the above example is in jig rhythm, let's try an F# roll in a jig. Here's an obvious place to put one - on a dotted quarter note on the "on" beat. Below is the jig The rambling pitchfork. Our F# roll can fit nicely on the dotted quarter note at the start of the first bar.

First line of The rambling pitchfork, with long rolls on F#(45K) I've indicated the roll by means of an asterisk (*) symbol. Most often, you'll see a curly dash (~) above the note to indicate a roll. I have used an asterisk 1. to remind you that it's always optional and 2. because the "~" looks ugly in my ABC music program!

Please you do not have to play a roll every time you arrive at this place in the tune. For the sake of the listener, and for your own amusement, vary by playing F#-E-F# from time to time (maybe with a cut as shown in the "not a roll" example above), or three separate F#s, or just one long plain F#, which you can dress up with a tap or a slide. Another example of a long roll on F#, in a reel this time, is the first note in The wise maid, given below.

First line of The wise maid, with long rolls on F# (??K)

Rolls on other notes So far we've only covered the note of F#. To play rolls on other notes, follow the fingering patterns you learned for cuts, and practise getting a nice even dah-blah-blah: To play a roll on E...

cut with the G finger

and tap with the D finger

To play a roll on F#...

cut with the G finger

and tap with the E finger

(You've done that one already...) To play a roll on G...

cut with the G finger

and tap with the F# finger

To play a roll on A...

cut with the B finger

and tap with the G finger

To play a roll on B...

cut with the B finger

and tap with the A finger

Don't be surprised if you find rolls on A and B, and particularly A, more difficult. Your top-hand ring finger is weak, and you may find it hard to execute a convincing tap at first. But with practice, you'll get rolls happening nicely here too.

Also, to play a roll on B, you'll probably find it necessary to the whistle with one of the fingers of your bottom hand. You can either use your little finger (resting it on the body of the whistle below the bottom tone hole), or your ring finger (covering the bottom tone hole). I prefer to use the ring finger. But be warned: if you use your ring finger, certain makes of loud and/or expensive whistles (the kind I don't play very often) will misbehave when you use this technique in the top octave, causing the top B to go out of tune, or squawk.

Long rolls on G Here's a common and not-too-difficult tune to practise your long G rolls on: The banshee.

First line of The banshee, with long rolls on G (90K)

For these G rolls, try a slightly different technique for the tap part. Imagine the first and second fingers or your bottom hand are taped together, and make the tap cover two holes simultaneously. This is what I do nearly all the time. I find it gives a slightly more satisfying sound to the tap, and it also comes naturally in many G tunes that do not use the note F#. The first line of The banshee has no F#s in fact. In a tune like this, it's natural to keep these two fingers "glued" together.

Long rolls on E Let's go to E rolls now, leaving the tricky A and B rolls for later. In fact E rolls have their own difficulty, which is getting your 3rd finger to tap snappily. The first line of the well-known reel The morning dew gives you plenty of opportunities to try long E rolls.

First line of The morning dew, with long rolls on E (60K) Let's move on to a new page to tackle long rolls on A and B.

LONG ROLLS ON A AND B Let's continue practising those evenly spaced long rolls with some examples on the notes A and B - which you may find more difficult at first.

Using long rolls on A A lovely old reel is The jolly tinker. It has five parts, the first of which gives us plenty of opportunities to put in some very satisfying long rolls on A.

First line of The jolly tinker, with long rolls on A (55K) As well as the rolls, notice the cuts (not marked on the score) used to separate the two ds straddling bars 3 & 4 and bars 7 & 8. A-rolls may take you a little longer to master. Everything is done with one hand, and leaving your middle finger down while you cut with the first finger and tap with the ring finger is bound to be awkward at first.

If you find it very hard to tap with your ring finger, try this tip that I heard from Xavier Tan of Singapore. Imagine that you are tapping down with your little finger - the ring finger will have to follow it.

Rolls on B

Here's the first line of a jig, for a change, and a very pretty tune too - The shores of Lough Gowna.

First line of The shores of Lough Gowna, with long rolls on B (45K) Like A-rolls, rolls on B will probably prove tricky. Again, everything has to be done with one hand. But with practice, you'll get them down nicely. Please note that we are still practising pure "dah-blah-blah" - trying to keep the three notes of our long roll the same length. On the next page, we'll look at a slightly different kind of roll, where this evenness is vital (at least, for the way I like these new rolls to be played). Later on, we'll revisit our long rolls and look at other ways of shaping them. Follow the link below to move on to what I call "Off-beat rolls".

"OFF-BEAT LONG ROLLS" IN REELS The story so far: we've been looking at long rolls, played on all the notes on which they can properly be executed (from E up to B). So far, we have been concentrating on playing rolls as three evenly spaced notes separated by a cut and a tap. This is exactly the rhythm we need for playing the next type of roll we are going to look at - what I call an "off-beat roll", or an "off-beat long roll", which occurs, pretty well exclusively, in reels. Off-beat rolls are typically composed of a quarter note falling on an off-beat (that is, the second or fourth beat of the bar), preceded by a pair of eighth-notes, the second of which is the same pitch as the quarter note. Let's look at how they appear on the staff:

Shown above are several ways that these off-beat long rolls can be written. The first line shows rolls on the first-octave F#, the second on first-octave E, and the third on second-octave G. The three ways of writing them shown all mean the same thing. Now let's hear what one sounds like. Here is an example of a single "off-beat roll" on an F#. Sounds like "yah-dah-blah-blah"! (12K) Here are the three variants illustrated above (57K) Let's look at an example in a tune. Here is the first line of a well-known reel, The first house in Connaught, which I am playing here chock-full of these off-beat rolls. This is the kind of tune, in fact, that is very difficult to make sound convincing without using rolls.

Line one of The first house in Connaught, featuring off-beat rolls on G and F# (50K) You'll find that the feel is a little different from the long rolls we were looking at on the previous pages, because the beat or accent falls differently. But you should have little difficulty in adapting your technique to these off-beat rolls.

Wait a minute! Aren't these short rolls? Ah, thought you might ask that question. The answer is, no. And, yes. Most people do refer to these beasties as "short rolls", but to my ear, the way most players play them they do not sound like short rolls, but like a modified long roll. (Most whistle players, and fiddle players anyway. Not sure about pipers.) Some people do play these figures so that they come out sounding like short rolls, but they are a small minority. Here's the difference: to my ear, to make these types of rolls sound like true short rolls, you must articulate between the second eighth-note and the quarter note. On a whistle, that means you must tongue, and on a fiddle, it means you must change the direction of the bow stroke. Doing this gives you exactly one quarter note to cram your roll into, and so what comes out is a short roll (we'll look at short rolls in detail later). However, this gives a very snappy, choppy, compressed sound to the figure, which I don't like, and which only a few top players favour. I much prefer the "sliding across the beat" effect which comes from NOT tonguing the quarter note - and it would seem that most other players do too.

This is why I am dealing with these off-beat rolls as a separate form. If you like the effect of an articulated short roll on an off-beat, by all means play them that way, and call them short rolls. Generally, I - and many other players - tongue the second eighth note. This gives you the space of three eighth notes in which to execute your roll, and the result is that it sounds just like... dah-blah-blah. Three even eighth notes. (Note that you can also not tongue this second eighth note, but slur into it - if you like the effect, or where the flow of the tune seems to call for not doing so.) As is the case surprisingly often, this corresponds exactly to the way that most fiddle players usually attack off-beat rolls - they start the second eighth note on a new bow, and then slur into the quarter note. It sounds so slinky and Irish! Just for educational purposes, here is the same tune, with me attempting to play the rolls as true short rolls, tonguing before the quarter note. It's an effect I don't care for - too busy-sounding - but one that you will hear (doubtless more skilfully executed) used by other players. Line one of The first house in Connaught, with short rolls on the off-beats on G and F# (XXK - coming soon)

Some more examples Below are a few more extracts from tunes featuring off-beat rolls, some with clips, some without. First, the start of the reel O'Mahoney's.

The first line of O'Mahoney's with off-beat rolls on F# (45K) O'Mahoney's is a four-part tune that might be a bit advanced for you if you're just starting with rolls, but I thought of it because of all those off-beat F# rolls. Here's a slightly easier example - no clip for this one. It's the first line of the ever-popular Green fields of Rossbeigh - a great tune that will give you a chance to practice off-beat rolls on E.

A special case Before we move leave off-beat rolls, let's look at a related animal. Again, this is a roll that many people would call a short roll, but which I wouldn't. Although this type of roll has a lot in common with what we've been looking at on this page, I can't call it an off-beat long roll, because it doesn't fall on an off-beat, but on the main beat. In fact it straddles the main beat. Here's an example in the familiar Michael Gorman composition, The mountain road.

Look at the two F# rolls that I have notated with my usual asterisk: both fall on the first beat of the bar (the second and sixth bars). But like your standard off-beat roll, both are preceded by a note of the same pitch. Once again, if you want to play a roll at this point in the tune, you have a choice: you can tongue the quarternote F# and play a common or garden short roll; or you can slur into the quarter note from the previous note, effectively creating a standard dah-blah-blah, or long roll that sits across the bar line. The latter method is what I much prefer. The first line of The mountain road with longs rolls on F# across the bar lines (53K) I am not going to bother inventing a name for these special cases but I wanted to alert you to them. They're more common than you might think.

Talking of not inventing names, let me confess something to you. Sometimes I wish the subtleties of Irish music didn't have names at all. Obviously, for the purposes of teaching, names are needed. But there's something in me that revolts at the idea of describing, dissecting and naming every little nuance used by good players. I don't want to see the music codified, petrified, pinned down in books (or on web sites) like a butterfly in a specimen tray. I'd like it to keep some of its mystery as a living, breathing, free-flying entity. Silly? Perhaps, but I can't help it. Despite all the verbiage I'm writing here, I'm going to strike a blow for this feeling of mine by sticking to a few basic species of roll, and not attempting to deal with every variety and subclass of roll you may hear in Irish music. I'd rather you explored and tried to reproduce what you hear, rather than bring what you have learned off a page to your listening and playing.

ROLLS - A PRACTICE PAGE On the use and overuse of rolls Now that you've seen how easy it is to execute rolls -- once you've understood the magic of dah-blah-blah, all you have to do is practise -- you'll be keen to be seen and heard playing them all over the place. And I have a few tunes for you to work on them in greater depth further down on this page. But before we go there... A few words of caution. Please : 1. Knowing how to play rolls won't necessarily make you an advanced, or even a middling, player of Irish music. No matter how well you play rolls, your playing will never sound authentic unless your underlying rhythm is good for the type of tune you are playing. For example, if you can't play a reel decently without using rolls, trying to add rolls is only going to make things worse. Believe me. So please balance the time you spend on these critters with attention to basic rhythm, steady tempo, etc. 2. Less is often more. A well-played roll is a satisfying thing, indeed. But as you master them, I would suggest you curb the temptation to put them in absolutely everywhere you can. For one thing, you can easily obscure or erode a satisfying melody by cluttering it up with non-stop rolls. For another, if you play nothing but rolls, you're merely demonstrating the fact that you can't think of anything more varied or creative to do with the tune! OK, enough pontificating already. Let's look at a couple of tunes to practise rolls in.

Practising your long rolls: Donnybrook fair Here's a good jig for spicing up with a few long rolls. In the music below, the asterisks (*) indicate places where you could very well use a long roll. I've used this notation rather than the ~ symbol because I want to stress the point that rolls indicated on the sheet are always optional. In the sound clip of the entire tune below, I don't play all the possible rolls I have indicated, and those that I do play I don't do every time.

For the sake of this example, I'm going to play long rolls on three notes only: G (in both octaves), B and E (in the second octave). Click the icon for a clip of these rolls played slowly (47K) Now here is the whole tune, played at a reasonable speed (153K) For more hints on playing jigs such as this one, see the topic Jigs: trickier than you think .

More long rolls: The golden stud Here's a dinky little reel that gives you a chance to practise perfecting your long rolls on E, F# and G. It's called The golden stud I'll assume it refers to the stud on an old-fashioned collar!) and I believe it was composed by Paul Roche, flute player with the band Stockton's Wing.

Just to remind you of the basic dah-blah-blah rhythm of long rolls: Click the icon to listen to long rolls on E, F# and G played alone, and then as they occur in the the first two bars of the tune (35K) Now here is the entire tune, played a little quicker (200K)

You'll notice that the low B that is the first of the two "pick-up" notes is played an octave higher.

Have fun with this reel. It's made up of short, very repetitive phrases, so you'll need to try varying things a little. Otherwise by the time you get once through the tune your listeners will be starting to get bored and wonder if you have any tricks up your sleeve, or if you merely learned the tune off the music posted on some web page!

Mainly off-beat rolls: The knotted cord Many people find rolls on A hardest to perform, mainly because you have to tap with the ring finger of your weaker hand. This fine old reel, The knotted cord gives you a chance to practise both long and off-beat rolls (see the previous page on rolls for a definition) on A, and on G.

Here's a clip of a couple of long A rolls, followed by the first 2½ bars of the first part played slowly (46K) For the off-beat roll at the end of the first bar , I tongue before the second eighth-note, i.e. the E eighth-note, and then slur into the rolled E quarter note. This is my usual pattern for tonguing off-beat rolls, although sometimes I don't tongue at all. Now here are bars one and 3 of the second part, again played slowly (19K) Again, I use the same tonguing pattern for these off-beat rolls: I tongue the eighth note immediately before the quarter note on which the roll falls. Once you have these rolls going satisfactorily, you can tackle the entire tune (175K) Since you need only your top (usually left) hand to play A and B rolls, I worked hard on these ornaments by keeping a whistle in my car (in the days when I used to own one). Playing while driving is obviously dangerous to yourself and others, so don't ever do it. But when you are immobilized in a traffic jam you can keep your right hand on the wheel while you work on rolls with your left. The knotted cord is also frequently referred to as Junior Crehan's favourite, after the late great Clare fiddler and composer.

TRIPLETS The term "triplet" in music often means a group of three notes played in the space of two: for example, a quarter note divided into three equal notes. In Irish music, the term is used to mean a variety of different decorations - most of them not true triplets in the above sense. The ones I'm going to talk about are listed in the menu. Triplets to decorate quarter notes

This is probably the closest thing to a true "three into two" triplet I"m going to discuss. It's just a handy way of decorating a quarter note - more relaxed than a short roll. Let's look at an example.

In bar three of this tune, there is a quarter note f# followed by an eighth note e. Bar 7 could be played exactly the same, except that here I have decided to decorate the quarter note f# with a triplet. (The little 3 under the group of notes indicates that three notes have to be spread out evenly over the quarter note.) You could do this by lifting your f# finger, or - as I have chosen to do here - by lifting the G finger. The A finger would work, too. Each of these possibilities will give you a slightly different effect. Try them all. Also, I am tonguing the f# with the triplet. I needn't have, but I prefer to. Here's a sound clip. First line of Bill Collins' jig, with triplet in bar 7 (44K). Note that this kind of triplet is quite different from a cut. Cuts come at the very beginning of the note, whereas here the "grace" note (an a, in this case) to decorate this f# falls in the middle of the note. The difference is subtle, but the change in feel is very noticeable.

A cut on our f#, played twice, followed by a triplet, played twice (32K). An example of this kind of triplet is shown in the second part of The maid behind the bar on the Tonguing page.

Ascending triplets in reels

Triplets are used occasionally in reels to "fill in" an interval between two ascending eighth notes. For example, instead of playing two eighth notes, Bd, you might decided to "fill in" the interval with a c#, thus: Bc#d. The first thing to realize about this trick is that, despite the fact that conventional triplet notation is almost always used, in practice the three notes are not all equal in length. In fact it would be more accurate to notate such figures as two sixteenth notes followed by an eighth note. Here's an example.

Bars three and seven of this tune end with a Bd eighth-note pair. In the third line of music, I show how you could substitute a Bc#d triplet for this age. But note that although you will probably see it written as a triplet, you will hear it played as two sixteenth notes followed by an eighth note. Bars four and eight begin with an eg eighth-note pair. Here we can fill in the interval with an f#, as shown in line 3. Clip of bars 3 and 8 - unornamented first, and then with the triplets (33K). The first line of the tune (44K). In bars 4 and 8, you could easily play two sets of triplets one after the other - ef#g followed by f#ga. I don't care for the effect, myself. In fact most of the time, playing this tune, I wouldn't put in either of the examples I have shown you!

The Bc#d triplet is used very frequently indeed by most whistle players - in reels, jigs, and just about any other kind of tune. It can give great lift to a tune. However, it can easily become a habit to fill in the Bd interval without thinking about it - something I would caution against for several reasons. One is that doing something automatically without thinking about it is not a good idea in general, leading to predictability (an enemy of good music-making). Another is that some tunes do not contain the note C (an example is Callaghan's, above) and I like to respect this absence. Another use for this kind of triplet is as a kind of decoration for a high d.

Descending triplets in reels

Just as you'll find ascending triplets in reels, descending triplets are also commonly used - more commonly, in fact. Again, the conventional triplet notation is misleading. Let's look at some common figures that crop up in reel after reel.

Figures like those shown in the first line of music are very common. As we saw in the section of ascending triplets, a more accurate notation would be that shown in the second line of music. The third line of music shows another possibility. You'll find, as you play these triplets faster and faster, that they begin to sound more and more like cuts. At some point you may simply start thinking of them as cuts, which are much easier to play. I certainly do... Below is a sound clip to try to demonstrate what happens as you get up to speed. Stock triplets morphing into cuts (44K) Here's a trick to help you convert triplets into cuts: remove the first note from the triplet group as written. Then cut the next one, using whatever finger you would normally use to cut that note. Thus the F#ED triplet becomes {cut}ED, lifting the G finger to cut the E. The c#BA triplet becomes {cut}BA, lifting the B finger to cut the B. Once you get the hang of this "triplets as cuts" idea, certain ages start to make more sense - and become much easier. Especially when you get more than one triplet in succession - as in the last bar of the next tune.

This tune demonstrates not only the figures we looked at above, but the use of two consecutive sets of "triplets" (actually played as cuts). The last bar of the last line is in fact merely a variation on the last bar of the 3rd line of music. The graphic below shows how these would probably be written, and how I play them.

Crowley's no. 1, with lots of descending triplets played as cuts (88K). Playing these consecutive sets of triplets as cuts will make you give you a lovely, flowing, piperish sound. Especially if you don't tongue them, as I haven't here. , to convert the triplets into cuts, lop off the first note of the triplet and cut the next note with whatever finger you normally use.

Here are a couple more examples:

This is a tune played by Miko (or Micho - pronounced "Mike-O") Russell. I like to slip a couple of triplets into the second part. These ones are a tone higher than those we had in Crowley's no. 1. Mary McMahon (??K - clip not posted yet).

The second line of the well-known reel. I like to put in a couple of these triplets as shown in bar three.

Second line of The boys of Ballisodare (??K - clip not posted yet). Triplet runs in hornpipes

Coming soon. Tongued triplets and "trebles"

Coming... one day "Quadruplets", etc.

Coming soon. (If you believe that, don't buy a used car.)