How does a beginner know when to perform rolls

[Mike Clougherty]

Hello all!
The title pretty much sums up the question of this post. How does a beginner whistle player know, while learning or playing a tune, when to perform a roll. I recently gave my sister my potter whistle, because it plays very well and it's not going to break the bank if she loses it, which she is prone to do, and I was teaching her the basics of playing. Now, if any of you have read my recent intro post, you'll know that I am a beginner as well, though I've been playing for a year and have been exposed to a lot more ITM, through sessions with my father etc, than her. So I taught her the basics as well as I could, as well as tongueing and how to perform cuts, taps, and rolls. Than she caught me off guard and asked the simple question of how she'll know when to utilize rolls in a song. I honestly didn't know how to answer her, seeing as I am a beginner as well, and after listening in at sessions, as well as playing along, it sort off just comes to you.
I also didn't think "when it sounds right" was an adequate response. Haha. Anybody have any answers for her and I? This will help my playing as well.
Cheers!

[dyersituations]

Since rolls are ornamentation and there aren't necessarily hard and fast rules as to when ornamentation is used, you will hear players using different styles. What I might consider a standard roll (note, cut, tap) is often put there 3 of the same eighth notes are in a row, an eighth followed by a quarter of the same note, or a three note sequence that only moves up and down one step or so (AGA). An example would be a common way The Silver Spear is started (FAAA).

[BrianG]

To me Blaine Chastain's site is excellent in helping beginners in this regard since he teaches all of his tunes with the ornamentation included in the lesson. It really helps to see when and how to add these articulations.

Rolls in my opinion are especially interesting because I see that they can also be used as a kind of short hand (in my mind) for certain phrases; a simplification. For example if you have a phrase that is EDE you can probably get away with an E roll or at least try it and see if it works. It's also really interesting to hear the more experienced players put rolls where you would never think they're possible (at least to my beginner's ears).

[pancelticpiper]

I know this might sound cheeky or glib, but the simple answer of when to play rolls is when the tune calls for them.

I've spent the last 40 years with one foot in the Highland piping world and the other in the uilleann pipe/Irish flute/whistle world, and it's interesting how the two, in general, have opposite approaches to how one should learn.

Both traditions produce fine players with an equal success rate/learning speed/efficiency, seems to me.

So in ITM one hears the opinion all the time that beginners should start out with just the melody notes, artificial versions of tunes stripped of all the things which would be in the tunes when played by any mediocre or good player. I suppose it could be graphed

simple tunes without gracenotes or ornaments > tunes with a few gracenotes > "real" versions of tunes

Highland piping does the opposite, teaching a full palette of gracenotes and a number of complex ornaments BEFORE any tunes are learned. When the beginner learns his first tune, it's a fully realised version, the same as the best players with a lifetime of experience would play it. One might graph it

scales > gracenotes > two- three- and four-note ornaments > "real" versions of tunes

The Highland piper in me is annoyed by people spending the time and effort to create dumbed-down artificial versions of Irish tunes in order to shield the newbie from the terrors of gracenotes and rolls.

On the other hand I admire the very well thought out programme seen in Learn To Play The Uilleann Pipes With The Armagh Pipers' Club (whew!) which starts the tyro on simple airs and marches and introduces various expressive devices one-by-one in tunes which use these devices in a clear and effective way. I never get the feeling from the book of the learner being forced to learn dumbed-down music.

The opposite is when I see somebody who has been playing whistle/Irish flute for years and has a large repertoire of reels and jigs and hasn't learned how to do a cut or a pat yet.

[pancelticpiper]

rolls are ornamentation

I disagree with this entirely.

An "ornament" by definition is a decorative device superfluous to the melody. Traditional Irish whistle and flute playing, generally, has few (or none) of that.

In whistle and flute playing cuts, pats, and the combination of the two we call "rolls" are a way traditional players articulate notes without using the tongue.

Rolls are devices of articulation and rhythm and are the most basic possible building-blocks of reels in particular when playing on Irish wind instruments. When I learn a new reel or jig by ear, at full speed, it's the roll spots I identify first, because they're the places the melody rests on a note for a beat (or 3/4 of a beat in reels). Then I fill in the stuff around the roll spots.

[Mr Ed]

I had to get out of lurk mode and reply to this one. Part of me is bothered by the whole idea that the "realness" of a tune is dependent upon how much ornamentation is used, rolls in particular. I know, I'm still considered a beginner, even after 5 years, but listening to various well known _good_ players and how they approach the same tune makes me wonder why all the focus on rolls, long ones in particular. Some can use very little ornamentation, while others can use quite a bit, and still have great feel. In my own experience, when I'm thinking about things such as "This is where people tell me a roll should go" while playing a tune...it'll sound like I was thinking about it instead of playing with feeling. I've recorded myself doing this. (And be thankful I'm more selective in recent years on what I share here.) So, I'll share the advice given to me a few times over the years....listen....then listen some more. Then in time you or your sister will know when to throw in a roll, if you want to and it feels right, because you have a feel for the music.

And I'm on the side of rolls being called ornamentation. If they weren't, then everybody would play them in the same place...and so would all sound the same.

[Mr.Gumby]

In whistle and flute playing cuts, pats, and the combination of the two we call "rolls" are a way traditional players articulate notes without using the tongue.

I am never sure I would agree with that. Many of the old players I knew didn't play rolls in jigs at all, or maintained that when they were learning this was not done. A roll starting the , let's take the obvious example, the Kesh : ~G3 G etc is not an articulation of opening statement which would be something like GFG GAB ABA A--- (but could just as easily be BGG G or DGG G or a few other configurations). A roll in that place has a particular rhythmic and, dare I say it, ornamental function.

In reels the same would hold true in many cases. On the piping forum we just had a lengthy discussion of Tommy Reck's piping. When playing with Tommy in 1989 I noticed his appraoch to the turn of his version of Miss McGuinnes, which I had always had as faaf ~g3 e dedB def... He played faaf gfge dedB def..., which ignored the roll but used the notes of the melody. It was rhythmically very effective and it opened my eyes to the fact that rolls are not by definition 'part of the tune', quite the contrary: it is often quite effective to avoid them for a change of effect.

[Steve Bliven]

Where my ear has evolved to, via several differing teachers and listening to/transcribing recordings, is that the following are all variations of the same thing: ~G3, GFG, GAG, G2(cut/tap)G or GzG. Where they are used seems to depend on how they fit in the tune structure, whether "this time through really calls for some sort of variation" or "damn, I need to breathe here". Is this what others do, is it heresy for ITM, or is it just me?

As for the "ornamentation", "articulation", "variation" labels, I tend to think that it's more of semantic/defintional argument rather than a "how/when to play" argument.

And in response to PCP's Scottish/Irish teaching experiences, I had a workshop with a well-known (and unnamed here) Irish whistle instructor who said (in paraphrase): "Here's the bones of the tune. Now put the plastic end of the whistle in your mouth and play it, putting in what sounds good to you. Play it with others until it gets refined in your head. And then it's your rendition of the tune. That's folk music." (Based on my notes from that workshop.)

Them's my thoughts this morning.

Steve

[Mr.Gumby]

As for the "ornamentation", "articulation", "variation" labels, I tend to think that it's more of semantic/defintional argument rather than a "how/when to play" argument

It IS pretty much semantic and not really relevant in terms of actual playing. It comes down to stylistic choices made by the player. When however a statement like Richard's comes up I immediately get visions of tunes posted on the session.org, like in the example I used above, the Kesh, you can find the tune written as GGG GAB AAA A--- and I would perhaps argue that is NOT the tune but a misunderstanding on the side of whoever decided to write it down that way.

Now, tunes have certain 'anchor notes' (for want of a better term I'll use that). Notes that carry the tune. In between are note that connect up the important notes. If you have ever taught a tune to a musician who has grown up with this music you can see a glimpse of how a tune sits in their mind: they will start picking out the important notes and fill in the 'gaps' in a way appropriate to their own mind.

I have, years ago, given the example of a young local girl who I was teaching the pipes' She had grown up in a musical family and was a total earplayer, Irish music was almost a second language she could employ without giving it a second thought. Now I was giving her a reel on the pipes, The West Wind. I played it through once, second time around she picked out the main notes and third time round she filled in the bits. Coming to the third part however she configured the line in a way that if Willie Clancy had played it (and he was a relation of hers) everybody would try copy it, lovely turnabout of the phrase with a contrary rhythmic twist, really one that lifted me off my seat. When I asked what she did there she couldn't remember: 'I just played the tune'. That's the way to do it.


As for learning the how and when: listen to great players (and I mean just that, not every Joe Soap on youtube provides an example to follow) and try understand what they do and why they do things a particular way. There are giants out there, you may as well climb on their shoulders.

[StevieJ]

Chiming in late as usual, I would answer the OP's sister by saying, "don't put them in until you know where to put them in." This sounds similar to Richard's "cheeky" statement, and similarly might either come across as unhelpful and dismissive...

But I think there is a subtle difference between "where the tune calls for them" and "where you want to put them in". The point is that listening to good players is what will build up her sense of where rolls will work, or add to the tune. Trying to "put them in" without having developed this underlying sense is inadvisable.

Having a highly developed sense of the language is what Mr. G's student was exhibiting in that surprising twist she pulled out of the hat, and to have that sense and to produce that kind of freshness must surely be the goal of us all.

Until some degree of that sense develops, sis should surely just put them in where good exponents do - copy, in other words.

Like Mr. G I would take issue with the mantra "rolls ≈ ornamentation". To some extent and in some places their function is one of articulation, true, and I have written elsewhere that taps and cuts are really essential devices that shape how the music is played (by most) on the whistle rather than "ornaments". But when you reduce this idea to a hard-and-fast rule, you run into trouble IMO.

As Mr. G says, you can very often - nearly always in fact - find satisfying alternatives to rolls in the form of other devices or other notes of melody. Once you have really mastered rolls, it can be liberating and refreshing to shed them!

I'd say that rolls and the like are both ornaments and articulation. Just as light behaves as a particle and a wave: you can't explain the phenomenon by insisting on only one aspect.

[ytliek]

I'm still newbie-ish... a penurious, tone deaf wannabee whistler. My experience has been listen, learn bare bones melody, listen for the ornamentation if any, experiment with the ornaments for a feel of what works, play a lot, listen, and the tune will work itself out for how I play it. Honestly, sometimes my fingers will do an ornament or something on their own and I'll know I did something but can't always replicate it or describe it. Maybe it's lazy fingering or maybe something ornamental. I do prefer simplicity in tunes, while trying not to be mechanical. Maybe a luddite in whistle learning, yet, with a respect for how the traditional music was played by the greats.

In the beginning I found Geraldine Cotter's tutorial to be most helpful.

Yeah, I try to avoid most of the YouTube crappolla being posted when there are quality archives to be sought out. Even the personal archives.

At some point one would hope to have developed one's own playing style.

[Mr.Gumby]

Steve's remark about Richard being 'cheeky' sent me back to Richard's first post, which I hadn't actually read in full.

I hope you don't mind me diverting the thread briefly while I think about this out loud.

It's interesting to see where opinions on this converge and where they part ways. I think when describing learning tunes Richard and myself are talking about by and large the same thing although I would not consider the rolls an essential building block, where he does. I'd think of the note itself (ie G, A, B or whatever) and how to approach it in the tune (roll or anything else) would be only a secondary consideration.

Let's take the start of Trim the Velvet ~G3 B AGFA ~G2 Bd cAF--- I wrote a long roll there at the start but having spent time in the company of players who'd savour the Long Note as an essential device I would think of the note there as a Long Note ornamented (there, I said it again) with a roll rather than three Gs articulated by means of cut and tap. I think right there we have the point where things diverge. Still pretty much a matter of semantics. If I'd choose to use three notes in that spot in the tune however I'd use GFGB AGF--- which has at the least a different rhythmic impact but it doesn't in any way stray from the tune.

I don't believe it's worth trying to determine if one or the other is a more valid way of thinking about this.

I do think I need to make clear here that in my thinking about a roll I would follow Breathnach's description of the rhythm of a free hopping ball. I suspect this is another(?) juncture where thinking about this (ornamentation vs articulation) diverges.

If you look at, for example, the jig Coppers and Brass BGB BGB AFA A when you introduce a simple roll here : ~B3 BGB ~A3 A-- I don't believe it is rhythmically the same device some pipers (and in extension some whistle players following a particular style) use to articulate three Bs (or As) by separating them by just taps B{G}B{G}B {G}BAG A{G}A{G}A {G}A-- when playing the same phrase.

Discuss (or not).

[dyersituations]

rolls are ornamentation

I disagree with this entirely.

An "ornament" by definition is a decorative device superfluous to the melody. Traditional Irish whistle and flute playing, generally, has few (or none) of that.

In whistle and flute playing cuts, pats, and the combination of the two we call "rolls" are a way traditional players articulate notes without using the tongue.

I see where you're coming from. Maybe I used the wrong word, though teachers used "ornamentation" when describing it to me years ago. All I meant was that technically you could play a tune without any rolls and you could tell what tune was being played. It might not sound great or be "correct" following the tradition. The main point of my post was about common places I've heard rolls played.

[tin tin]

While I agree that "ornaments" can be considered articulations under many circumstances and can also be ornamental under other circumstances, it is often helpful for new players (particularly those coming from other musical backgrounds) to initially consider them as articulations--ways to emphasize notes and rhythms. (To someone with a classical background, for instance, "ornament" won't imply that at all.)

Then, by the time you're at the point where you're dressing up tunes, you know the language well enough to differentiate between ornamenting and articulating.

And StevieJ neatly sidesteps the semantics with the highfalutin term "Twiddly bits" on his website; it's an excellent first port of call for all whistle players: http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/

[tstermitz]

I think Richard Cook is making a good point, and I don't think Ornament vs Articulation is just a semantic issue. Ornament implies something decorative added to the tune; Articulation implies something more intrinsic to your musical expression of a tune. Whistle or pipes have the problem of (relatively) lower dynamic expression in terms of volume, so rolls serve the important purpose of providing emphasis, i.e. articulation, not just ornament. There is some physics involved: you can blow a little harder and louder when the air stream is interrupted by the roll.

Another good point is the idea that sometimes you want to use GAG or G2A instead of expressing it as ~G. That is not an ornamental choice, rather an articulation choice. The melody remains in either case, but you have choices as to which articulation you use.

I guess the same thing applies to cuts. Cutting a note places an emphasis on it, which means it isn't just a decoration.

Back to the original question. Again, Richard notes that paying attention to the rolls is useful for him to find the "important" parts of the tune.