Hello, I am a new member. My name is John. I have been playing tin whistle for about 16 mths. I am working on cuts. I have two questions, namely
1. If you have more than two repeating identical notes do you cut all the repeating notes?
2 When you are using a cut to separate two identical notes in a jig for example to my untrained ear some people seem to simply blow the notes continuously with one blow (as in slurring) separated by the cut whereas I have heard others online blow twice as in blow cut blow. Help!
Thank you in advance for your help.

It depends on several things, style of playing, where in the tune, which notes even. So there's no general, cover-all answer to your questions.

you could get, for example, eAA A in which case I'd go eAA {c}A but when playing BGG G I'd probably go {c}BG{D}G {GA}G both of which in fairness probably lean heavily on what I'd do on the pipes but it is at the same time a fair indication what you do in one case doesn't necessarily translate to the next.

It also good to realise there is probably no one right way to approach this, more ways to skin a cat, although there are also ways that aren't quite right.

Best road to travel is to listen how players who's playing you like, tackle this sort of situation and take from that what suits your own playing. And let the music guide you what is the best way to go in a given situation, rather than adopting a formulaic approach.

[fixed typo]

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My brain hurts

I'd normally cut one, tap one (the basis of a roll, though you can still choose to keep them distinctly separate). On lower notes you also have the option of (quasi-)cranns, which is like cutting successively with different fingers. And don't forget you can also start the new note with just tongue...


You can slur through a cut or tongue it (slurring to the succeeding note). There's no one-size-fits-all rule for when to do either because it's basically context- and/or preference-dependent.

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And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

Why I teach... and where
Master of nine?

Yes 1) it depends on context and 2) there are no "rules" per se and a variety of things could sound idiomatic to trad players.

(Note the distinction between the number of things which are possible and the number of things which sound idiomatic to trad players.)

Three notes of the same pitch in succession? Let's assume they're eighth-notes for the moment. That can be a 'roll' if that group falls in certain places. Typical to 'roll' with note-cut-note-pat-note.

But in the example above, say it's a jig where you have

| eAA AGE |

occupying a bar.

I might play eA(pat)A (cut)AGE or eA(tongue)A (cut)AGE.

As alluded to above there might be piping influence, the tonguing between the first two A's has a similar sound to the pipes doing a close pat between those notes which creates a silence.

Then there are times when you have four (or more) eighth-notes of the same pitch in succession, the common beginner example being the Kesh Jig where you can have

| GGG GAB |

where the first three G's are usually done as a roll, and you'll hear a variety of attacks to the third G, a cut, a pat, a tongue.

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Richard Cook
1978 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle