Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

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AngelicBeaver
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Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by AngelicBeaver »

Hello everyone,

I'm curious if what I'm demonstrating in my video is a commonly used ornament (cut followed by two taps), and if it is, how do I make it faster? After years, it's still painfully slow. How do real whistlers go from slow and sloppy to quick and precise? Is it just a matter of doing regular drills? What's really helped you? How long did you practice, and how often? Even my cut on the B is still mushy, more often than not. How do I develop a really snappy play style? After 8 years, I still don't have the speed or consistency to really feel like a confident whistler. I'm stuck on an endless plateau.

Here are some of my problem areas, and the cut, double tap ornament:
https://youtu.be/KifymrR47rw
Nathaniel James Dowell
piperjoe
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Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by piperjoe »

You're the first, and only, person I've seen use this particular ornament.

Not that you can't or shouldn't, but I've never seen it before. If you can get it up to speed it might be a good one. But there are others that should probably be mastered first.

Piper Joe
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AngelicBeaver
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Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by AngelicBeaver »

piperjoe wrote:You're the first, and only, person I've seen use this particular ornament.

Not that you can't or shouldn't, but I've never seen it before. If you can get it up to speed it might be a good one. But there are others that should probably be mastered first.

Piper Joe
Well that's interesting. That's the drawback of being in a relatively isolated geographic location, trying to learn from staring at YouTube videos, I guess.

Mike McGoldrick does something like what I'm going for at 13 seconds in this tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRHmEI5SaDM

Maybe it's just a really quick cut tap cut tap.
Nathaniel James Dowell
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Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by piperjoe »

If you're isolated, although I'd think San Antonio would have some good trad players (other than Mariachis that is) you might benefit from Grey Larson's Whistle Tool Box. Great book, and he might be having a Xmas sale at the moment.

The thing about ornamentation is that there's no absolute. Most folks do more or less the same things but some have their own "pets" they sort of invented on their own. I know I brought some stuff over from Highland/Lowland piping that most whistle/flute players don't do but if it sounds good, it is good. Think I just quoted Duke Ellington or maybe Satchmo there. :boggle:

The one thing that every good player I've ever talked to has to say about ornaments is," don't overdo
it!" :poke:

Remember, our music is mostly dance music and you dance to the tune and rhythm, not to the twiddly bits.

Piper Joe
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AngelicBeaver
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Location: San Antonio, Texas

Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by AngelicBeaver »

"If you're isolated, although I'd think San Antonio would have some good trad players (other than Mariachis that is)."

Yes, lots of mariachis, very little traditional Irish activity. We've got one session that meets on Thursday nights, but it's 90% strings and accordions. A very good flute player showed up once, but he wasn't a regular, and I've never seen another low whistle. It wouldn't surprise me if I turned out to be one of the top five whistle players in San Antonio, as rough as I am. There might only be five real whistle players, if that.
Nathaniel James Dowell
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Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by tstermitz »

WRT your specific problem, does a cran work in that situation?

I have certain elements/decorations that have been very slow to mature. For example, sequences where the notes jump back and forth between octaves. I can fake-speed it with a roll, but the breath control for actually hitting the notes took a long time. Dusty Windowsills might be a good example where you have to puff "just right" to work it up to speed.

I played at an intermediate level for years before quitting for a-good-long-time, and then returning with more time and enthusiasm. If I had come across Mary Bergin, I probably wouldn't have quit. Well, maybe I would have quit out of desperation, but certainly not out of boredom.

I would say that some things just take time... and more time. The set-of-all-irish-tunes ends up being a pretty good training course, pretty soon you come across most patterns. I think you can jump start your training by focusing on drills to improve specific areas.

Here is one suggestion: Put Irish Tunes on your pandora feed, and just listen day-in and day-out. It's like absorbing a language, eventually it just seeps in to your brain patterns; maybe a couple years later!

Another suggestion: Mary Bergin (and probably most good musicians) have habitual ornaments or patterns that their fingers just know. MB for example, makes extensive use of a short roll initiated with a tongue, ant that gives her whistle playing a driving, percussive approach.

Hmmm. What happens if you think of the whistle as a rhythm instrument, not just a melody player?
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Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by ytliek »

Playing and listening and playing and listening. Or watch the visuals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DwH5vzn_Eg
https://www.youtube.com/user/tradlesson ... radlessons
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Re: Best techniques for speed/precision improvement?

Post by pancelticpiper »

AngelicBeaver wrote: I'm curious if what I'm demonstrating in my video is a commonly used ornament (cut followed by two taps), and if it is, how do I make it faster?
It is a commonly used ornament, but more common with uilleann pipers than fluters or whistlers. I'm puzzled by people above saying they've not heard it, because I would think that everyone on these boards has heard The Bothy Band. One of their most famous pieces begins with Paddy Keenan playing these very ornaments on both G and A in the low octave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6YJAFbJPrA

It's exactly as you describe, a Long Roll starting with a cut followed by two pats.

A "normal" Long Roll on G:

G'G,G

What I call "the piper's Long Roll"

'G,G,G

I consider neither of these Long Rolls as being "ornaments" but rather different ways of articulating repeated notes. A spot in a tune requires three Gs in a row, and there are various combinations of cuts and pats that will do the job, any combination as "correct" as any other, in my opinion.

You don't need to play them fast, because each eighth-note should be its full length.

Just practice them slowly, starting very slowly, with a metronome, making each cut and pat precisely on the click. Practice the whole tune like that, with one click per eighth-note, all the melody notes and all the notes within rolls being clearly heard and of the same length. Slow down Paddy Keenan playing The Kesh Jig to half-speed to hear how "open" and precisely he times these.

What you don't want is to crush the notes together making a rhythmless blob of sound.

I know there's loads of metronome haters here. Many people are blessed with a flawless internal metronome, and to them a mechanical metronome is both useless and absurd. For the rest of us, practicing with a metronome is extremely valuable. It forces you to stick to an even beat, and a person who can play in solid rhthym will never be unwelcome in any session or band.
Richard Cook
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