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Is there a name for this technique where you push enough air into the whistle until it's about to break the note in the 1st octave (but not break) and it produces a raspy, windy sound?
Is there a name for this?
I think Eric Rigler did it a lot in this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y3vmS1ob6w&t=65s

I can produce this in an all metal Chieftain alto A but not in a Mk Pro low D.
I guess for this feature, the Chieftain share more lineage with the Goldie (which was used by Eric in this recording)?

I don't see or hear anything unusual in that clip. Just seems like breath control.

I'm not sure what you're referring to either.

It would help if you could give an exact time that the thing you mean occurs.

I don't hear Eric doing it there, but for sure on flute and many Low Whistles you can do a thing I've heard called "playing between the octaves".

If a flute's cork is positioned at exactly the right spot you can play a note (G for example) in the low octave, creating a pure low-octave note, then you can introduce a tiny bit of the 2nd octave into the tone, then steadily increase the 2nd octave presence until the tone is 50/50 low octave/2nd octave, then keep increasing the 2nd octave component until there's no low octave left and you're playing a pure 2nd octave note.

In other words there's no break between the octaves, but a continuum of relative presence.

If a Low Whistle is made just right you can do the same thing.

Some of the old-school honky fluteplayers would sit right on that middle ground and play with the gritty energized tone that results.

Here was the best demo of doing this on flute that I could find quickly on YouTube. Yes it's jazz but no matter what style you're playing on flute the physics of the flute work the same

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owW7M02f14

Another technique on flute and Low Whistles is using the break as an expressive device.

To me the effect is best heard not with Irish flutes and whistles but with the Caval, a huge bass whistle from Romania. At the beginning here he's staying in the upper octave but he lets low notes peak through now and then, a really cool effect. Then when he goes down into the low octave it's an amazing change in tone

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

Here it's demonstrated how these big whistles work

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

You can do these things on Low Whistle but they're not quite as dramatic as on Caval. I think the lower the whistle the better; these things work best on my Bass A whistle.

very educational ... thanks for the detailed explanation.
Appreciate it.

Thanks!

It would be cool if you identify the exact place in that video where Eric is doing the technique you're referring to.

It's the only way that everyone can know we're discussing the same thing.

pancelticpiper wrote:Thanks!

It would be cool if you identify the exact place in that video where Eric is doing the technique you're referring to.

It's the only way that everyone can know we're discussing the same thing.

I'd say around 1:10min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y3vmS1ob6w&t=70s

arthury wrote: I'd say around 1:10min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y3vmS1ob6w&t=70s

Ah, I thought that's what you might be talking about.

It's just a gracenote one note below the following melody note.

It's most striking to do it as part of an octave-leap, such as going from B in the low octave to E in the 2nd octave with a Closed Middle D gracenote in between:

xoo ooo (low-octave B melody note)
xxx xxx (closed middle D gracenote)
xxx xxo (2nd octave E melody note)

and so forth.

You asked for its name, and happily music has a name for it: appoggiatura.

It's been written:

"A problem for modern performers is that many 18th century composers left appoggiaturas unwritten, because they relied on the taste and musical knowledge of their performers to insert them where appropriate."

New age fluff.

Very educational. Thanks again, Richard, for teaching.

oleorezinator wrote:New age fluff.

It was standard technique in the 18th century.

Not only in Baroque music: it's long been a Highland pipe ornament too, and it's standard practice in slow air playing on the uilleann pipes.

Here Willie Clancy does it right away (at 0:05)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHr5cC9e7Hw

pancelticpiper wrote:You asked for its name, and happily music has a name for it: appoggiatura.

I've just listened to the Eric Rigler one and the Willie Clancy one. I wouldn't say those were appoggiaturas; they're acciaccaturas. The difference being very pertinent to what we're talking about here - the former takes up quite a bit of space within the beat, often as much as the 'main' note, whereas the latter is a very brief grace note.

To be honest though, the sound of those ornaments in trad music is not really the same as either a classical appoggiatura or an acciaccatura.

benhall.1 wrote:I wouldn't say those were appoggiaturas; they're acciaccaturas.

And I'd say neither, being somewhere in between for timing and, as you go on to point out, not fulfilling the normal function of either.

Peter Duggan wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:I wouldn't say those were appoggiaturas; they're acciaccaturas.

And I'd say neither, being somewhere in between for timing and, as you go on to point out, not fulfilling the normal function of either.

Yes, I'd go with that.

And I'd say neither, being somewhere in between for timing

Is there a name for that? Does the music that does appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas do anything in between?

david_h wrote:Does the music that does appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas do anything in between?

Short answer: yes. But it's complicated because there are different shades of everything depending on period and context...

Also worth pointing out that appoggiaturas have a harmonic function and normally (but don't absolutely have to) resolve by step.