stiofan wrote: Scottish music is relatively new territory for me...I'm guessing that some GHB players who also play whistle use ornaments from the piping tradition, which causes me to believe that style of ornamenting would be more traditionally Scottish on the whistle as well...
Thing is, the physics of how whistles work are so different from how Scottish pipe chanters work that few Highland pipe ornaments work on whistle.
Being that I have the vocabulary of Highland pipe ornaments already under my fingers, I've tried them on whistle, and there are a couple that do work and I do play.
One is the
piobaireachd ornament called
botri or
dare according to which
canntaireachd you're using. I throw it in when playing
ceol beag on the Highland pipes, and I use it on whistle also, due to it being whistle-friendly.
On whistle it's a fancy way of going from A to B:
xxo ooo
xoo ooo
xxo ooo
oxo ooo
xxo ooo
xoo ooo
or in other words a sequence of two cuts (B and C) played on A, followed by a B melody note.
The other GHB ornament I use on whistle is a modified
leumluath or "grip" which I play on C natural on whistle. It has the effect of a roll on C natural, and IMHO sounds very nice on whistle.
Basically I play a "grip" with the lower hand while the upper hand continues to play C natural:
oxx xoo
oxx xxx
oxx oxx
oxx xxx
oxx xoo
Yes I could play "grips" practically anywhere on the whistle but I don't, rather I play the ordinary traditional cuts, pats, and rolls from ITM. I use the "grip" on C natural because it, for me, fills a technique-gap, an easy-to-play roll-like ornament on C natural.