how to play the rolls correctly?

The Ultimate On-Line Whistle Community. If you find one more ultimater, let us know.
User avatar
Sedi
Posts: 993
Joined: Sun May 01, 2016 6:54 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: Practice, practice, practice. You're never too old to learn.
Keep on fluting.
---u---o-o-o--o-o-o--
-----------------------

Re: how to play the rolls correctly?

Post by Sedi »

That's why I put "ornaments" in quotation marks :D .
psoutowood
Posts: 88
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2018 9:42 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: I am a longtime piper, and have added in the few years a bunch of Irish whistles and smallpipes to my collection. Looking for new instruments and like-minded people!

Re: how to play the rolls correctly?

Post by psoutowood »

pancelticpiper wrote:Thing is, rolls and cuts and pats (the bits that keep jigs and reels pumping along) are essentially straightforward things to play.

And tunes can be played in an acceptably trad-sounding way with very little of them.

It's a world apart from Highland piping where before you can play beginner tunes you need to master single gracenotes, doublings, leumluaths, taorluaths, D-throws, and birls.

)
Very well put! I started playing jazz where "rules" in improvisation didn't exist and wouldn't have been followed anyway. The people trying to perfectly copy Coltrane and Parker sounded like machines because those guys played to what felt right, not to what was prescribed. Then I started played Highland pipes and found a whole militaristic world of "exact" ornamentation. While I liked the evocative sound of the pipes, the black and white approach to musicality really tired me out. Then I found Irish music and whistles, where you could once again play to what the music wanted. It's like following the spirit of the law and not the letter.

-Peter
User avatar
Sedi
Posts: 993
Joined: Sun May 01, 2016 6:54 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: Practice, practice, practice. You're never too old to learn.
Keep on fluting.
---u---o-o-o--o-o-o--
-----------------------

Re: how to play the rolls correctly?

Post by Sedi »

Copying jazz solos seems really pointless. Like copying a Hendrix solo or basically every improvised solo. I mean it might be okay when just starting out. But on stage? However, I have to admit I did commit that "sin" once on stage in the guitar solo for "Easy like sunday morning" in the "Faith no more" cover version. But I think the solo was more or less the same in the Lionel Ritchie version.
User avatar
Mr.Gumby
Posts: 6606
Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 11:31 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Location: the Back of Beyond

Re: how to play the rolls correctly?

Post by Mr.Gumby »

To me cuts, pats, and the rolls made from them aren't "ornaments" but the gears that keep the tunes churning along.
To an extend. But only in their most basic use. I feel not all ornaments are pure functional utilitarian additions to the melody. There are areas where a well placed ornament can alter the meaning of a phrase to a close listener. The expression is often found in the smallest of detail: the adding, or leaving out, of particular elements.

I think perhaps it should be noted ornamentation can mean a bit more than just your cut, roll etc. Breathnach lists a few items he considers 'ornamentation' or, as some of the older musicianers used to say 'embellishments'.
My brain hurts

Image
Post Reply