Chiff and Fipple Forums

It’s a bit of a daggy tune, but it comes up. What are you going to do? Sometimes your pint glass isn’t empty and you don’t have to go to the bathroom. Plus, it comes after three perfectly good polkas.

Anyhow, it’s the second setting here https://thesession.org/tunes/1959 specifically the A part where you get these sets of four identical sixteenth notes not five, but six times. That’s twelve in all what with the repeat. I’ve been doing a ‘tuka-tuka’ thing here, but I’m not really impressed with it. Any suggestions on how to bring this little gem to life?

Play the first setting on The Session?

Do you mean substitute the c part of the first setting for the a part of the second setting, transpose it, and keep the fourth bar of the second setting to avoid clashing?

Yeah....I suppose that could work. A single ‘tuka’ would be half as irksome as a ‘tuka-tuka’, and it wouldn’t clash. Still, I can’t help thinking that there’s a better way to get that rhythm.

Thanks for the reply though!

Playing four staccato-ish Ds will just sound silly. Perhaps go something like DEFD instead, it's more suited to the instrument.

I'm not familiar with the tune, so I youtubed up some examples.

Celtic Thunder plays the notes stacatto-like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4H9OQ1MmH4

But, what does Celtic Thunder know? So I thought I'd look some more. Here's a Sir James Galway example, also all stacatto-like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcuFokcnZjE

I couldn't find any other semi-famous examples on whistle.

Silly, indeed!

I’m finding that a simple D>D ED|B>B cB is working much better than D/D/D/D/ ED | B/B/B/B/ cB to my ears and still sounds plenty like a polka. I will definitely take your advice Mr. G, and see if I can sneak a few other notes in there too.

Perhaps there just isn’t much hope for this polka no matter what you do. High production values, or even the possession of a golden flute don’t seem to matter much. Maybe there is a reason I can’t find any good examples of this tune to listen to...

https://youtu.be/n4H9OQ1MmH4

https://youtu.be/PPi2uuGYmmA

Hahaha! Best cross post ever!

If I had to play this tune instead of "tuka-tuka", I would use "tuddle-duddle". The effect is far less staccato and, I would go so far as to say, could take you out of the silly category.

Brilliant! Thank you!

I would try different things and see what sticks.

My first thing would be to try rolls there.

Then I would experiment with melodic solutions.

For sure I wouldn't tongue out four of the same notes in a row, not unless I was playing fife.

Thanks Richard, I hadn't tried rolling the notes yet. I'm building up a small stock of other thing to vary and will add rolls to the list.

After just trying the tune, I would just stare at the floor until it is over quick double rolls help but starting on the D they would be double cranns...not the easiest ornament, esp when doubling it....The B and A are easy enuff to double roll though...versions submitted here start on G...you could double roll all those quad notes but you’ll have a half hole (f nat) and double rolling the high D...again, another challenging ornament...adding notes don’t fit the melody of this particular tune IMHO...some tunes just don’t translate well to the whistle...I think this is one of them...catchy little melody though...I find myself staring at the floor from time to time...no shame in it

double cranes

They'll do the heavy lifting in your tune, or make it fly.

I’m finding that reducing it down to D>D ED|B>B cB etc makes it sound like ‘just another polka’ and in this case that’s obviously a good thing. I still might occasionally feel compelled to throw in the odd “tuddle-duddle” out of peer pressure, though.

I think less is more in this case.