I'm with Richard Cook with regard to the preference of calling them articulations.
I was trying to avoid taking this discussion into the reply to the OP's question and my point was that Richard should perhaps not have done so either, the whole 'I can play you an entire flute or whistle album where there's not an ornament to be heard' Is not helpful answering the OP's question. We know what she meant to ask.
As you can see I suggested in my initial post that Michelle should learn the tunes with the basic 'things that help the tune aliong' these would be the cuts and taps (which Richard would probably call 'pats') that emphasise and separate notes of equal pitch. Note I avoided the use of 'articulation' and my main reason for doing so was that I have yet to meet a traditional musician who uses the term. 'Ornamentation' is well understood in the context, even if you could go all pedantic and pick holes in the use of the term. I fully agree with Richard removing these 'bits' creates artifice.
Older musicians more often used 'embellishment', which was supplanted by 'ornamentation' some decades ago. 'Embellishment' encompasses a wider spectrum of things you can do with (or to, depending on your execution) a tune.
Terminology in traditional music is not set in stone, across the board there's a relatively wide variety of terms used for the same thing and the internet has added more layers to this,. It's confusing at times. I can live with that, last thing we need is formalising how we describe the music we play.
I have known older musicians who'd say '
just put a twiddle on that note, that makes it nicer' it's a crude term perhaps but they'd give you an example how it should sound. Terms like 'articulation' and 'ornamentation' and above all trying to differentiate between them will codify things. The 'twiddle' could mean many things to many people but it would encompass various uses of whatever you 'put on' the note in question.
Because that's the thing, the distinction between 'ornament' and 'articulation' is not always as clear-cut as the terms suggest. At a basic level things can be clear but once you get to a more advanced level of playing, or listening, boundaries get blurred and the placement of a simple cut, relative to the note, can make it take on a different or additional function. The 'delayed' cut can alter the perception of a phrase quite significantly to the experienced listener and when it does it has well and truly transcended being a mere 'articulation'.
Same for Richard's example of saying the Kesh jig starts on 'four Gs'. It certainly starts on G but what you do with that G decides the next step. If you'd ask me there are many ways to start the tune and you may vary it with each return to the phrase.
There are different way of looking at rolls. If you look a for example Bro Steve's use of rolls, the da blah blah roll, you can even say there are three equally spaced Gs (followed by another G) in the roll. Paddy Keenan uses that type of roll and Richard regularly cites Keenan as an inspiration so I can see where he is coming from. But many, perhaps even more, players do not use the equally spaced roll but use one that employs what Breathnach descripes as the rhythm of a free hopping ball. If you use the latter approach to the roll (and I would 99% of the time) the roll can be taken, no longer an 'articulation' of three Gs but an ornamental overlay on a Long G. To be honest I would hear in my mind the start of the Kesh as a lilter dwelling on the long note Daaahh dadadee doodledeedum... never as four Gs. I would not normally think of a roll as 'articulation' in that context. Perhaps I had my ear bent by a lovely old style concertinaplayer I used to play with who cherished her long notes. But there's always more than one way, I have certainly also heard concertina players, for a particular effect, tap out four plain unadorned Gs in that context.
I know, it's a matter of style and approaches. Ambiguity is the order of the day in this music, very few things are as clear cut as we like beginners to believe. Some room for interpretation in the terminology won't do any harm, can even be useful, when used in general terms (used to describe particular instances may be a different matter).
I' ll leave it at that, probably rambled along too long. Too early in the day. Time for coffee, get the day started, get the lockdown brain in gear.
