The medical staff called me a 'Trooper.'
Afterwards they gave me cookies, to break the fast.
I'll do anything for cookies.

I'm glad the procedure went off well and that you got some cookies.




That you're entirely happy with distorted, half-baked techniques and incorrect nomenclature, and that you turn up your nose at the offers of much more advanced players to help you (one even kindly going so far as to create a video to help correct your bizarre ideas of ornamentation)?...

Very shabby stuff.

Got just the sound I tried for. What I was after in that tune. Thanks again for the help.

You guys aren't going to make me elaborate a much simplified and nuanced pedagogical point to a beginning level player, by hammering on it, are you? No, of course not.

Often is not always, and if Jim banishes the thought of crans and hornpipes in the same sentence until he has a better handle on more fundamental elements of playing hornpipes, he'll be doing OK.

Off to California.

+1

The longer I play and really listen to what I'm doing the more I know I can do it better. It's a never ending cycle.

Some really great ideas here. I'm trying them out to see what may work.

The current tune I'm working on needs some really solid poppy E crans. I've started using a glottal "cough"? at the start. It helps. If I can get to the point were I can fire off fast enough those coughs it might really give it some force.

Great thread all. Thanks!

A

Yea... but you aren't cranning. How about trying for that sound?

Don't you think it might be worth the effort to learn to properly execute the effect before you go all loosey-goosey deconstructive on it?

You know that guy Picasso? He could actually draw like a mother'effer before he got all cubed.

Have you tried cutting with your G finger (LH3) on the first E? You can use that finger to cut the first and last E, which should give you some nice "gargle." On some flutes I can use my B finger (LH1) to cut every note in the cran (the e, f, g, and e) if I'm not playing like an eejit. The B and A fingers are terrific for popping Gs.

Around here, we call the B finger the Finnegan Cut, after Brian Finnegan spent part of a workshop trying (not entirely successfully) to convince us of its merits.

On my whistles at least, the LH1 cut on E doesn't work in the 2nd octave, so it will depend on Aanvil's tune. But you're right that it's worth remembering that the left/upper hand is there to be used for cuts. We (at least I) get into fixed habits, and tend to forget the other options.

"The Finnegan Cut." I like that! Much better than the "LH Index-Finger Burbly-Thingy." Most pipers I've met call it a "nip," and it's dead handy. But right, not so much on the 2nd octave in whistles.

I have found it works on most flutes' second octaves because you can vent D2 with the index finger (that's actually a truer d), so basically you're just gracing the e with a d.

.... OMG. I have SO fallen into the nerd-hole.

There is no one true "cran", totally agreed MTGuru. A true cran is a combination that you are most comfortable playing in a tune setting. That being said, if you are going to practice the "cran", you can isolate it by playing the note that you will be cranning before you "cran" it. Play the note for as long as possible before you ornament it. This will give you the rhythmic lift and produce the ornament that sounds ideal.