Chiff and Fipple Forums

I hear a lot of players use the following ornament in Airs and other tunes. Sounds like a short cran on the high E.

Ex.

High E.../GF/ E.... or D /GF/ E..... or F# Slide to G stop and land /GF/ E......etcetera.

My question. Is there anything wrong with doing "FG" E..... instead of "GF" E......I would rather use what is traditionally taught.
oppose to what's easier for me at this point.

Thanks in advance!

(If I'm not making sense I can find some examples on youtube)

Here’s a novelty, a piping technique question!!

IMHO, there’s nothing wrong in doing either, in fact being able to vary your ornamentation is part of piping.

Just to throw another one out there, try single finger g taps whilst keeping the E open . Ie E GG E

As used by Mikey Smyth (sparingly !)

A link to an example would be helpful.

Is it the thing he,s doing at 0.37 as well as other places?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3PBXNOs4f0

RORY

(Jon) I hear what you are saying and I agree with you to a certain extent. However, I also believe that a lot of the ornamentation sets you up for following phrases and there is a reason why talented players chose to go down the chanter when it's easier and more natural to go up.

Here is a good example.

At 2:29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZKW5MQgO1w&t=155s

CaperMike wrote:A link to an example would be helpful.

Try this https://youtu.be/-hVVTWeasbk

30 seconds in (& repeated often!)

It sounds like a mini-cran to me if there is such a thing, played off the knee. It's a lovely effect as is the repeated use of ghost d. As far as I could tell he played that tune without having to use keys. Am I right? I'm referring to the Mikey Smyth video.

The answer (in my opinion) is no, the order of the GF or FG does not matter and is personal preference. Same with finger order for a cran.

(Using Jar's video as the example) He's going for the effect of two "Things" happening to the high E note. The actual notes that cause that effect don't matter very much, unless you start moving to using fingers higher up the chanter which make the notes (and effect) more pronounced.

For me, coming from the Highland pipes as I did, it was a matter of doing the same ornament on the right hand that I had already done for years on the left hand.

On uilleann pipes the upper-hand one is fingered like this:

x xxo xxxx
x oxo xxxx
x xxo xxxx
x xoo xxxx
x xxo xxxx

In other words, cutting with the upper-hand index finger and middle finger in sequence.

Doing the same thing on the lower hand makes an ornament on E:

x xxx xxoo
x xxx oxoo
x xxx xxoo
x xxx xooo
x xxx xxoo

That's the only reason I use those fingers in that sequence. As was pointed out above you can reverse the cuts, or for that matter you can probably use other fingers too.

I call these things "semi-crans" because they have two cuts rather than three. In Highland piping they're called "doublings", though the lower-hand one I diagrammed above doesn't exist in Highland piping. (Well it does when I'm playing Highland pipes

On uilleann pipes and whistle I tend to use this E ornament on airs, and in a specific situation, on a quick E melody note followed by D.

BTW years ago I knew a whistle player for whom the ordinary roll on E didn't exist. He always used this semi-cran instead.

Good info there, thanks.

My personal intuition tells me one would use GF over the FG because they already have a solid GFE triplet technique in their bag and essentially they are just shortening the movement. Personally, I find any movement going up rather than down on the chanter to be more natural and in this particular technique I always see players opting for GF not FG...E..... So was interested in the theory as to why.

*On a side note the Mikie Smyth movement is more of a trill on the E and not what I was referring to but great video. Thanks for that!

Tou-Che wrote:
My personal intuition tells me one would use GF over the FG because they already have a solid GFE triplet technique in their bag and essentially they are just shortening the movement.

True, but you already have a FGA triplet too, probably.

The Piping Of Patsy Touhey mentions him doing the standard FGA triplet GFA so that the same GF finger ornament was part of the cran, the GFE triplet, what would normally be the FGA triplet, and backstitching.

That's interesting.... I do have that particular triplet and it came a lot easier to me than the GFE triplet. It might be the underlying foundation to my question or maybe just that I'm a lefty who plays right handed. It might be best to get the GF short cran on the E tight experiment with both and roll with whichever sounds best. (No pun intended)

The Jarlath Henderson (as best as I can hear) and LOF examples sound like grace notes, in particular, g being played over e, i.e. e(g)e. Kind of like in beginning instructions for cuts when you actually play the cutting note -which results in three distinct notes just as if there were two cuts on the e. Here's me just barely pulling it off (at 0:44):

https://youtu.be/UyIHmlUd21E?t=43s

The tight fingering needed to jump onto the e directly after the back d helps contribute to an overall staccato sound.