Hi,
I was wondering how you guys add ornamentation to tunes you’re learning. Do you immediatly add all the ornamentation from the first time you practice the tune or do you first play the skeleton version until you can play that fluent, and then add ornamentation once you’ve got the basic tune down? Or is it inbetween?
I’m very curious.
Greets,
Enclose
My teacher had me learning basic ornamentation as I learned a tune. So, cuts and a few rolls were done from the start. But the settings were not the most ornamented settings of each tune either, and were merely a way to introduce ornaments.
Now, I usually try to learn a tune as I’ve heard it played which includes ornaments, assuming that it’s within my ability.
It depends on the tune. Sometimes I find a sheet music that has the ornaments written, so I learn it directly with them. When no ornaments are written I still try some cuts or rolls as well. Once I have the tune memorized I try to embellish it.
On the other hand, if I try to learn a tune by ear I use to play it directly in the same way I’m listening it (it would be even more difficult if would I try to play the skeleton than playing what I’m listening).
I recommend adding it from the start. Just a little bit, and I wouldn’t worry about short rolls or crans, but cuts, taps, a few long rolls and triplets. If you can’t do them from the beginning, you are playing to tune too fast.
My theory is that the bulk of the “ornamentation” that Irish whistle, flute, and pipe players use is actually not ornamentation at all, but articulation.
“Ornamentation” is by definition something superfluous to the melody which is added for decorative effect. There’s not very much of that in Irish traditional wind playing.
Rather, Irish wind players often articulate with the fingers rather than the tongue (flute/whistle) or by closing the chanter (pipes).
This usually occurs in the form of “rolls”.
Rolls aren’t extraneous to the tunes, to be left out or “added” at whim, but are nearly always “built in” to the tunes, at least on traditional Irish jigs and reels when played by traditional-style players on the flute, whistle, or pipes.
Rolls are as basic to getting around on the instrument as being able to play scales and arpeggios.
Not only do I “add” the rolls from the very beginning but, when I’m learning a new tune by ear and up-to-speed (which is how I usually learn tunes), the rolls are the first thing my ear picks out.
I hear a reel and my first impression is:
(on-the-beat low E roll)
+(on-the-beat low G roll)
+(postponed high E roll)
+(postponed high E roll)
I first hear the rolls, and whether they are on the beat or postponed (in other words, whether the three notes of the roll make up the first three or last three notes of the four-note grouping).
This could also be thought of as:
(low E roll)+linking note
+(low G roll)+linking note
+linking note+(high E roll)
+linking note+(high E roll)
When my ear identifies these linking notes, I get:
(low E roll)+low F#
+(low G roll)+low A
+low B+(high E roll)
+low B+(high E roll)
This of course is the first two bars of Dunmore Lasses.
In jigs it’s easier because the rolls take up an entire beat:
(low E roll)
+(low B roll)
+(low E roll)
+(descending D major arpeggio A, F#, D)
This of course is the first two bars of Morrison’s Jig.
It’s so much faster learning tunes by recognising the bits and putting the bits together rather than thinking of it as a string of unpredictable eighth-notes.
Make sure (as a beginner) that when you add an extra sound (meaning an ornament/triplet, whatever) between the melody notes that that extra whatever doesn’t push the melody notes out of the place in the rhythm of the tune. I was trying to get that idea across to a guy I was helping develop rhythm and found he couldn’t do this little exercise until he drilled it a lot:
Count out loud: ‘1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4…’ and tap with your hand on the table on the 1 and the 3. Keep the tapping rhythm going steadily with the hand and try saying ‘1 ‘and’ 2- 3- 4, 1 and 2- 3- 4…or 1- 2- 3 and 4…’ while keeping the count in time with your tapping. You might find yourself slowing down the tapping to fit in the ‘and’ or giving the ‘and’ it’s own beat. That’s a problem. Steady tapping, no matter how many syllables you sound (which represent your ornaments) and keep the numbers on the beats.
Tony
Yes I have beginners play cuts and pats, then the rolls which are made up from them, very precisely at the start, sometimes to the click of a metronome.
Say you’re learning a G roll. You should be able to tongue out three G’s to three even clicks of the metronome:
xxx ooo
xxx ooo
xxx ooo
and then play a G roll to the same three clicks:
xxx ooo
xxo ooo (cut, you could cut with xox ooo or oxx ooo instead)
xxx ooo
xxx xoo (pat)
xxx xxx
and have both be timed exactly the same. The cuts and pats should be so quick so as to not take noticable time away from the three melody G’s.
Remember that cuts and pats are not notes, rather they are interruptions of a note.
my fingers just do it themselves, i dont even have to think about it, it just happens.