I’m confused. What are the best fingers to use for cuts? LE McCullough recommends cutting with the finger immediately above the note you’re gracing, except for E (cut with the G finger) and B (cut with the B finger, obviously). That would look like this:
D cut XXX X0X
E cut XX0 XX0
F# cut XX0 X00
G cut X0X 000
A cut 0X0 000
B cut 000 000
Others recommend always cutting with the A finger, for instance, Bro Steve in his excellent whistle tutor web site (It’s in the links section if you don’t know it). I guess it’s for economy, you don’t have to train several fingers to move fast, but just one.
It would look like this:
D cut X0X XXX
E cut X0X XX0
etc.
Does anybody have wisdom to offer on relative advantages, preferences, reasons? Doesn’t the A-finger cut backfire when you’re doing rolls? It produces more squeaks for me, esp. on the low D.
P.S.: I mean by a “cut” a single grace note above the main note.
Actually, I just went back over that section in L.E. Mc’s book, and he doesn’t exactly recommend cutting with the finger directly above. He mentions the finger-directly-above idea in one sentence, the use of other fingers in a subsequent sentence, and then basically implies that anything goes.
I like to usually cut with LH2, myself. Not because of convenience (though it is often the most convenient) but because it sounds the best on my low whistle and flute; makes a nice crisp blip. And it works fine on rolls for me, except for A-B-C-D, of course.
B, it’s true that certain virtual whistle resources, and other real authorities such as Mary Bergin, suggest cutting with the first and third fingers of the top hand only. I think that this is just to make things easy and predictable.
This summer I talked to Kathleen Coneely, whose playing is just THE TOPS, and she showed me that she cuts with the finger just above the one that needs to be down. For example, she cuts Es using the “F# finger” (first finger of bottom hand) and Gs using the “A finger”.
So it obviously doesn’t matter how you do it. It may just be simpler to train the same two fingers to do the job every time. You may also get a crisper sound if the cutting finger is further away from the note being cut. I tend to cut everything in the lower octave with the B finger, for example. You just have to be aware that this won’t work for the second octave D or E…
Edit: I just re-read your post. Brother Steve recommends cutting with the “G” and “B” fingers. He never uses the “A” finger… check the site again.
[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2001-11-13 09:49 ]
You mean there’s not a “right” way and a “wrong” way to do cuts?
(note: Though I play the whistle left-handed, the following L and R hand notations are as if you played the whistle ‘normally’: left hand in back)
Bill Och’s tutorial also suggests that one use L1 and L3 (the B and G fingers) to do cuts, depending on the note being cut (use L3 except where impossible, essentially).
That said, I find that cutting with L3 tends to sound a bit choppy when cutting a 2nd octave D, and I don’t really like the sound of it. I think it’s probably because with the breath pressure I use, I’m actually getting the lower octave on the grace note, rather than the upper. Regardless, I personally cut with the F# finger (R1) on the 2nd octave D’s. I think the sound is much cleaner.
Greg
[ This Message was edited by: Wandering_Whistler on 2001-11-13 11:14 ]
Absolutely there’s a right and wrong way! And everybody MUST do it MY way!!!
All ambitions of world domination aside, you obviously have the right idea: you’ve searched for the techniques that sound best to you. And this is going to be different for every different player, and for every different type of whistle.
On 2001-11-13 11:13, Wandering_Whistler wrote:
You mean there’s not a “right” way and a “wrong” way to do cuts? >
On 2001-11-13 09:47, StevieJ wrote:
I just re-read your post. Brother Steve recommends cutting with the “G” and “B” fingers. He never uses the “A” finger… check the site again.
[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2001-11-13 09:49 ]
Bro, I checked you webpage again, and you are of course right: B and G fingers it is. I think the reason for my recollection of the A finger was that in the notated examples, the middle A appears as the grace note for cutting, for example in the Chanters Tune.
BTW: I pm’s Dale about your whistle page, and now he’s acting like he found it all by himself.
Ah yes, that’s because when you lift your G finger, you sound an A. Actually it’s not a real A, because of the speed and the other fingers that are down, but that’s why I chose to notate an A… HTH
I learned to do cuts by applying bagpipe techniques to the whistle. In piping they are called grace notes. Different grace notes give a different feel to the note you cut to. If it is a fairly high grace note (like the top finger on the whistle) there is a fairly sharp feel to the note. If it is the finger right above the note you are going to, the feel is more subtle. It all depends on what you want.
One of the things I love about the whistle is there is a lot less of a concept of THE “right way” of doing things. Piping is very standardized and has no real improv culture. This is sad. The goal is to play very traditionally and meet a set ideal. I prefer to play for personal pleasure and to make a tune sound fun. Don’t get me wrong, traditional can be very fun. It is just that I have more fun making up the ornaments on the whistle than worrying about whether I am supposed to use a d-throw or a lemluath for this next note.
I suppose that I may end up being one of the long-haired rebels of the piping world.
