So far I’ve been more eager to learn tunes in a basic form (little ornamentation, good amount of tonguing) and have not really focused on ornamentation. Now I’m entering that phase of whistling and invite wisdom on the choice between:
Better to learn a new tune with ornamentation from the start, since that’s the way to play it
vs.
Better to learn a new tune without ornamentation first b/c the sooner you can play it at all, the sooner you can play it (at a session) and have fun. Worry about adding in ornamentation once you can play it bare-bones.
The latter. Ornamentation is an art but it can in fact be a substitute for knowing the tune.
Learn the tune first, then add some ornamentation. Not lots, necessarily. Tune first.
It is the most beautiful part of what you play. The ornaments compliment it.
I once discovered that I couldn’t really play the tune for a lot of tunes I played ornamented.
The ornamenting was covering this up. I ornamented in places where
I didn’t really have the tune.
The chief thing, whether or not one learns
the ornaments first, is to keep in touch with the tune and to play it occasionally
unornamented.
I agree, never learn a tune along with the ornaments, learn the essence of the tune first, then enhance it with ornamentation. I’ve met several gifted musicians who simply were unable to play the tunes without these elaborate ornaments they had learned, I remember one session where a young piper played a set that included “Rakish Paddy”, it was hardly recognizable as the tune. I asked him if he knew the basic tune, and he just didn’t, he had learned a specific arrangement and was playing human tape recorder playing it back exactly as he had heard it on the recording. His skills were impressive, but the lack of understanding of the basic tune structure struck me as quite sad in some ways…
What did Geraldine Cotter say? A common error is to focus only on one aspect of the tune and ignore all the other aspects. For example working only on ornamentation and neglecting the melody, the rhythm, phrasing, variations, etc.
The original question was about learning efficiency and was not about forgoing any aspect of the tune. A well played tune delivers the complete package, so the question is do you learn the complete package at the outset? Probably not the complete package if you’re just starting out. Like learning anything else, you’re going to pick up bits and pieces here and there. Sometimes learning is systematic, sometimes it’s haphazard. There are days when you will learn only the melody and insert ornaments later or sometimes you will learn the tune with ornaments right off the bat or sometimes you’ll focus only on ornaments. You’re going to revisit the same tune years later and possibly play (and thus relearn it) it very differently.
If you stick with it long enough, it will all gel. There’s really no short cut.
I’ve been playing long enough to have learnt a few tunes several different ways but once in a session and the speed gets up there, it’s back to my original fumblings. Gaaaaaa.
It is better to play the tune without ornaments than to play the ornaments without the tune. I find that if I learn a tune the ornaments happen without too much effort or thought.
Barthold Kuijken on Ornamentation - the text of a contemplative lecture delivered by one of the world’s greatest fluters - yes, at a Recorder/Period Performance Baroque music convention, but none the worse/no less relevant for that!
Not an ITM exposition to be sure, but there are many parallels in approaches to embellishment and interpretation between ITM and Baroque music (after all, they are not that far diverged from the same roots in Renaissance dance music…). Surely most of it is at least conceptually relevant, if not directly technically applicable to ITM!
I’m feeling slightly troubled by some of the posts above. I know we use the word ‘ornamentation’, implying that it’s something like an added bit of painted plasterwork on a dado, the basic structure being the wall. But what’s called ‘ornamentation’ in this music doesn’t seem like that to me. I think it’s necessary. I think it’s part of the structure of the music. I can’t imagine tunes stripped of all that. They wouldn’t sound like tunes. Or not Irish tunes at any rate.
And those “gifted musicians who simply were unable to play the tunes without these elaborate ornaments” … I reckon that’s because the ornaments are part of the tune. At least as they knew it. It’s a different way of looking at it, at least. And one that fits more closely, IMO, with the way a lot of good musicians in this music see things.
So you think we should learn them with the “ornamentations”?
But who’s version and who’s ornamentations would you learn, and, when you see the music, why aren’t the tunes written with them in? (in the main)
IMO, truth in all the above replies, but from the world of learning-in-the-brain: PAY ATTENTION carefully (not shouting, but emphasizing) 100% to whatEVER you’re working on. That’s what makes it all happen. Eventually it goes from the conscious and perhaps clumsy to the unconscious and sublime.
thoughtless ornaments 
Gawd, its even a pdf!!! 
