Mmmm good point!
I agree. In the early stages, when you have just a handful of tunes, just being able to get the notes confidently is the thing. But later on, when you’re learning tunes by ear (the only way), you should be listening out for how good players ornament tunes as an integral part of the tune-learning process, not as some sort of bolt-on. That does not mean that you should copy this, that or the other’s person’s version, complete with ornaments, but that you should be endeavouring to get ornamentation under your skin as part of the learning process. There’s something seriously wrong if you’re listening to a tune but ignoring the ornamentation, and something equally seriously wrong if you think that a particular way of ornamenting a tune is part of a “version.” This comment:
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)
reveals a complete lack of understanding of the way tunes are passed on.
Reveals a complete lack of understanding of the topic so far and of what is written.
Welcome back Steve. I’ve missed you:(
an’ I’m jealous…
my lack of understanding is a bit incomplete
any suggestions?
I’m surely no expert, but I’d say learn the naked tune first and then dress it up. That’s how I do it anyhow. Sure, I’ll listen to other musicians play it to get ideas about how to ornament the tune. But ultimately, I go with the arrangement I personally like best or can play the easiest – usually the latter. The end result is a song all my own. It’s all part of the joys of creative self expression through music.
Yes, Steve, and sorry Pammy, I completely agree with you, Steve. Including a reference to how tunes within an aural tradition are written down illustrates the point perfectly.
And that’s the sort of thing that I think is positively dangerous, with the possible let-off that I may have misinterpreted and you may be talking about very minor differences, that don’t matter. But, on the whole, please don’t come anywhere near my session with your “song all [your] own”. Performance is one thing, but, in my book at least, I don’t want all that self-expression rubbish in a session. 
Oh, and Denny, I wonder if you could sometimes try to say things more succinctly. I do so struggle to get to the end of those interminable posts of yours. 
Well, that’s the point really, it depends if the original poster is learning tunes for solo/group performance or learning tunes to play at a session. Variety of interpretation is great for gigs and CDs but if it’s too flowery then I guess it won’t fit in at a session. I’ve found it hard to unlearn tunes in order to add cuts, but it goes back to the ITM style debate - there are those who will say the whistle has to be played a certain way (or at least it has to be played a certain way for certain types of music) and then there are others who are more comfortable with freedom of expression.
That’s one of the things that attracted me to Highland Piping – all the ornaments are written into the score, and the pipe-major hand out the settings to learn. The way HP is traditionally taught is the student firsts learns the ornaments, and only after having all the ornaments, goes on to tunes. The first tune in the book I learned from was Amazing Grace, which written out with the grace notes (as absolutely every GHB tune is) has 99 notes.
When I learn a pipe tune, it usually takes me the better part of a month for a modestly difficult tune. When I learn a whistle tune I can usually get it in a day or two. The difference is that with the piping tune the ornaments all have to be exactly what’s on the page, every time. That, and the pipe tunes are harder (not a slam on ITM or anything, just an observation).
When we play in a pipe band, it’s important for everyone to play exactly the same thing, or else the music come off muddled (like a session), and since our approach is to play musical performances for audiences, that doesn’t work well. But even when we learn tunes to play solo we learn them from the page, with all the notes written out. That’s not to say we can’t change the tune if the setting is bad (lots of typos), and sometime there are even legitimate choices in how to play the tunes. It’s just a different mind-set. There are also some Highland Pipers who do their own thing, and that’s good too.
The reason I’m learning whistle (again) is to be able to play along with harp, fiddle, and guitar, in small ensembles (and mostly Scottish music). I know I’m in the minority, but the pub session thing isn’t really appealing to me.
The thing is, that different instruments use different ornaments, so as a fiddler, attempting to copy or incorperate GHB ornaments into my fiddling is simply impossible. and vice versa. same as a guitarest Its simply impossible to incorperate many ornaments from other instruments and vice versa. Each instrument has instruments specific ornaments. So the premise tha the tunes are incomplete with out any particular ornamental figure is clearly incorrect. The tunes are relatively simple melodic pieces and are complete in themselves. They do not require a specific ornament to be complete, as is demonstrated and proven all over Ireland.
As far as how and when we develop the basic tune; the bones, within our playing is a presonal issue, depending on interest, instruction, and capabilities. ITs entirely up to the individual and instrument.
For example on guitar its not possible to Roll as I would do as a fiddler. Does that make the guitar spomehow any lesser of an instrument? of course not, only an ignoramus would advance that proposition, and vice versa, because a fiddle cant drone like a set of pipes its no lesser for it, just different.because a fiddle cant duplicate guitar ornaments/variations does not make it any lesser and vice versa.
There is a belief amongst people from outwith the tradition to fixate upon instrument specific, idiosyncratic ornaments as somehow a defining aspect of ´the tradition´ The melody, the tunes are the tradition, how we play them is also a very big and essential part of the tradition , but not in the way that is often advanced by internet tigers. Rather a defining aspect of Traditional Irish music is the freedom to ornament as we choose, as personal expression.
Of course a tradition can become codified and regimented as with the GHB but ITM is not based upon the british military tradition, and there is quite a movement to liberate the GHB from under this umbrella and return to an older and more sympathetic tradition.
I don’t personally know any whistle or flute players, so I didn’t have someone to break it down so that I could learn it. I tried the group lesson at the Irish club but that was not helping me with ornamentations just with learning new tunes that I sometimes didn’t want to learn particularly. I bought and read several things about how to do ornamentations and found several differing fingering methods (of course) which just confused me more so my only way forward was to learn the tunes and then the ornamentations after. If I had tried to learn the tunes with the ornamentations in from the beginning, I feel I would have frustrated myself so much that I would have put the whistle down. At least now I know some tunes.
So they weren’t ‘passed on’ to me. I have had to teach myself actually. I find it difficult to pick it up ‘by ear’ from stuff on the internet, etc. I am fortunate enough to be able to read music so have learned that way. If it has stopped me learning tunes by ear, so be it, at least I can play most of the tunes I see and then can learn them if I want.
I still did put the whistle down for a while and then picked it up again recently and found that the ornamentations that I did learn came back naturally. I still played the tune and it was recognizable as the tune. The ornamentations will have to come.
We all have our own way of learning, none right, none wrong. It depends on your capabilities and resources so there are no ’ only way’s.
Just do what feels right to you.
ah, suggestions?
Hmmm. Has anyone actually bothered to look at what BK was saying? I haven’t had time to read the whole thing myself yet, but got a fair way in to it and I think much of what he is saying about the essential nature of ornamentation in interpretation is utterly pertinent to this discussion.
Ornamentation in ITM is not primarily or essentially about the placing of china ducks on the mantle-piece any more than it is in Baroque music, but it IS partly so, and also about choosing between ducks and geese. But it is also very much more than that, about finding idiomatic expression both within the tradition and the technicalities of a particular instrument, about essential articulation and phrasing and embellishment in order to be expressive and to find the heart and soul of the music - to give those to oneself as performer and to any audience - just as in Baroque music, though with a somewhat different (if overlapping) angle of approach and array of possible/acceptable resources.
In ITM “ornamentation” is integral to the music, and especially in wind-instrument interpretation because it is also the main form of articulation. It is not essentially an add-on, though it can also be that. Tunes are conventionally notated with no or minimal written ornamentation because of the idiomatic/technical differences between instruments as well as the freedom of the performer to vary the amount and placement and type of “ornament” used within the vocabulary of the instrument within that of the tradition.
Some notations (as e.g. Breathnach’s in the Ceol Rince series) may suggest basic essential ornamentation in key places as a guide; other notations may include all ornamentation as an attempt to transcribe a particular performance, but in general good notation eschews prescriptive ornamentation and includes only minimal suggestions. Notation of traditional material is not prescriptive and unique in the way that a modern composer’s score is, but an attempt to describe a version… and should be so understood.
I guess there are many ways of learning ornamentation as there are many ways of learning anything.
I am no expert but I learnt the ornamentation in parallel with learning the tunes. I went through a phase of practising little else but ornamentation for one of my sessions each day. Grey Larsen had some excellent practice routines. I still do a bit of this, but not as often, as it is boring…
I rarely try to insert ornaments consciously into a tune - I concentrate on the ‘bare tune’ and wait 'till ornaments pop out of their own accord. In some tunes they seem reluctant to appear (for example Cape Clear). In other tunes (for example Neil Gows Lamment for the death of his second wife, which I am currently working on) they leap out all over the place, and I may need to cull them to avoid over-ornamentation. (I find it helpful to record my playing to check whether the ornaments seem to flow…)
This seems to be an ‘organic’ approach, and may be placing too much trust in my subconscious musicality. Though to be honest it would probably be more of an act of faith to place such trust in my conscious musicality.
This works for me and for my goals - your experience will almost certainly differ.
(and I am not sure my style of playing is welcome at Bens session 
)
Um, I did. And I agree that it was indeed very pertinent. However, I think it would be a mistake for you to assume that anyone (including even me 
) will, or should, read something, or do something because you suggest it.
Happy New Year, ol’ chap!
[BTW, and totally off-topic, you should hear the tone I’m getting on this flute of mine now. Or, rather, tones, plural. Extraordinary what this thing will produce, with not all that much prompting. I’m very happy. And thank you so much for all your help so far with it/the journey/whatever.]
Nope.
good!
gone a bit quackers?
Indeed. No such assumptions made - one offers something up for attention, but doesn’t expect any attention necessarily to be given to it… What you quoted was more of a prod at some contributing here who seemingly haven’t bothered to look at BK but might enjoy/benefit from so doing…
(As for the rest of your post - great/you’re welcome!)
Nope (probably qualified as that already!). Just giving it the bird.
Don’t get all flighty with me, young man!
just didn’t want yer beggin’ to go unrewarded
actually I must fly…be back later
Another vote for learning the tune first, then letting ornaments suggest themselves. For me this happens naturally. But a disclaimer: I don’t play purely ITM, I play mostly old-time Southern mountain music with a few Irish trad tunes thrown in, plus I ornament the old-time stuff a bit with cuts and rolls, since most Southern mountain music came with and evolved from the music of my Scots/Irish/English immigrant ancestors. My main whistle audience (except for family) is a Civil War re-enactment group, who seems appreciative of my whistle-playing, but I’m not of a professional level by any means. I play mainly with an early-banjo player and sometimes a fiddler and/or dulcimer player. It works, and we have fun.
I will probably never be fast enough to join an Irish session, and I don’t care to only play ITM. I do play some ITM tunes, both because my audience likes a few and to improve my playing since its technique is more challenging. I’m learning Haste to the Wedding now.
Take this advice FWIW (or not)!