How to: "the finger bounce" technique on Seamus' t

Irish Flute
1

Hello,

I have been studing the flute by Seamus Eagan’s flute tutorial CD…

My problem is not only trying to understand his way of ornamentations which are not on the scores, but also discovering this “finger bounce” technique…

I tried and tried and tried :angry: , as it is mentionned with “relaxed fingers” but I still cannot do… :cry:

I have serched on the internet to see if there is another way of approaching to do this but I have found nothing…


Is there any gentle-heart fluter who can teach me/give me some hints how to do “the finger bounce”? Please, s’il te plaît, onegaishimasu…

2

Relaxation is the only way. You might try mediation or some Chi Kung. this will help you put your mind in the music and take tension out of your fingers. Just what you wanted to hear, I know.

3

“Be the flute…just relax and…be…the…flute. Be the flute, come on, relax and be the flute. You’re not being the flute.”

“It’s hard to be the flute with you talking like that.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Eddie

4

When I get that relaxed I pee in my pants. Rats!

5

I understand the Tandoori Chikung is good if you are playing Ragas

6

After living and breathing rolls for something like six months, my first finger-bounce just fell out at the end of a G roll one day. (Since then, of course, I’ve spent another half-year of first being addicted to bounces, then trying to control them – and finally, here I am today, still working to figure out how to apply them appropriately, tastefully, and in the right rhythm.)

(“Roaring Mary” has been a terrifically helpful tune for me in the roll/bounce/roll-bounce-combo area. It can be a regular Roll-O-Rama – but the goal, as my teacher explained it anyway, it is to make the rolls pretty much unnoticeable, esp. in the B part where you can roll or bounce almost nonstop if you’re so inclined.)

Anyway, my guess is that as your fingerwork in general becomes lighter and easier and more free – indeed, almost second-nature – something similar will happen for you. It just might take a long, long time – perhaps even beyond the point where you think you’ll never get it. So don’t give up, and good luck!

(Bet that was just the tip you wanted, wasn’t it? :wink: Yeah, right! )

7

BTW, you guys are hilarious! I prefer the Chickung Masala, though … Ooooohhhmmmmmm …

8

It’s almost paradoxical: as noted, relaxation is mandatory–fact is, speed and accuracy are always improved by relaxation anytime fingering is concerned.

In the middle of all that relaxation, you have to bring a finger down hard on the flute with a really solid, percussive THWACK! and immediate relax again even before the finger hits the flute.

It is easier to do than to describe (thank goodness!).

–James

9

Oops! I think I just figured out that this ornament wasn’t what I had thought.

10

mmm… I had experienced something like Sho-Do, Kyu-DO etc (Japanese staffs) but when I play the flute, it is something else… Maybe I have got to master proper breathing then this technique…

11

“Be the flute…just relax and…be…the…flute. Be the flute, come on, relax and be the flute. You’re not being the flute.”

“It’s hard to be the flute with you talking like that.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Eddie[/quote]

I wonder if some sort of self-hypnotic may useful… :laughing:

12

After living and breathing rolls for something like six months, my first finger-bounce just fell out at the end of a G roll one day. (Since then, of course, I’ve spent another half-year of first being addicted to bounces, then trying to control them – and finally, here I am today, still working to figure out how to apply them appropriately, tastefully, and in the right rhythm.)

Ah, I had played Piano for few years so it is very hard for me to do the finger-bounce… (for rolls, I just needed few days)

(“Roaring Mary” has been a terrifically helpful tune for me in the roll/bounce/roll-bounce-combo area.

Ok, I will study this tune, thank you!

Anyway, my guess is that as your fingerwork in general becomes lighter and easier and more free – indeed, almost second-nature – something similar will happen for you. It just might take a long, long time – perhaps even beyond the point where you think you’ll never get it. So don’t give up, and good luck!

your comment encourages me a lot! 2 days ago, I listenned to the finger-bounce section very carefully with the twice slower speed…

If we take “F” for an example, I thought I might hear like “GFGF”… In fact what I heard was “GF?F”… I was asking myself what is this “?” part…
Perhaps we have to bounce with the height of just 0.1mm or something like that…

(Bet that was just the tip you wanted, wasn’t it? :wink: Yeah, right! )

Yeah! Exactly!! :slight_smile:

13

Oh… I learnt something new today!! A friend of mine told me that we have got to have a big hand to do that; we have to put each finger in a way that it makes right angle with each hole…

If what he told me is an important fact, I cannot do… :cry:
But, I discovered another way of ornamentation(?! I am not sure if it is called as “ornamentation”) during the practice… :laughing:

14

For the metal flute (for classic music), it exists “key bounce”, however I do not know if it is the some thing… :laughing:

15

:smiley: Hey, it ain’t cheating if it works! :smiley:

Seriously, I do this on both wooden and metal flutes, but on metal flute the secret to this (and clean rolls, too) for me at least is that the finger move exactly with the key and never come away from the key at all during the ornament. So this finger-bounce becomes more like a single alteration of a trill on the Boehm flute. Still works, and actually sounds very similar, but I use a slightly different approach in my head.

–James

16

A tip is to think “reverse”.
When you should do a tap you can think that you pull the finger from the flute when it´s actually not yet touching it. If your mind tells the finger to do that your body (hopefully) reacts with a very tight tap.
The reversed procedure is working for the cut (for me anyway)

You can practise everywhere a you don´t need a flute, since it is all concerning your body.

Good luck

17

Is a bounce the same as a tap/strike?

-brett

18

Tchie – your friend mentioning the big fingers thing could be on a very helpful track. I tend toward a piper’s grip, esp. with my right hand, and it’s a LOT easier to bounce when my fingers are a little bit straighter. In fact, I think it’s a lot easier to do everything that way as far as my wooden flute goes. (Tho’ like James, I play my metal one differently – but of course, it’s set up in a little more user-friendly fashion than my big-holed Pratten, so it’s much easier to use the “classical” or “Rockstro” (i think that’s it?) hold there.)

Anyway, maybe you should check out Seamus’s fingers and see what parts of them he’s using.

My understanding is that you basically ARE, even in your rolls, trying to get a little bit of that ? factor – i.e., I might do an G triplet bounce (that’s the easiest one, I think) that would read like GfGfG – or sometimes fGfGfG if I’m really flying & it feels right – but it’s got a sort of burbling quality because those little bounced Fs are so fast they’re almost more like “yelps” – more rhythm or separation than actual notes.

Brett, I’ll be the first to admit that I am terrible with the terminology, so I defer to the experts – but I think bounces are the same as taps, and if not the same as strikes or cuts (I forget which one goes which way), they’re darned close – you just might use them a bit differently depending on the speed, the notes you’re ornamenting, whether it’s a jig or reel, etc.

I played classical flute for 30 years, so the struggle for me has been to get things to STOP sounding like appogiaturas.

Anyway, those are my ponderings from my wanderings. It’s sad how clueless I am as to the niceties of all this :boggle: but for me, I’m at a point where I really don’t know what I’m doing at any given moment – I just play, things fall out (hopefully appropriately and in rhythm) and my teacher doesn’t throw up on me so I guess that’s OK.

Good luck, and keep messing with it!

cat.

19

I thought of that, too… but it just sound like trilling… it does not sound as it is on the video… heu… it is hard and I am stuck half way on the method!

20

Well, in any case, it is quite hard to play with my small hand… When I got my flute, I thought of doing piper’s grip… however, only problem with taht is, E key block hurts me… (Am I allowed to use the sand paper?)

Anyway, maybe you should check out Seamus’s fingers and see what parts of them he’s using.

I see his fingers are boucing a litttle, very little… TO do that, I found another 3 ways to induce same(I dought) sort of the sound:

-hit very hard in a way it shakes the flute=>it vibrates…
-tap the half of the hole then for the second time, slide the fingerto cover the entire hole…
-use the mouth(and say “a-i-a-i”)

pfff… I am exasparated!