Iain - good efforts both! No problems with your general musicality or fingering aspects, as I’d expect from your piping experience, but you clearly need to work on your embouchure - better focus will not only get you stronger tone, it will support longer breath-phrases in things like the slow tune - you’re fine on that in the quicker one, and it’s jerky rhythm actually gives plenty of breathing places, but the slow one exposes shortness of breath rather and begs for nice long, well supported phrasing. Better focus will also help you address the intonation problems in the L hand in the 2nd 8ve - those 2nd 8ve As are way sharp - partly the flute itself but also a common problem for players even when the flute doesn’t tend sharp on 2nd 8ve A and B. Either way, you have to get to grips with lipping them down, and proper octave shifting with a narrowing and angle change of the airstream by altering your embouchure for them (not just blowing harder like on a whistle, which I sense is rather what is happening at present - hard to tell without seeing) will help with that - and feed back in to better focus elsewhere.
Thanks for the feedback, I don’t consider the comments harsh and quite expected something along those lines. I have negected my playing just recently but now I have a few things out the way I can get back into it. Its always the slow tunes that show up poor technique.
Instrument was a Sam Murray blackwood D (which I love, but sadly isn’t mine). Recorded on a Shure SM58 which I bought recently and worked on in Pro Tools for Mac.
Critique is also welcome from experienced players with prior experience of listening to old-style, hardcore-style playing.
Sorry about my recording, I’ve only been playing trad since end December 2008, and only started on the flute in July last year (so 1 year 5 months experience in total).
Here’s a new clip for me. Haven’t posted in a while, over a year. It’s on my Casey Burns blackwood slideless made of what he called “factory 2nd” grade wood. Has some repaired cracks and holes and some discoloration, but I think it plays great, especially for $400.
Anyways, I finally got a real recording set up with a Shure SM58 mic with a MXL Mic Mate USB converter.
Here’s another clip I just recorded. I’ve been having fun playing certain Irish trad tunes on silver flute, those in F, Fm, Gm, transposing tunes to flat keys such as these.
Here’s a waltz I love, recorded by John Wynne on his “With Every Breath” album. He has it listed as Gan Ainm, so I call it John Wynne’s waltz. He plays in on an F whistle, so I tried it on the silver flute in F and it worked well. I just keep my left thumb on the Bflat key and it plays like in C on the silver flute/ D on the simple flute. I think it ends up sounding whistlish which is fine with me.
Let me know what you think. Brutal honesty. Don’t worry, I can take it and am interested in true, gut-level feedback.
Great rock-solid tempo. Strong playing throughout. I like your relaxed feel and the lilt. To me ear, and this is definitely my taste and not a blanket generalization, you could perhaps tighten the tone and ornaments (rolls, cuts, etc.) and “hit” the beat a little harder, but again, that could just be my bias. You seem to settle in that more relaxed style. thanks for the clip.
I think a more tight tone has much to do with better embouchure.
Usually I prefer to listen to “melody players” like Kevin Crawford, Matt Molly, M McGoldrick, Tom Doorley etc. Conal O’Grada told me I would benefit from listening more to “rhythmic players” like Harry Bradley, a player who hits the beat pretty “hard”, although I prefer a more soft style..
Yeah, I’m a melody player as well, love MM KC and John Wynne particularly. I’ve only listened a little to HB but I think he’s had a strong effect on my playing. I guess I want to make sure I’m hitting the beat and may back off eventually. What I love about ITM fluting is that there’s a broad spectrum of what’s “right”. Everyone can have their own sound and still be trad so long as certain “traditions” are adhered to.
Well, I’ve been playing for a year now so I figured I’d finally post something. It’s terrible but I already know that know that so that’s half the battle won. I also wanted to see if anyone recognizes the tune. I only played it once through because that’s about as far as I could get without packing it up. It’s an unusual tune and I know where I got it from and what it was called, but I can’t find any reference to it anywhere else in the universe. Hint… Tunepal won’t help you.
Oh, and this is played on a Forbes Delrin flute - apologies to Rob Forbes for making his flute sound so bad.
Made another recording using a different mic (the internal Mac mic instead of my external). I think it’s more representative of my tone. It’s yea old warhorse, Red Haired Boy. Let me know what you think
OPTAKEOVER
It’s a real shame I think that players get so little responce when putting tunes on here. I know there are barrels of people who can give much better feedback than me but as they are quite I’ll break silence.
Great playing. Nice style. Good timing. Nice variation. Exceptional for anyone maybe but certainly for only 17 months playing.
More power to your embouchure.
Sigmund
I’ll offer some poor comment as there has been a lack of it from others.
Like your playing of the three reels. Yes it’s a nice relaxed style. Nice tempo. I don’t think you need to change your embouchure or tone unless you want to. I think it works well as is, if that’s the way you want it, and why not! Depends on style you want I suppose. I like the softness to your tone and would suggest you keep it… O. t .o .h. You might want to develop the embouchure (if it isn’t already) so that you could maybe add some settle tone colour, maybe a little harder tone in places to add empathies?
Style wise I notice that you play most of your notes with articulation between them. Glottel’s I think. To me the overall effect feel’s slightly more hornpipe like than reel. It would be good to get someone who knows their stuff to comment here. (i.e. better than me). It seems to me that more ‘push’ may be needed on the beat notes to move it more to a reel feel. There are various ways to do this. One way- You could keep the articulation on all notes but adjust the timing of them. When I try a few steps to it is easy enough to dance a reel to but it does not ‘lead’ the steps in reel time as dancers would often like. It has much of the ‘hoppy’ feel of a hornpipe and less of the flow and drive that a reel might have.
Gave a listen to your Shaskeen reel recording. Man, you have lots a great stuff going there: biting tone, good “pop” to your notes, cool pure drop phrasing, ornaments and shapes of notes. What I felt was that the tune and the rhythm were missing an “anchor”, like a solid beat or feel that would connect all these cool things going on with tone and phrasing. Perhaps stronger feel on the downbeat and a more definite ending of phrases. Maybe it’s a stylistic choice since I tend to have a more fluid feel to my approach to a tune. Also some of your rolls seemed a little out of sync; perhaps a little metronome practice may help smooth and straighten out some of this. Another thing that struck me was your tuning: you were pretty well in tune with yourself, but it seems way sharp overall. Perhaps you’re playing an Eflat horn or an older flute pitched higher.
Jason
Thanks you for the comments on the Shaskeen. You confirmed a suspision I had with this reel. I’ve been playing it for a couple of years and that recording was made in the early days of me playing it. I still think I still need to look at some of these pionts, but it has improved I think. My version is from a mixture of sorces. There are many great and different settings of it I’ve heard. I will record myself and try to nail it down better. Hopefully I’ll then try another posting of it.
Colonel Fraiser… rather speedy.
Recording quality is not great either. I’m sorry for that - hope the reel gets through though.
btw, it’s a Sweetheart D. (yes that’s the one, crookedtune)
So many great things happening here. Excellent sound and pop in your notes; good crispness. Wish I could play this fast. Cool ornaments and stylistic things you do with ending phrases. Particularly envy the the slide into a roll effect I heard I believe in the second octave (something I hear Gabriel do as well, something I want to emulate for sure). Intonation is decent, though seems a tad sharp, something I’ve been called on time and time again–so hard to get the dang flutes to behave and play in tune.
One thing it seems it needs is a steady pulse/beat. It sort of sounds like a runaway horse; an excellent stallion that needs to be reigned in. I hate to say it because I hate to do it and force myself from time to time, but metronome practice is probably called for, may help. With a better pulse, steady rhythm, perhaps a bit slower, all the high-quality musical flutistic stuff you do will shine through more clearly.
