Me too…
Thanks, dunnp, for the music, which I’ve always enjoyed.
Good Luck, Jim.
The purging process for a colonoscopy is miserable. . .but it always calls to mind an old SNL “Ad”, for “Colon-Blow Laxative”, which in turn starts me giggling. . .and then I always recall an old joke about a new kind of laxative, “Feather-Lax”, which “tickles the. . . out of you!” 
Seriously, you have my sympathy, Jim.
Bob
Well folks, I really appreciate the feedback, I’m working on all of the suggestions with the exception of the Colonoscopy purge; however, there are those who have suggested that a good purge might improve my playing. Jim, I wish you all of the best—last time I went through that process, I found my high school ring and the keys to a 1957 Buick. 
I posted this in 2002, the date of my last colonoscopy:
'Lately when my trainer, Davy Gamble, bounces a medicine ball off my gut while I do situps, something inside me emits a tone of considerable purity and sweetness. Finally I brought an electronic tuner to the gym–the note is a C, spot on.
I decided to have it checked out. Dr.
Weintraub, an expert endoscopist at Barnes
Jewish Hospital, performed the procedure,
assisted by two muscular nurses, Gertrude
and Brunhilde, who held me in place as the
scope navigated my innards.
“I see something up ahead,” Dr. Weintraub
announced, peering at the TV monitor. “It looks like a tube, with four,
no, six holes. There’s a red mouthpiece
and a logo: ‘G’ ‘E’ ‘N’…”
“I know!” I exclaimed. “It was the philosophy and neuroscience picnic. I was
guzzling beer and playing my high G whistle
at the same time. Later I couldn’t find the
whistle…”
“Well, it’s lodged in your duodenum pretty
good” Dr. Weintraub said. “I can’t budge it
with the scope.”
“I don’t want it out, Doc. I want to control
the pitch.”
“Maybe we can arrange that much.
Cross your right leg over your left leg
and swivel your hips. Good! Brunhilde,
punch Professor Stone in the solar plexus,
please.”
Whack!
Tweet!
“That was a D!”
“OK, now reverse, the left leg over the
right one..”
Whack!
Tweet!
“That was an A! Thanks, Doc! Let’s
try for the second octave!”
“This is one for the journals, alright.”
So there you have it. My digestive
system now doubles as a bagpipe. When
Davy bounces the ball off my gut I can
play B.B. King tunes, which really cracks
him up. Also I can sing duets with myself.
I do have to gyrate my hips obscenely, but, hey,
so did Elvis.
Next week Dr. Weintraub, Gertrude,
Brunhilde and I are going to work
on crans.’
My take on it is that ornaments are most often rhythmic rather than melodic.
indeed!
IMO and from what I’ve learned, rhythm is what a good cran is really all about. This is from a piping perspective, but in my experience it applies to flute, too – it doesn’t really matter which fingers you use (and sometimes you want/need to use different fingers for flute or whistle, or for a smoother or “poppier” cran effect). It’s whether you get the rhythm right. And of course, you have to have your cuts squared away, no fannying about trying to guess which finger should do what; your fingers need to KNOW. (That’s where the drilling comes in.) From there it’s basically a matter of fitting the cran to the note length. I tend to cut into the first D and hold it a shade longer when I want a longer cran, and I don’t cut into the D when I want a shorter one (I call it a “cranlet”). If you want to get massive with it copy Matt Molloy’s double and triple crans (I think he does it on the Humours of Ballyloughlin); the Planxty piper Liam O’Flynn is also good listening source for giant crans. O’Flynn’s rhythm makes crans very clear, I think.
I defer to Mr. Gumby’s vastly greater experience in this matter, but that’s how it’s been explained to me over the last few years of piping and it seems to be working OK for me.
There is a lot of good stuff in this thread. nicely put Cathy.
Jim I had a go at your tune today and maybe can record it tomorrow its too late here now to annoy the neighbors. I can fit crans in on the es and ds and replace some high d phrases with crans , no problem.
But if I was playing it more often then not I might tap or cut them but then again Ive been trying to rid myself of over ornamenting tunes
Here is the setting I found perhaps slightly but not far off of yours:
X:1109
T:Bang Up Hornpipe. TLY.083
M:C
L:1/8
S:Wm.Tildesley,Swinton,Lancs.1860s.
R:Hornpipe
O:England.
A:Lancashire.
H:1860.
Z:vmp.Taz Tarry.
K:D
AG| FDFA dAFA| GBed cBAG| FAdc BAGF| E2E2E2 AG|!
FDFA dAFA| GBed cBAG| FAdA FAEG| F2 D2D2:|!
|:cd| edcB AGFE| FDEF GABc| defd gfed| c2 A2A2 AG|!
FDFA dAFA| GBed cBAG| FAdA FAEG| F2 D2D2:|]
Simple tune, might throw a g sharp in the second part.
And cran f sharp as well.
I wish I could abc ify crans but am not that clever with writing things out.
i was experimenting with cutting from B on down the scale and back up, interesting,
But for me I still think analyzing it has done more harm then good.
Keep at it Jim one day the crans will pop.
‘Keep at it Jim one day the crans will pop.’
But I am entirely happy with what I played there, call it ‘cran’ or not. I leave that to wiser heads.
Anyhow I survived the procedure, I think. I declined the anaesthetic (they looked at me
with a sort of amazed horror), and I have a very personal suggestion for people
in that situation. Don’t.
Crans and colonoscopies without anesthesia, man oh man. From here on out I’m calling you “Iron Jim Stone.”
The medical staff called me a ‘Trooper.’
Afterwards they gave me cookies, to break the fast.
I’ll do anything for cookies.
I’m glad the procedure went off well and that you got some cookies.
That you’re entirely happy with distorted, half-baked techniques and incorrect nomenclature, and that you turn up your nose at the offers of much more advanced players to help you (one even kindly going so far as to create a video to help correct your bizarre ideas of ornamentation)?..
Very shabby stuff.
Got just the sound I tried for. What I was after in that tune. Thanks again for the help.
You guys aren’t going to make me elaborate a much simplified and nuanced pedagogical point to a beginning level player, by hammering on it, are you? No, of course not. 
Often is not always, and if Jim banishes the thought of crans and hornpipes in the same sentence until he has a better handle on more fundamental elements of playing hornpipes, he’ll be doing OK.
Off to California.
+1
The longer I play and really listen to what I’m doing the more I know I can do it better. It’s a never ending cycle.
Some really great ideas here. I’m trying them out to see what may work.
The current tune I’m working on needs some really solid poppy E crans. I’ve started using a glottal “cough”? at the start. It helps. If I can get to the point were I can fire off fast enough those coughs it might really give it some force.
Great thread all. Thanks!
A
Yea… but you aren’t cranning. How about trying for that sound?
Don’t you think it might be worth the effort to learn to properly execute the effect before you go all loosey-goosey deconstructive on it?
You know that guy Picasso? He could actually draw like a mother’effer before he got all cubed.
Have you tried cutting with your G finger (LH3) on the first E? You can use that finger to cut the first and last E, which should give you some nice “gargle.” On some flutes I can use my B finger (LH1) to cut every note in the cran (the e, f, g, and e) if I’m not playing like an eejit. The B and A fingers are terrific for popping Gs.
Around here, we call the B finger the Finnegan Cut, after Brian Finnegan spent part of a workshop trying (not entirely successfully) to convince us of its merits. 
On my whistles at least, the LH1 cut on E doesn’t work in the 2nd octave, so it will depend on Aanvil’s tune. But you’re right that it’s worth remembering that the left/upper hand is there to be used for cuts. We (at least I) get into fixed habits, and tend to forget the other options.
“The Finnegan Cut.” I like that! Much better than the “LH Index-Finger Burbly-Thingy.” Most pipers I’ve met call it a “nip,” and it’s dead handy. But right, not so much on the 2nd octave in whistles.
I have found it works on most flutes’ second octaves because you can vent D2 with the index finger (that’s actually a truer d), so basically you’re just gracing the e with a d.
… OMG. I have SO fallen into the nerd-hole.