I’ve progressed to working on reels, but these pretty well all have triplets notated in them. I’d know how to handle them with the fiddle, but I’m not sure with the whistle. Some are all the same note- say DDD, and others would be say bcd(I don’t really know ABC notation but I think this might be correct). It doesn’t seem too interesting to me to just tongue them- would you use cuts to separate them out or??? Obviously whatever one does it would have to be quite quick too…
I haven’t been doing any ornamentation yet but am ok with doing some where needed. Or if I wanted to skip doing them as a triplet, what would I substitute?
Well first I’m sure you know they are not played as triplets, rather as two sixteenths and an eighth. After that, there are many ways to play them depending on the context and your personal preferences. For example there is a ‘triplet’ of the same note in the B part Dick Gossip’s that is often tongued. If they are successive notes then you don’t need to do anything but finger them (legato) if you like. Listen to Mary Bergen rip off her triplets in reels. For same note triplets you may be able to sub in a roll, or maybe change the middle note to a different note like DDD —> DC#D or something, especially if you’re reading fiddle oriented music (like O’Neill’s). Again it’s extremely helpful to listen to others interpret these tunes. If you go to thesession.org and look up the tune you can find listed who has recorded it, then maybe you can find that tune on iTunes or eMusic.com and for a few cents download it. And lastly order both of Mary Bergin’s cds and listen to them over and over. They are a master class in articulation and even if you don’t hear her play the same tune as you are interested in, you will hear the full gamut of ornaments in a setting that features the whistle which you can hear extremely well.
Added: And if you want to skip the triplet altogether, you can do the reverse of what people often to to make the triplet. Triplets are often made to replace a two note jump. For example if you have a G B eighth notes people often add the A and make it a ‘triplet’. So you can just reverse it by taking out the middle note and see how it sounds.
yes- I do know that, although they still get called triplets so far as I’ve ever known, even though the timing is different than classical triplets.
yes- I have her CD’s- but honestly other than impressing me with what a whistle CAN sound like- I can’t figure out what she’s actually doing…
The sheet music is written for fiddle-but seems adaptable for whistle, more or less. The two books of it I’ve got are the Blue and Orange books of Irish Session Tunes- in one case they’ve taken away all but one set of triplets in the tune-it appears in both books- the blue book lacks them- and they have substituted 2 eighth notes I guess- still ends up with a run of the same notes though.
As for tune names- I’m not sure if that will be too useful as some of the names given in the books don’t match up to what I know the tunes as and if I don’t know the tune at all I have no clue if that is really their name. One of the tunes is called the Volunteer Reel- but I’m not sure if that is correct. Others are: Copperplate Reel, Jenny’s Wedding(I think that is not the name), George White’s Favorite, and Blacksmith- where it is notated differently but essentially ends up being a triplet I think-but they are maybe trying to show the two eighth notes and a sixteenth note.
I don’t know if this helps- if you had the books in question it would be more apparent- but maybe the question is not specific to just these tunes but more of a general question in terms of breaking up a run of notes or doing something other than tonguing triplets??
All the triplets I play are triplets .. you know? three evenly spaced notes over a crotchet, quaver or semi-quaver.
When I see DDD written .. that’s a roll yes :?
two 16ths and one 8th? .. well .. that’s not a triplet is it?
I have heard (and play) some cran figures that are 4 notes with the first long and the last 3 short.
It is true that a heavy “swing” or syncopation can alter the spacing of the triplet .. but usually I hear the good players playing triplets dead-even - no matter what “swing” is being applied.
In ITM,. I had assumed that the term “triplet” is applied to 3-note conjoiners bridging one note to another. Never on the same note, they are ascendingn or descending. On rare ocaisions I have heard a triplet executed with the first of the set repeated. And in every case, they are true triplets
Perhaps I am not understanding the language here - got any sound clips to illustrate?
Sorry but you’ve lost me there-I have no clue what you’re talking about now. But a triplet in ITM is 2 16th notes and an 8th- all under or over one beam- mostly I’ve not seen it written as the 2 16th and 1 8th- just as 3 notes over/under 1 beam, often with a 3 written above/below it- but sometimes as I mentioned before as in the notation for The Blacksmith, it is written out as it would be played- in fiddle playing it is played as it reads I’d say- but my problem was how to translate that to whistle as just tooting away at it sounded pretty bad…
For a confused novice, could you confirm the order of the three durations please? Does the 1/8th note come in first second or third place? This thread is actually the first place where I have seen that exposes this secret . My books (all pretty basic as befits my skill level) all describe a triplet as three notes in the duration of two. Not that my playing is exact enough to take advantage of this yet - but it sounds like interesting and useful knowledge.
Anita, if what you see is a “same-note triplet” - like the DDD example you gave - then this is a fiddler’s “treble”. (Yes it is more accurately represented as two sixteenth notes followed by one eighth, although that is only of practical interest to ABC music playback programs!)
You can play these as a fiddler would, that is by articulating all three notes, using “triple tonguing” - usually by making a “ta-ka-ta” or a “diddle-dee” movement with your tongue. However comparatively few whistle players make much use of this device. Brian Finnegan of Flook and his devotees/clones are the obvious exception.
What most whistle players will do is substitute something more mainstream, such as a roll. On bottom D, you can resort to cranning if you like that kind of thing, or substitute some other figure. Triple-tonguing on bottom D is hardly worth bothering with since nobody will hear it!
As for triplets of the Bc#d variety, again they can be articulated but few people bother.
The point is, as always, that transcriptions of a tune have to be interepreted by the player who has sufficient knowledge of the tradition and of her instrument. So listen and listen and you won’t need to ask these questions and get a load of confusing answers!
Just to confuse Mitch a little more, the triplets in hornpipes are actually played as classical triplets, evenly spaced.
Keven Crawford on his ‘D Flute’ cd plays a slow reel where he plays a figure first with an ‘Irish triplet’ then follows it with a classical triplet using the same notes, and it’s quite lovely.
Seriously, for Mitch and others, the very best way to figure this stuff out is to listen to players play them. I know Mary plays really fast and it’s hard to pick up on what she’s doing, but if you replay the same tune several times to the point where you can hum it, you will find you can hear the details more clearly. And there’s always slow-downer software. Windows Media Player has one that works okay.
Well yes-but I can’t- having only been working at the whistle since November- so being puzzled by how best to play these, it seemed like a good idea to find out how some with more experience than me handle it and sort it out from there… or so it seemed like a good idea at the time…
Wll it depends who is playing them: try listening to the beautifully articulated “triplets” of Tommy Peoples, for example.
I don’t agree that the triplets in hornpipes are actually “3 into 2” triplets anyway. It would be closer to the truth to notate hornpipes (as played by traditional players anyway) in 12/8 than in 4/4 or cut time. If you did that, the “triplets” would simply be groups of three eighth notes. But the music would be less readable.
All this is just another reason why you need to know the music before using sheets.
BTW Anita, the comment of mine you quoted wasn’t intended as a reproach, and if it came across as one I apologise. Actually I was trying to sympathise because it seemed to me that you got a some responses that weren’t very helpful. If you do need to use sheet music at an early stage, always try to supplement it with a decent recorded example (preferably more than one) of the tune.
Sounds to me like we’re dealing with a question of musical notation here, as well as technique. In my opinion, it’s important to have a firm grasp on the techniques of playing ITM before learning a bunch of tunes.
ANITA WRITES: I haven’t been doing any ornamentation yet but am ok with doing some where needed.
Just curious as to where you are in learning about ornamentation. It’s always difficult to judge the level of someone’s playing on these forums.
Have you played ITM on another instrument, or are you a relative beginner to ITM?
My musical training began with ITM, so I don’t know what it would be like to learn it already having trained in another form a music.
No problem- just was noting that I don’t have sufficient knowledge on the whistle as I’ve just started it recently- and thus all the questions…
I play fiddle- but an un-ornamented fiddle style mostly as my teacher was not an ITM player himself(southern US style actually), and I suppose in reaction to all the Kevin Burke wanna-be’s in the fiddle world at the time, I stayed away from ornamentation- but play ITM tunes anyway if that makes sense… so am trying to play tunes on the whistle that at best I would know or have heard on the fiddle…
in terms of sheet music- this is the direction I decided to go for now with the whistle as opposed to playing fiddle by ear- and it has improved my music reading ability immensely in a short time; will likely eventually add playing by ear but for now, am happy trying it this way… just trying to figure out what others do with triplets…
Except in an abstract sense, the tunes don’t exist apart from the instruments on which they’re played. So when you look at a written setting, you have to infer if it’s generic, or if it reflects its rendering on a particular instrument.
When you see the repeated trebles (3DDD or (3AAA or (3eee, you can be pretty sure the written setting is fiddle oriented, since these are open string notes that can’t be fully rolled on fiddle. On whistle or winds you’d usually execute these as rolls or crans, but triple tongue or melody substitutions are equally possible.
The (3 Bc#d triplet is interesting. It’s associated most closely with winds, as a nice way to cross the octave registers. But it’s also common on fiddle because the A string fingering 1-2-3 is very natural. In fact, when fiddlers extend this fingering reflex to the other strings, you also find (3 f#ga and (3 EF#G triplets - another sign that a given setting may be fiddle oriented.
In imitation of a closed, staccato piping triplet, you can triple tongue the (3 .B.c#.d or just the first 2 notes (3 .B(.c#d). But most commonly I hear it as just a quick reflex, a passing tone between B and d, with no tongue articulation.
As for the triplet timing … Any generalization is wrong. In jigs they tend strongly toward 2 sixteenths + 1 eighth, because it’s really hard to count 3 inside of 3. In reels the figure relaxes more toward a classical 3-on-2 triplet, but almost never all the way. As Steve says, in 12/8 counted hornpipes, they’re not triplets at all. Ultimately, all the written approximations are inaccurate, and you have to use your ear and experience to play them expressively, not mechanically.
ok- had just been wondering what, espcially for the DDD types, worked well on whistle or what others did, as on fiddle I know what works but that didn’t seem right for whistle-wanted to avoid just tonguing as I didn’t find that appealing but wasn’t sure what else anyone else did with it.
Well thanks all for the suggestions- will just see where it goes I guess…
I think that answers my question too. I was more looking for different/better ways to write ABC during my initial learning phase of a tune. I am nowhere near good enough to get mechanical timing
i’m so happy this thread came up. i’m having this exact problem with “The First House in Connaught” which is basically DGGGAGGG… kinda driving me crazy.
i saw a few youtube clips of he tune, but i can’t get a really good look at the exact fingerings plus it was played kind if fast
Re: First House in Connacht - definitely play rolls. That’s definitely fiddle or accordion orientated notation above - not generic. Unless trying to indicate what a particular player does or show someone else (a good dot-reader) exactly what you mean(!), I favour more generic, non-instrument specific notations, maybe even with no “ornamentation” shown at all - leaving it to the instrument-idiomatic discretion of the interpreter.
Thus, for the above tune, I might well notate the first bar thus: DG ~G2 AG ~G2, taking the ~ to indicate that that note should be broken in some fashion, but not exclusively necessarily by a roll.
But if I saw: DG G2 AG G2 I’d be just as happy - and play it the same.
On flute or whistle one would almost always roll those crotchets (personally I’d lightly tongue the start of the roll), but might triple tongue triplet them occasionally for variation likewise a fiddler might well triple bow them, but equally likely would roll them.
. My books (all pretty basic as befits my skill level) all describe a triplet as three notes in the duration of two. Not that my playing is exact enough to take advantage of this yet - but it sounds like interesting and useful knowledge.
