I posted this on the Whistle board, too, but just in case (I’m having the same problem with flute). . .
Pesky B rolls.
My left-hand fingers don’t seem to want to operate independently for rolls starting on B; my middle finger doesn’t seem to want to come down, certainly not at speed. Oddly, I don’t have as much trouble with rolls on A, possibly because bringing down my ring finger directly after bringing down the middle finger helps me in pulling that middle finger down.
(Did that make sense? I’m thinking all fuzzy this morning. Need more coffee.)
Any hints on rolls starting on B, or is it just one of those “Practice, practice, practice” things? Is it “proper” to bring down both middle and ring fingers for the tap part of this roll (that seems easier for my fingers to deal with, somehow).?
For me, it was indeed a “practice, practice, practice” thing.
Here’s how I roll a B:
x o o | o o o
o o o | o o o (cut)
x o o | o o o
x x x | o o o (tap)
x o o | o o o
For me, having the flute balanced is critical to freeing up the left hand fingers to roll the B. If your hand is already busy trying to hold the flute up, it really makes things complicated.
I find it helps to keep the wrists and thumbs straight to each other, keep the elbows away from the body, and make sure flute only rests against the first finger left hand, rather than actually being held up by it. It’s purpose is only to hold the flute (gently!) against the chin–then the right thumb, being behind the flute, pushes forward, giving you a very stable grip on the flute with only three light points of contact.
By the way, I used the Fintan Vallelly tutor “Timber” to learn to do rolls properly. I found it and the tape that comes with it very clearly explain and demonstrate how to do a roll and what it should sound like.
Ah! I am better able to roll a B with that method, too, as the problem seems to be that my “A” finger doesn’t want to come down (as quickly) without dragging the G finger with it. If the above roll pattern is generally aceptable, as opposed to:
xoo ooo
ooo ooo
xoo ooo
xxo ooo
xoo ooo
then I’m going to use it. I just wanted to be sure that I wan’t treading on tradition’s toes. . . Thanks!
By the way, I used the Fintan Vallelly tutor “Timber” to learn to do rolls properly. I found it and the tape that comes with it very clearly explain and demonstrate how to do a roll and what it should sound like.
I have the book (have to dig it out), but not the tape, which sems to be unavailable. Anyone know of a source for the recorded supplement to “Timber”?
x o o o o o
o o o o o o (cut)
x o o o o o
x x o o o o (tap)
x o o o o o
for the roll on the B and it seems to work reasonably well both on the flute and the whistle, although I will try the tap on the G when I get home tonight. At first rolls on the B gave me a bit of trouble too but I found that it just took time for things to settle in. Keep at it and things will eventually start working.
Practice, practice, practice. Or go down to the first finger right hand if that works on your flute. BTW, I do the B roll without tapping the ring finger.
Maybe the tendons in my A and G fingers are all goofed up.
In doing the B roll with the xxo ooo tap, sometimes the A finger doesn’t even want to get all the way down, and seems to want to yank the G finger down with it.
However, having just tried it, I have no trouble with finger vibrato using just the ring (G) finger. I can bounce it up and down independently of the middle (A) finger just fine. But when I start bouncing my A finger, it wants to move the G finger with it.
Grr.
Practice, practice, practice. Maybe some kind of flexibility exercise? I just don’t want to end up with screwed-up hands like Chopin (was it Chopin? That screwed up his fingers and hands by trying to use some new-fangled device designed to strengthen the fingers?).
I was trying to learn the B roll with a xxo ooo tap, based on the principle of economy (why put down two fingers, when one will do?). But I may have to stick with the xxx ooo tap; I dunno.
For rolls, it’s much less important which finger or fingers you use for the cut and tap than it is vital that the cut/tap be clean, crisp and perfectly timed. The cut and tap are not specific pitches that need to be sounded relative to the note being rolled, but rather separators between consecutive soundings of that note. In other words, a G roll is not GAGF#G, but rather GcutGtapG. The timing of the cut and tap are such that at whatever speed you are playing the G roll, you will divide the G into three exactly equal notes. If it’s a G dotted quarter note that’s being rolled, you will have three eighth note Gs separated by the cut/tap. It should sound the same as if you tongued or glottal-stopped the G into three equal parts, only more gurgly. And of course you can roll a note at much faster tempos than you could ever tongue or glottal-stop it.
With that said, using xxo ooo or xxx ooo on the tap of a B roll makes no difference, as long as the tap is clean, crisp and perfectly timed. So do whichever one works best for you.
hold the flute in the hands, but do not put it up to the mouth, it can be up down in front of you if you want. Cover the B hole and then whack the A hole with the middle finger. Pretend that there is a little flame coming out the hole and you want to put it out with your finger but you don’t want to get burnt either. Cock the finger back away from the flute first, like a backswing in golf, then strike down. Do it 50 times in a row. You should be hitting the hole so that you can hear a popping sound.
Then put the flute to your mouth and try a few rolls.
When tapping with any finger, I’ve observed in myself and most players that the initial action is usually away from the flute, like the finger is being cocked back like a trigger or like a backswing, and then it comes down. The knucklejoint is intitiator of the movement. But with the middlefinger in a ‘classical’ grip in the upperhand, sometimes there is restriction, limited range of motion or ‘arc’ because of the location of the hole in relation to the pad of the finger causing the middle and maybe the upper joint of the finger to flex as well, sort of cramped. No question it can be tough. However, the ring finger is less restricted and can be more straight, and has wider range of motion or ‘arc’ just as do the lower hand fingers.
Whereas the piper’s grip in the upper hand puts the middlefinger in a generally straighter and in a more advntageous position, better range of motion and easier to tap, but the flute has a tendency to be less stable with that grip until one gets used to it. James did a good job talking about stabilizing the flute.
As John already touched upon, the roll on the B note is essentially a rhythmic device for the B note and should be crisp, the only actual note that should be audible. However where John and I differ is on a long roll (covers 3 beats). In my style of play, I practice by mentally saying ‘straw-ber-ry’ as I roll to get the rhythm I desire - the emphasis is on a longer first beat, followed by a shorter second. It’s the same rhythm I prefer in most jigs (i.e. yawh-de-dah, that type of rhythm).
rama
I’m working these days on a few things about the B roll from Bill Ochs.
He had me pick up my fingers to play a B, and had me notice that position
of the top hand fingers, before doing the tap part of a B roll. I found that
quite important as I hadn’t been practicing it in that position. The next
thing - he said doing the tap with the 2 fingers (tall man and ring man)
can prevent tension (by not trying to prevent the ring man from
moving). I think he said that pipers do that. But also, if you are going to
do a 2 finger tap, make sure it does not get too heavy.
Whenever I can get disciplined, I play a stack of taps in succession on one
breath with a glottal to start each note before the tap. This I got from
Conal O’Grada.
The next best thing was finding tunes with B taps and A taps in them, to
work on the tap part of the roll separately. A good one is Kevin Burke’s
Up In the Air for the B. That jig’s really easy and you can pay attention
to doing the taps. There are plenty more, and I was thinking of making
up a list as I came across them.
Hope this helps. I really like the idea of putting out a flame with the
tapping finger!
I would take a look at your top hand middle finger as it’s moving down. Make sure you finger hits the hole completely, and the very tip of your finger doesn’t bend or collapse as you hit the flute. Coming down with your finger solid (but not tense) seems like a good idea to me.
You also might try going back and forth between a ‘B’ and a ‘G’. If you notice the ‘G’ not coming in clearly, then it’s probably the middle finger not covering the hole well. It’s a thought anyway.
Nothing wrong with that, actually. The point I was getting at was that it’s only the three main notes of a roll that should actually sound, by which I mean that they will have an actual pitch and time value. The cut and tap are not really notes, but instead are separators that have no pitch or time value. In other words, a roll is really three notes, not five notes as a lot of written sources would lead you to believe. Just as no three successive eighth notes are really played in exactly equal time in Irish music, the same holds true for the three notes in the roll. Certainly you would want to put the swing in them to best suit the tune.
I split all my rolls between two hands. For long B rolls I do this:
xoo ooo
ooo ooo
xoo ooo
xoo xxx
xoo ooo
It’s nowhere near as crisp as the other options shown above, but I find it much easier to play and it sounds fine when played at speed. Once you get the hang of it, it sounds like a roll.
Many traditional players use this technique – I was watching Mike Rafferty last week and he does it (also vouched for by several of his students who learned this technique from him), and I’ve heard that Matt Molloy does it that way as well. In my experience it sounds better on smaller-holed flutes than on Pratten-style ones, but I’ve done it on Pratten flutes and it works.
Well, it’s guaranteed to sound awful the first time you try it, and a lot of people think it’s a crazy way to do rolls. If I find time, I’ll record myself playing a few short rolls and long rolls on B so you can hear how it should sound.
About those 2-handed rolls.. That’s the way I learned. Brad knows this as
I believe it was he who deciphered it for me in the first place! I would
only say, don’t get too stuck into the one way - I’m still having a rough
time working on switching to one-handed for when I want a crisper roll.
The 2 handed A roll I use goes
xxo ooo
oxo ooo - this is my difference from Brad’s earlier post -
xxo ooo
xxo xxx
xxo ooo
Here’s also something Conal explained to me about why they are less
crisp that way:
“Using the F & E note fingers in B and A rolls doesn’t work…you need
close the flute at least immediately below the note being rolled. So using
an A, G, F, E or D will work for the pat in a B roll and similarly using a G,
F, E or D in an A roll will work”
So even if you do the roll with 2 hands, you will get the best sound if you
also close the A hole on the B roll, and the G hole closed on the A roll. I
don’t do this well yet but its good to aim for.
Brad’s suggestion is ceraintly a nice alternative, it seems like it can do the trick.
In terms of crispness and execution though, I’d have to say overall I admire the “B” rolls executed by players who use the piper’s grip where the fingers lay flat over the holes in the upperhand. It seems like one can get plenty of ‘snap’ with that type of grip or finger position. Anatomically, it seems to be an advantageous position for the fingers when a roll on the B note is desired. Unfortunately, I don’t use that grip as I have developed the habit of holding the flute more like a classical grip where the fingers of the upperhand are bent and like most folks who use that grip I too struggled with B rolls. They still are my weakest.
A couple of players who’ve record CD’s come to mind : Paul McGrattan and Mike McGoldrick. I believe they use the flat-fingered grip. I remember Paul when I was in Ireland and his B rolls popped like a machine gun.
Also, now that I am on a roll , I’m speculating here, I bet players whose ‘dominant’ hand (i.e. right-handed or left-handed people) is the upperhand (a righthanded player who plays leftie) and use flat-fingers probably are in the best positon for crispness on the B roll. Just a hunch.
r
I just recorded some of these two-handed rolls on B and A so you can hear how they sound – long rolls and short rolls, both by themselves and in the context of snippets of tunes.
You can listen to the two recordings (each of them 100 to 200 k, not very big) from here:
Well, after my last post, I thought some more about the necessity of a roll being crisp and that perhaps a more subtle form of rolling just as Brad had suggested is equally engaging.
Then I listened to Brad’s recent posting of clips which just prove that. Good job Brad, lovely all around. Clearly it works. BTW, It’s cruel to stop playing in a middle of a gorgeous tune! Nice style too.
So maybe there are different types of rolls for different outcomes or different forms of expression ranging from the machine gunner roll, popping and crisp and the ?veiled? roll, more fluid and flowing, perhaps more lyrical.
Maybe the key is that the roll carries with it, the same sort of rhythm and flavor as how the rest of the tune is being played - that a roll should enhance and not interrupt the flow of the melody. Just some thoughts…
r
p.s. Your flute sounds great!
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