Have to say I hate my playing right now… not because it’s ‘bad’ (although it might be!), but because it’s in a state of flux and I’m having to make somewhat subjective decisions and convince myself they’re right in making a conscious effort to reshape my ‘style’ after donkey’s years of what I might now describe as ‘lazy’ playing. And by that I mean (despite some great players playing this way) too much (for me, anyway!) continuous slurring when it’s my firm belief that more players tongue too little than too much. So how many times have we seen folk aspiring to a ‘pure legato style’ (sure I’ve seen those very words used here though it could equally have been ‘true legato’!) and/or taking pride in how little they tongue? Yet Grey Larsen says (in a quote from his Essential Guide that could be describing my own thoughts on the matter)…
Which brings me to the point of my subject line (‘the lazy/undecided mind?’), when it’s now occured to me that this ‘fear’ of tonguing may have more to do with fear of tonguing in the wrong place (no matter what the player’s stance with respect to the tradition, which in my case is native Scottish with clear Irish influence/subtext) than fear of tonguing per se. It’s just so much easier in some ways to keep up the slurring flow and convince yourself that ‘pure legato’ playing with all repeated notes separated by cuts/strikes etc. is somehow the idiomatic choice… which of course it is on (say) Highland pipes because you have no choice there. But (and Brother Steve touches on this with the effect is a bit too much like a highland bagpipe) I can play my smallpipes if that’s what I want. My whistles and flutes (when this could equally well have gone in the flute forum) offer, and to some extent, demand more variety here. But, in seeking to employ that variety, I have to make decisions my lazy/undecided mind would rather avoid and the doubts set in. While I recognise and just love the natural lift that comes with tonguing-in-the-right-places, I’m still wary enough of developing the mannered/caricatured style I could be failing to spot to hanker back towards ‘simpler’ things. But then again, this isn’t really just about me, and I suspect there are many lazy/undecided minds out there. So (having chucked some ingredients in the pot and given them a good stir) who wants to have a good discussion about lift, pulse, rhythm, tonguing-in-the-right-places and the lazy/undecided mind?
I don’t know if I want to have a whole conversation about it but I’ll see where it goes.
My first experience with a wind instrument was playing the clarinet in middle school (an instrument which I only played for a few years, but that’s another story). Learning to tongue was one of the first things I had to do there. I think I tongued every note and threw any chance of slurring or legato out the window. Fast forward five or six years after I put down the clarinet for good and I was just picking up a whistle for the first time. Basically, I had the opposite problem of what you’re describing. I used to tongue every single note, and after about seven years with the whistle I still feel the effects of that on the earlier songs I learned. I tend to avoid cuts, strikes, etc. in favor of tonguing all the note divisions. I do find it much easier to properly insert ornamentation in new songs than in old ones. And that brings me to what I think the similarity is between our seemingly opposite situations.
Whenever you learn a song, and play it many times over, it gets ingrained in your mind as the right way of playing it. Now, maybe people who have been playing for much longer than I have (or who practice more often) get over that. It seems to me that you probably have much more musical experience (with whistle as well as other instruments) than I do. But perhaps you’re getting into that same situation having trouble breaking away from the old, comfortable way of playing the songs you know and into a new, perhaps better, way of playing those songs.
So I don’t think it’s necessarily laziness or undecidedness, but perhaps more a matter of overcoming habit.
I started off playing recorder where of course everything had to be tongued, double and tripled tongued. It was maddening.
I’ve struggled but finally overcome the need to do that with whistles but I do find that my most commonly used ornament (if you will) is the slide. I’ve begun to work diligently on experimenting with simply throwing in rolls, trills, cuts and strikes at random points in tunes just to force my mind to think differently about how to create additional interest. I’ve also played around with different rhythms like playing marches as waltzes or speeding up tempo at different points. I’ve even tried making key changes between sections of some tunes and it has been very interesting. I now play The Foggy Dew about 10 different ways and have decided that some of them are both really different than I’m used to hearing this tune played and I like them quite a lot.
I see your point about lazy playing Peter. And I wholeheartedly encourage you to follow your instincts.
I didn’t learn a wind instrument at school and by the time I bought a whistle I had been listening to albums by the Mcpeakes and the Chieftains. So toot-tooting like a beginner recorder player never occurred to me. Someone gave me an Irish tutor book which set me off in a traditional direction.
Many years later I decided to make a another attempt to play it ‘properly’ and started with internet resources. Online tutors by Brother Steve and Nigel Gatherer (many thanks to both) got me started again and I think those present tonguing in a balanced way - in that it fits what I hear.
However, I think the general run of internet talk about whistling and fluting is much more along the lines of the ‘purists’ in Grey Larsen’s quote given by Peter. I have recently (following good reviews on the Flute forum) bought Conol ÓGráda’s flute technique book. Both what he says and what I hear when following his guidance on listening encourages growing suspicions that much that is written on the internet is wrong. In particular that whistle and flute players (especially ones that I like a lot) use tonguing, glottal stops and accentuation with breath pulsing rather more than a lot of what I read would suggest.
Peter - since you mention it please can you expand on how you see the Scottish tradition ? My listening probably suffers from sampling bias and over emphasis on that first heard but what comes first to my mind is the whistling on the early Ossian albums which is not particularly strongly articulated with tongue or fingers.
This lazy mind has a renewed focus on listening rather than reading - but this could be a good discussion.
Whenever you learn a song, and play it many times over, it gets ingrained in your mind as the right way of playing it.
I would suggest the longer you’ve been playing a tune the more flexible you become in your approach to it. Once you know something through and through you acquire great freedom to take it in any direction that takes your fancy. That’s my experience anyway.
I’ve stopped worrying about whether I should or shouldn’t tongue, as long as it isn’t all tonguing like a recorder and you’ve got some other ornaments in there, you’ll be fine.
I think it was a workshop with Mary Bergin that convinced me to leave off worrying about it, because she does loads and who can argue with her playing?
(She has issues with another aspect of my playing and I’m still utterly confused so hope to see her again one day to sort it out)
Perhaps not as opposite as you might think when, as a classically-trained recorder player and Boehm flautist, I know how to tongue and (from all that HIP and avant-garde recorder) have quite an armoury of tonguing strokes and combinations available. But have to say I can’t remember ever treating whistle like recorder, having initially sussed out my own not-quite-right childhood slurry style (never totally devoid of tonguing) and ‘twiddles’ before starting afresh (in my early twenties?) with Geraldine Cotter’s book followed by some lessons from John Gahagan at Battlefield Band’s Highland Circus 1989…
Now, that’s a really tricky one where whistles and flutes are concerned (much easier if you’d asked about Highland piping, regional fiddle styles etc.) and modern Scottish players of these are likely to be borrowing (to a greater or lesser extent) from the accepted range of ‘Irish’ techniques. So my ‘native Scottish with clear Irish influence/subtext’ was aimed more at defining my relationship to the Grey Larsen quote (grew up with Scots trad but never claiming to be from within the Irish tradition) than implying a clear Scots traditional whistle/flute style (guess I’m treating the music in subtly different ways, but not sure I could say how!).
Can’t agree with that when my point (if there is just one!) is not about whether or not you should tongue (IMHO of course you should) but where you should or shouldn’t tongue. And you’ll not be fine if you’re distorting things by tonguing in all the wrong places or just throwing in ‘some other ornaments’!
Peter, may I cut in? As a newbie, I’m seeking a descriptive narrative of the vocabulary used in working out your tune, style, and manner of play, supported by sound clips of good/bad/ugly
Peter, I’m asking if the threads can be merged thru discussion and utilize sound clip examples for analysis (if noone objects) of one or all three tunes (or anyone else’s tune). I want to know how the musician/whistler works the tune out, and/or modifies, changes any of the elements, even over time and familiarity as Mr.Gumby mentions. (Fingers…ears…brain)
In reference to these tunes, can anyone speak “about lift, pulse, rhythm, tonguing-in-the-right-places and the lazy/undecided mind”? Arbo? Peter? Chiffers?
I would suggest that, if you want to go into looking at clips at all, it is probably a better, and ultimately kinder, idea to look at clips submitted for the purpose or clips from more established musicians more immersed in the idiom (because that’s really what you’re looking for as I understand it). I am not sure for what reason Arbo submitted his clips but he may not like them being disassembled critically.
To be honest, there’s no way I’d want to be putting my own playing through that kind of public scrutiny right now…
In reference to these tunes, can anyone speak “about lift, pulse, rhythm, tonguing-in-the-right-places and the lazy/undecided mind”? Arbo? Peter? Chiffers?
And wouldn’t dream of dissecting Arbo’s when I’m not prepared to do that. So I’ll just point you at that jigs page I linked to above for a straightforward intro (with clear commentary and audio examples) to this sort of thing.
I think, before all thought of this or that, the first and single most important thing when learning a tune is to get it structurally and rhythmically sound. There’s no point in rolling off a string of notes without clear phrasing and solid rhythm.
When choosing your approach to technical matters your first priority is to use things that support and enhance those two elements. Those are your first layers and once those are solidly in place there’s time to think about all the other things. When learning that’s what you should concentrate on because without those elements you have nothing.
Over the years I have noticed people on the forum often look for ‘rules’ on what to do when or where. I’d advice a bit of caution against that. Don’t approach music with a formulaic way of thinking, be flexible instead and apply whatever suits a tune best to make it shine.
Another player who uses tounging frequently is L.E. McCullough.
His style gets debated here sometimes, but I’ve couple of his books/tutorials
and like his playing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4TORnbACcE&feature=related
Such a range of possiblities!
EDIT: to what Mr. Gumby said above about certain ornaments being important for making a tune sound its best, I’d say it’s all a matter of opinion. I would say they are for me. I prefer Mary Bergin’s style to Sean Ryan’s, and Joanie Madden’s slow airs to Mary Bergin’s. Nothing against their own styles but I have my preferences.
Perhaps I can attribute this to the fact that my very first instrument was the tin whistle (going on five months this September), but I can’t say I’ve had many troubles of the sort discussed above. In terms of indecisiveness I always have a general idea of what I want my tune to sound like and make a point to implement my own preferred ornaments and such. I also like to experiment with the way I play songs, although once I reach a style I like for a particular tune I tend to leave it be unless I hear somebody else play it “better” (relative to my own playing and the way I like things to sound).
I have noticed I like to replace tonguing with cuts, taps, and rolls whenever I can, but that’s mostly due to the fact that I like the way those things sound better. I use tonguing to accentuate certain notes mostly, not as something to split them up.
Also in jigs and reels and such I like to alternate rolls, slides, and taking breaths just to keep it alive. I learned this from Ryan Duns’ YouTube lessons, and the more variation I add within a tune the fonder I grow of this technique.
On the occasion that I am too lazy to change a tune from the way I’ve gotten into the habit of playing it to the way I want to play it, I would second what Mr. Gumby said about tunes becoming more flexible the more you play them. After a while the song is so easy to play changing it a little becomes no chore, it’s all a matter of getting used to things.
At risk of making myself look silly when I started this thread in self-critical mode, currently (like a golfer rebuilding his swing?) regard my playing as being in a state of flux, won’t put it up for scrutiny and am not sure who the following’s directed at…
Depending on your definition of ‘established’, ouch! (No problem if you mean nationally significant/top-of-the-tree rather than just experienced/locally ‘respected’.)
more immersed in the idiom
And partial ouch again! (So, no, I’m clearly not as immersed in Irish music as you — and doubt that many are — but I’m not questioning myself on purely Irish criteria here and have lived/been involved with traditional music for a long, long time.)
Couldn’t agree more with that!
Over the years I have noticed people on the forum often look for ‘rules’ on what to do when or where. I’d advice a bit of caution against that. Don’t approach music with a formulaic way of thinking, be flexible instead and apply whatever suits a tune best to make it shine.
And that! So, while accepting that this might not have been directed at me, feel obliged to point out (as self-critical thread starter) that questioning myself and my playing doesn’t mean I’m looking for rules and formulas (which I’m not). Just that I’m self-critical, questioning and have never been as good as I’d like to think!
: to what Mr. Gumby said above about certain ornaments being important for making a tune sound its best, I’d say it’s all a matter of opinion
First of all that was not exactly what I said. I said, in more concise terms, that it’s the musicians job to make the tune shine and that to do that should guide the musician’s choice. I don’t even know what ‘it’s all a matter of opinion’ means to convey in this context.
As to most of Peter’s remarks: I was talking in general terms mostly. The ‘more established musicians, more immersed in the idiom’ as opposed to singling learners posting clips on the forum (like Arbo’s) for stylistic dissection. Established stylists like those highlighted on for example Bro Steve’s Transcription page offer more positive learning/listening opportunities.
Experience shows the board generally doesn’t like critical assessments of clips posted by it’s members, doing so, uninvited, is bound to open up all sorts of opportunities to cause any amount of contention and upset.
[edited to clarify a sentence that ran away and ended up going nowhere sensible]
You’ll have to excuse me for misinterpreting you, Mr. Gumby. I thought you were trying to get people discussing whether double cut rolls or tongued triplets where better (for example in my opinion a double cut roll usually sounds the best, but I understand that some people are big tonguing fans), which is to say I didn’t catch your original meaning and unwisely assumed you just made a bunch of grammatical errors. Sorry.
Need the decisions (of the undecided mind) be the same ? Whistlers usually put a different sort of shine on a tune than fluters. Isn’t it just a case of what do you want to sound like and how much do you want to merge into or stand out from a peer group. And, if there is a specific function such as playing for dancers, does it work ?
. In particular that whistle and flute players (especially ones that I like a lot) use tonguing, glottal stops and accentuation with breath pulsing rather more than a lot of what I read would suggest.
