I’m just learning the simple system flute this year and was wondering what thoughts/feelings the more experienced flute players have about cuts. Concerning jigs and slip jigs mostly can one do too much cutting for emphasis on the main beat note ? Thanks.
Janmarie
It’s an interesting question. Partly, I think it depends on what style you wish to emulate. Personally, I go for rhythm more than flow most of the time, so with that plus often being influenced by pipers, I think in terms of cutting key beats even if I happen to not do it. Maybe what I’m trying to say is that rather than thinking in terms of what is too much, pay attention to how cutting down-, up-, and off-beats, and not cutting, all gives an effect. Sometimes it’s so right, sometimes it’s business as usual, and sometimes it doesn’t do the tune any good.
With jigs, IMHO, if you play cutting the downbeat in an unending “BYIT-a-dee BYIT-a-dee” pattern, it’s not necessarily wrong, especially if you’re just starting out. That’s good beginner practice, at least. It can become monotonous to hear only that, however. In the meantime, making your cuts fine and subtle-sounding helps a lot with that. More importantly, listen to recordings to hear how people mix it up; some play solid and foursquare, some swing it, some are liquid, etc. How they ornament is an important part of why they sound the way they do.
I keep getting the feeling that I haven’t quite answered your question, but I hope it helps.
In a way, it’s kind of the wrong question to ask. Like asking if it’s possible to use too many words when you speak. The simple answer is: yes, sure. The real answer is that you use cuts and other articulations for a musical reason. And if you can understand and justify why you choose to cut a particular note - as opposed to doing something else with it - then that cut is not one too many.
Also, what Nano said. 
In terms of technical facility, I think you need to be able to cut any strong beat or emphasized beat in a tune at will - without thinking about it, and without fumbling for the fingering. So from that POV, cutting the start of each jig triple is a good exercise. But in performance, how you phrase the tune musically is going to suggest how you articulate the phrases and the notes within.
Don’t forget taps. These give you an effect like a cut but lighter and can make an interesting
variation on the cut.
And let’s not forget about rolls and cranns. 
Yes, that’s certainly true of mid-cuts/taps. But it doesn’t really apply to the initial single cuts being asked about here. In fact, initial taps can have more the opposite effect, of softening the onset of the note, not emphasizing it. Unless you do a full note-tap-note bounce to start, which is a fairly rare technique. And the fingering of sequential ascending taps can be awkward.
Thanks. Kindly note that the original post can sensibly be read as asking two questions.
Jan Marie - if you cut on flute like you do on whistle, you’ll sound fine. Personally, I think the underlying rhythm is the single most important thing, and your cuts in no way distract from the rhythm.
Eric
I didn’t get that at all in the slightest, so I can’t agree. But since you’ve broached this sideline, let’s run with it. I will periodically emphasise a beat with a breath pulse powering a quick upslide from the note below. However, that is not a tap, strictly speaking.
I’m not going to go back and disambiguate text. The first point is that taps can sometimes be substituted for cuts,
some of the times we use cuts, and this can provide an interesting variant. It’s worth playing with, I wasn’t thinking
particularly about the first note of a jig.
However I do use taps on the first note of a jig, sometimes. I think this is the note, tap, note, that MT mentioned
except that the tap is happening close to the sounding of the note. I find this works for me, especially if I
give it a little more air. YMMV.
Another technique for this first note is a reverse roll. Note (sounding briefly), tap, note, cut, note. This gets one
a good deal of emphasis. John Skelton does this on Boys of the Town.
Another more general use of taps–I’m descending to G. So I play B, A, G, which is the end of the phrase, say.
One taps the Fsharp simultaneously with sounding the G. As the tap bounces off the G sounds alone.
And so on for other descending phrases where one wishes to emphasize the last note and there is
an open hole beneath it.
I think taps are interesting and sometimes, in some contexts, more interesting than cuts. Bit neglected, taps
are, IMO.
Specifically, I’m learning Kid on the Mountain and really wanted options for cuts. Yes, I was looking for thoughts about cuts and also about options for cuts on key beats. It seems certain key beats want something different than a cut. In practicing emphasizing that beat by breath and cut, the monotony was killing the tune and my ears. You all gave me great thoughts and options. A reverse roll…no way!!!.. that is so neat.
Janmarie
Ah, but which version of The Kid on The Mountain?
I know it’s not quite on-topic, but all this talk of cuts, taps, rolls, etc is Double Dutch to me. I’ve been playing for 18 years and I reckon that although I’m a pretty decent whistle player (if I say so myself), I wouldn’t know what a “cut” was if I found one in my cornflakes. Having been asked to teach whistle at the Goderich Celtic College in 2007, I found myself unable to answer questions about rolls, taps, and so on unless somebody else played one. The pupils knew more about the terminology than the teacher did!
I realise that this doesn’t answer your question, but I thought it was worth mentioning that as long as you can play different decorations/techniques, it doesn’t really matter what you define them as.
Sorry to butt in…
m.d.
Maybe so. But “wiggle your fingers up and down” doesn’t work very well in an online discussion.
And let’s not forget about tounging articulation. 
Would that be “tongued articulation/tonguing”?
(Couldn’t get my tongue around how you spelt it! 
)
The only place I might tongue in KOTM is in the pedal-point repeated Bs in the 4th section (of the stock 5-part session setting) - but I often do a full (crotchet) roll on those…
Mind, I do think there’s a valid point that naming things like cuts suggests somewhat misleadingly that these things are separate, discrete entities, when in a real sense they’re not. Articulations (ornaments) are just part of the total flow of the music, and their finger movements blend with the movements of fingering and changing notes. But still …
Fair point, MTGuru. However, “wriggling my fingers up and down” was exactly how I learned to play. It was a case of replicating grace notes as I heard them. I’m not a musician, I’m a cipher, sob!!
For the benefit of the OP, I just wanted to offer some encouragement that you don’t necessarily have to be able to talk the talk as long as you can walk the walk. IMO, the question of “too much decoration” only becomes a factor when it interrupts the flow of the tune, or when the playing becomes more about “look at me” than about the actual music.
m.d.
Yes, my apologies… I was typing quickly at work and didn’t have spell checker. 
<Even after all these years, I still struggle with spelling that word correctly>
LOL, at least you weren’t longuing about at home then!
m.d.
I had a neighbor once who without question had too many cats. He had a cat door on his apartment door, and all the stray cats in the area knew about Michael’s feeding location. When his brother finally came to take Michael to a care facility for the mentally ill, he had 10 cats living in the walls of his apartment. I helped iremove the cats from the apartment, some finding good homes and others no so lucky, I’m afraid.