Battle of the Tutorials: Larsen v. McCormack

[tsackett]

However my greatest frustration with Mrs McCormack book is that the "tutorial" is not really a tutorial. It's a list of very basic and easy ornamentation exercises and a set of tunes. She says that the tunes are ordered from the easiest to the more difficult, but the tunes themselves are organized by type (single jigs, polkas, hornpipes, jigs, reels, etc). So after the first tune what should one do next? Proceed to the first Polka, or the first reel? And should one practice the 3rd reel before the 8th jig?

I wouldn't fault McCormack for calling Fliuit a tutorial. I'm pretty sure that the terms "tutorial", "tutor", and "method" are pretty much interchangeable in the music publishing industry, and often refer to works that are meant to be used along with a teacher, rather than as "how to" books that can stand on their own.

After reading your comment, I looked back through the tunes in Fliuit. The tunes aren't actually segregated by type, with all the jigs in one place, and reels in another. Instead, the tunes are "clumped", starting with a couple jigs, then a few polkas, followed by barn dances and marches, then back to jigs, and so on. I'm not too far into it yet, but I think this arrangement works. Learning a few tunes of the same type in a row has helped me get a feel for the rhythm and phrasing appropriate to each type that I wouldn't get if it jumped from one type of tune to another.

[andref]

After reading your comment, I looked back through the tunes in Fliuit. The tunes aren't actually segregated by type, with all the jigs in one place, and reels in another. Instead, the tunes are "clumped", starting with a couple jigs, then a few polkas, followed by barn dances and marches, then back to jigs, and so on

Nope!
Look into page 55 and you'll get it! The order is:
Single Jigs
Polkas
Barndances
Marches
Jigs
Slip Jigs
Hornpipes
Reels
Airs

They never mix.

Cheers!

[tsackett]

You are absolutely right. Had I looked in the index, instead of paging through the tunes, I would have seen this right away. I missed the fact the first jigs are single jigs. Now I really don't understand how we're supposed to use this book.

I'm going to keep working at it. I'm still convinced that the individual tunes, and the way McCormack plays them, are pure gold, but I have to, again, rethink my approach to learning from it. First I threw out the book, now I have to ignore the order of the tunes.

Maybe when I'm done, I'll write my own how-to book: "Meta-Fliuit: The Irish Flute Tutorial Tutorial".

[Julia Delaney]

As far as which tutorial goes, who would you rather sound like: Larsen or McCormack?

The order in June's book goes from simple to more complex. In general it is easier to play jigs than to play reels. You can argue with this, but there is truth in this generalization. Some teachers of ITM recommend not playing reels until you feel comfortable playing jigs, marches, and hornpipes. Reels are sexy but most people play them way too fast for their level of accomplishment. I am surprised by how many people want to play Cooley's or Maid Behind the Bar before they can play, say, Maid on the Green or The Bride's Favorite.

June has the right idea. Move from easy to difficult, picking up tunes and technique as you go. Of course you'll be tempted to play a reel before you should, but if you play it slowly, within your comfort range, you'll be fine.

Did somebody say easy? It's a list of very basic and easy ornamentation exercises. Without having heard you play I'll bet that you can't include these "easy" ornaments in your tunes. And if her explanation of ornaments is pretty sparse, the playing itself is so rich and complex that if you listen closely you'll learn what you have to. That's why the book comes with CDs.

This: If you follow the notated version of a tune in the book, you’ll never match what she does on the CD is certainly true. But that's no reason to be discouraged by this discouraging instrument. If it was easy everybody would be doing it. And if you could match what she does on the CD you'd be June, and not yourself. This is an aural tradition and anything written is only an approximation of what the music is all about. She doesn't pretend to be notating everything she does. In fact, most things musical can't be notated or articulated except by playing. Which is why a flesh and blood teacher is always better than a book - a sentiment with which I am sure June would agree.

Finally, there is this: I have written to Mrs McCormack to help me on this subject but she did not answer me. For one thing, it is Ms. McCormack or Mrs. Rooney. And frankly, I don't blame her. I don't mean to be mean, but you're being a bit presumptuous. You bought a book, not a direct line to a teacher. Take a few lessons, or a workshop, with her and then you might better expect that she would answer your emails.

[andref]

The order in June's book goes from simple to more complex. In general it is easier to play jigs than to play reels. You can argue with this, but there is truth in this generalization. Some teachers of ITM recommend not playing reels until you feel comfortable playing jigs, marches, and hornpipes.

I totally agree, but this is not my complaint. I sincerely doubt that It is necessary to play all the jigs, polkas and hornpipes until one can start on a relatively simple reel as the Peeler's Jacket (1st reel presented) I cannot contest that order, but I would like to know a more concrete order of work. Like, as I said, when should one start The Mills are Grinding (reel), for instance?...

Did somebody say easy? It's a list of very basic and easy ornamentation exercises. Without having heard you play I'll bet that you can't include these "easy" ornaments in your tunes. And if her explanation of ornaments is pretty sparse, the playing itself is so rich and complex that if you listen closely you'll learn what you have to. That's why the book comes with CDs.

The exercises presented ARE easy. What is difficult is their inclusion in a tune, accurately, timely and precisely. To me that IS difficult. If the exercises were a bit more complex (say, with some variations- like in Larsens' book), they would be more useful. But I'm not complaining on that area. The real exercises are the tunes and those are good.

Finally, there is this: I have written to Mrs McCormack to help me on this subject but she did not answer me. For one thing, it is Ms. McCormack or Mrs. Rooney. And frankly, I don't blame her. I don't mean to be mean, but you're being a bit presumptuous. You bought a book, not a direct line to a teacher. Take a few lessons, or a workshop, with her and then you might better expect that she would answer your emails.

I believe that you are being a bit unfair in several of your remarks here.
a) Julia, not everyone here is a native English speaker. Thank you for your correction, but that was frankly unnecessary.
b) I don't blame her either. I was not demanding an answer, just asking for some help. It is not unusual for me to write to other authors asking for clarifications. I have done so other times, sometimes I receive an answer, others I do not. I just stated a fact. I needed help, and did not receive it. I have asked for help here and in other forums and most times I receive it!
c) Unfortunately for me, I'm the only Irish flute player I know of in a radius of 100 km, so no lessons or workshops available. I'll have to be on my own or ask for help by email or on forum posts, which is what I'm doing!

[and if you care to answer, feel free to correct my spelling and grammar ]

Cheers!

[Julia Delaney]

Well, Andre, if you posted your location I might have passed on the social distinctions implied in Mrs vs Miss vs Ms.
In all English-speaking countries it is the same:
Ms -- Either a married or an unmarried woman, or if you're not sure which
Mrs -- a married woman
Miss -- an unmarried woman

Ms is used out of courtesy when we do not know the marital status of the woman, or if she prefers the title.

... as I said, when should one start The Mills are Grinding (reel), for instance?. Really, how can anybody answer that without hearing you play? What book can tell you that?

There are people who will be only to happy to critique your playing if you post something. And there are people offering lessons via Skype if you have that facility with your computer. If you did post your location somebody might come forth with a recommendation for a teacher close to you. Just because you don't know of one doesn't mean there isn't one.

[tsackett]

As far as which tutorial goes, who would you rather sound like: Larsen or McCormack?

I'd like to sound like someone who can bring out the best in each tune without trying to sound like a virtuoso. So far, that's closer to McCormack.

The order in June's book goes from simple to more complex. In general it is easier to play jigs than to play reels.

In general, yes. In a book of tunes ordered by difficulty, I would expect to see the reels near the end of the book. However, I would not expect to see all the jigs in the first half and all the reels in the second. It seems like the author would have had to go to a lot of trouble to create a steadily increasing level of difficulty while maintaining strict separation of each type of tune.

Did somebody say easy? It's a list of very basic and easy ornamentation exercises.

I never said this is easy, or that I expected it to be easy. In fact, I need all the help I can get, which is why I wish that McCormack had included a section title "Here's how to get the most out of Fliuit".

This: If you follow the notated version of a tune in the book, you’ll never match what she does on the CD is certainly true.

When I said that, I wasn't talking about the fast versions of the tunes; I was referring to the slow ones, the ones where she is supposed to be holding your hand the entire time.

Imagine you are a beginner. You can read music okay. Maybe you already play silver flute. You've listened to a lot of Irish music CDs, but didn't know a cut from a bounce from a cran before picking up Fliuit. You've read through Fliuit's ornamentation section and now you're ready to play the first tune in the book. It's a simple jig, and she's notated it with eight cuts, showing you exactly where to play them. She's even noted where to take a breath by adding rests in several places. It's very straightforward and precise, and after a few times through, you can play it.

You then pull out the CD play the slow version of the tune and, by the second bar, she's playing something different than you. It sounds like you're starting the next phrase too early. You go back and forth to figure out what you did wrong, finally figuring out that she's decided to take two eighth notes of rest, instead of the eighth of rest plus the pickup note to the next phrase. The rest of the 1st part is okay, but when she comes back around for the second time through, your first note doesn't sound anything like hers. Hers has some sort of bounce to it. You wonder if she added some kind of ornament there (she did), but you're not sure. At the end of the second time through, she leaves out one of the cuts. Were you not supposed to play it? You keep on going to the second part. Halfway through it she adds cut that's not marked. Then she doesn't play another one that is marked. The second time through, she drops some notes out of phrase, while adding some where she had marked a rest.

This is what I mean when I say you'll never match what she does on the CD. I was able to figure what she was doing because I’ve been playing music for thirty years, know how to transcribe recordings, and already worked through most of Larsen’s book. If you’re a beginner, or even intermediate player, using the CD for confirmation that you're playing the tune correctly, all you hear is that you're playing it wrong, but you don't know why.

As for the fast versions of the tunes: they are lovely examples of how to play tunes with a moderate amount of ornamentation, at a moderate speed. A beginner won't be able to pick apart what she is doing until he's worked about half way through the book (I'm guessing here.), but the student who goes back to the beginning and relearns the tunes by analyzing the fast version will learn a lot.

She doesn't pretend to be notating everything she does.

There's no point in having a simplified, carefully-notated version of the tune in the book, and a slow, carefully-played version on CD that don't match.

As for the fast versions of the tunes: they are lovely examples of how to play tunes with a moderate amount of ornamentation, at a moderate speed. A beginner won't be able to pick apart what she is doing until he's worked about half way through the book (I'm guessing here.), but I the student who goes back to the beginning and relearns the tunes by analyzing the fast version will learn a lot.

[andref]

Hi Julia,

In the first place, thank you for your answer and your compliment. You did not track I was a foreigner (a Portuguese, in fact!) by my written English

... as I said, when should one start The Mills are Grinding (reel), for instance?. Really, how can anybody answer that without hearing you play? What book can tell you that?

No one actually could tell me that, not even the best teacher! I'm a teacher myself (not music, though), and I know by experience that it is difficult to say when a student is ready for another more difficult challenge. But a book with a set of progressive lessons can give you hints on the steps how to progress. That's why there are lessons and grades! Of course in Ms McCormack's book there is some sort of organization according to difficulty but, as a parallel, imagine the 8 years ABRSM flute curriculum organized in one single volume with pieces distributed by periods: part A. Music from 1700 to 1750; Part B music from 1750 to 1800, and so on... and each part organized by difficulty! That would be really difficult to work with, if used as a method/tutorial.

BTW, on this aspect, Gray Larsen's book is not better. The only interesting thing there (from a tutorial point of view) are the ornamentation exercises, which are progressively difficult, and really allow one to develop in that area.

[jim stone]

Yes, I did a day long workshop once with Grey and it was the single most useful workshop I've ever done (done lots),
especially concerning ornamentation. He has a theoretical sort of mind and I think it helps him as a teacher,
though I don't necessarily agree with the theory all the time.

[tin tin]

@tsackett: Try reversing your learning process: give the recorded version primacy over the printed page. Listen to June play the tune over and over until you can sing it in your head, and then get out the flute, using the sheet music as a crutch. It should be easier to match what she's playing.

I'd also suggest that you don't have to perfectly match every note, every ornament. My suspicion is that the printed and recorded versions deliberately don't match--it trains you not to look for a definitive version of a tune and forces you to rely more on the ear than the eye.

[tsackett]

@tsackett: Try reversing your learning process: give the recorded version primacy over the printed page. Listen to June play the tune over and over until you can sing it in your head, and then get out the flute, using the sheet music as a crutch. It should be easier to match what she's playing.

This is, essentially, what I've been doing, though I'm not using the book at all. The Fliuit CD, along with software that lets me hear each phrase looped over and over again, is a great learning tool for the intermediate player. I'm going to learn the slow settings of the tunes first, then start learning the fast settings.

By the way, I'm not a beginning a player. I've played silver flute and tinwhistle for thirty years, and played Scottish bagpipes as a teenager. My whistle playing, however, has always had weird phrasing and rhythm, and ornamentation borrowed from baroque music and Scottish bagpipes. Now that I'm starting again from scratch, I have to be very methodical in how I relearn to play. This makes me very sensitive to when instructional books are being unclear.

[tin tin]

By the way, I'm not a beginning a player. I've played silver flute and tinwhistle for thirty years, and played Scottish bagpipes as a teenager. My whistle playing, however, has always had weird phrasing and rhythm, and ornamentation borrowed from baroque music and Scottish bagpipes. Now that I'm starting again from scratch, I have to be very methodical in how I relearn to play. This makes me very sensitive to when instructional books are being unclear.

Makes sense. That's probably why Brendan Breathnach said one shouldn't learn Irish music on an instrument one already plays in another idiom.

My story is similar--I came to Irish music after 15 or so years of (mostly) classical Boehm fluting; I've now been playing Irish music (pretty much exclusively) for about eight. It took me a while to distinguish between being a beginning flute player and a beginning player of Irish music. And after years of a very systematized approach to learning music (classical and some jazz), I initially tried to approach Irish music with the same mindset. The Larsen book delivers on that front, but the deeper I delve into the music, the less systematic and dogmatic I'm becoming. I think every workshop I attend debunks some idea or other I had about the way to do things. There certainly are wrong ways to play, but there are far more right ways to approach the music. Ultimately, it's all about how it sounds and not about how one makes the sound--I think think ditching the book in favor of the CDs is a good move.

[draiochtmusic]

The following comes directly from the Introduction page in 'Fliuit'. It is quoted directly from the book & details the aims and objectives of the book, as laid out by June & may answer and clarify some of the issues raised by some players on this forum.

"This book explains and details various techniques used by flute players in traditional Irish music. It includes arrangements of 64 Irish tunes, as I play and teach them. I have chosen many of the tunes because I find them particularly suited to the flute.

The book focuses on ornamentation and repertoire development. It is important to point out that this is my personal approach to flute playing and that other players and teachers may differ in their approach. The terminology used is my own language, which I find effective for teaching.

• For each type of ornament, there is an explanation of how the ornament is executed. A musical diagram of the ornament is included as well as some exercises to enable practice of the ornament. I find these exercises useful myself and many students find them helpful in improving ornamentation, breathing and tone on the flute. Notating ornamentation is difficult. Therefore, it shouldn’t always be taken literally. The cran on page 15 is a good example of the difficulties involved in transcribing ornamentation. It is difficult to sight-read the cran and play it accurately, without having heard it played correctly by a competent player. Each exercise can be heard on the accompanying CD and it is advisable to use this CD to assist in the learning process.

• The Tunes:
The sixty-four tunes in this book, are divided into categories depending on the tune type. Within each category, tunes are transcribed in ascending order, beginning with tunes which are easy to play and progressing to difficult tunes with more ornamentation.
Each tune includes ornamentation and breath marks where appropriate.

• I have generally added two tunes per page in the musical section of this book. These tunes can be played individually, or one after the other in a selection. I have found that many students like to learn tunes in selections. Each tune can be heard on the accompanying CD. Tunes are played once through at a slow pace, then at a faster pace.
I hope that you find this a beneficial book and a helpful guide. Enjoy!

[andref]

Dear Mr Rooney and Ms McCormack

Thank you so much for reading this forum, and noticing some of our concerns when using your book. It is great to know that you are listening!

I know I'm making a fool of myself by mentioning this again, but do you think you could provide here a tentative or suggested study order of the tunes in your book? It would help everyone immensely, specially those of us who are far from any teaching center and ... would love to sound a bit like Ms McCormack!

Thank you so much for your help!

[JohnB]

do you think you could provide here a tentative or suggested study order of the tunes in your book?

andref - I think your question has been answered here -

Within each category, tunes are transcribed in ascending order, beginning with tunes which are easy to play and progressing to difficult tunes with more ornamentation.
Each tune includes ornamentation and breath marks where appropriate.

I read that as start with the first tunes in each category (the easiest ones) and work your way through - so start with the jigs then try the same in another category when you want to try something different.