Ornamentation

[Albanian]

Ofcourse but you practice them in the context of the tune so they won't upset the flow of the tune later ifyou try drop them into it when learned separately.

2. Play the ornaments in their place in the tune, repeatedly. Slowly!!

Exactly

[StewySmoot]

I'm working on the "learn the tune then the ornaments" plan though I am using cuts and strikes to articulate repeated notes. I am slow on cuts and strikes using my ring fingers, the right especially. I'm not arthritic or anything, just a beginner. Can someone comfort me by saying it will come with practice and perhaps give me a few exercises? Thanks.

Yes it will come with practice.

Best exercise? Practice!

[Wombat]

I'm working on the "learn the tune then the ornaments" plan though I am using cuts and strikes to articulate repeated notes. I am slow on cuts and strikes using my ring fingers, the right especially. I'm not arthritic or anything, just a beginner. Can someone comfort me by saying it will come with practice and perhaps give me a few exercises? Thanks.

Yes it will come with practice.

Best exercise? Practice!

Someone might say that this is a bad exercise but I learnt it from a Cathal McConnell book. For taps (strikes) practice trilling between note to be ornamented and tapping note. Trill faster and faster until you are going as fast as you possibly can. You will never play a tune with this in it. It's just a way of getting your fingers moving fast enough to perform a roll with tap at the right speed.

[FJohnSharp]

Sorry for goign on about it, I think context is important, call it the holistis approach if you like but I don't think you will get the best results if you treat ornaments as a separate mechanical problem. if you learn to use them in their proper places, building it up ofcourse starting with simple tunes, it will come more naturally and the bits will fall in place easier when you learn new tunes later on.

Yes. Holistic is a good word.

It's easy to be intimidated by "ORNAMENTS", especially if you come here as a beginner and read about how hard they are. But if the first tune you learn is Dawning of the Day, and it has a couple of cuts and a couple of taps, and you learn it like that from the beginning, it seems natural. If you learn Ballydesmond Polka #2 and you learn that in the B part there is one double cut which, if you read about double cuts you might get intimidated, but learning it from the start you find that it's really quite easy, because you're playing the whole tune slowly as you're learning it. And then you learn Off to California and there's a place where you have a choice to throw in a nice easy G roll or not and you're taught both ways, and at first you play it mostly without the roll, but every time you practice you try the roll at least once, and eventally you learn to change it up at will. And pretty soon tossing a G roll is no longer something you think about but is something you can just DO for the sake of musicality and it's so cool.

I speak here as if I'm an expert. I'm not. I'm really only a low intermediate player in terms of skills acquired. But I've been taking lessons from a guy who knows this stuff and I've absorbed a lot and what I'm really doing is sharing what he's taught me. And, I am an expert on being an beginner. I was an excellent beginner for a while. And now I'm trying to be a good intermediate (my teacher calls it 'improving') player. I figure a couple of good years ought to do it.

[Wormdiet]

I would start off with simple jigs for a few reasons

1) Rhythmically very straightforward
2) Lots of epeated notes, which forces cuts and taps.

for the hard parts, turn them into exercises and repeat slowly, then build up to speed.

[Bloomfield]

I would start off with simple jigs for a few reasons

1) Rhythmically very straightforward
...

I wish...

[Wanderer]

I would start off with simple jigs for a few reasons

1) Rhythmically very straightforward
...

I wish...

Yeah, me too

It took me much longer to understand the "diddly diddly" swing of compound time and then longer to play it. For the longest time, I played jigs much like the straight-up version of Swallowtail on Brother's Steve's "how not to play a jig" section

[Kingfisher]

For me , most of the tunes come from simply listening. If I can get a tune rolling around in my head (or if it's one that I can whistle with my mouth) it will usually come out as a " reasonable facsimile" on the tinwhistle. My own interpretation takes over from there. I've heard some of the finest players run off great tunes , that I can't even begin to copy , because they haven't got the "hook" that will get me whistling along. Best advice : Start slowly and throw in the bits and pieces were you think they fit. Your perceptions will get better with practice.

If anything , I have to keep reminding myself that less is more , in terms of ornamentation. I get a bit carried away , some times !! I think it was Amar who posted , a while back , that he finds himself whistling a tune with his mouth but including all of the cuts , rolls , etc . (the way he would on a whistle). I do the same thing. There's a point were the lilt and lift and the ornamentation reaches an almost "magical" quality on the whistle. That's what first attracted me to the whistle and it's what I constantly try to achieve. If it's not magical , it's not worth playing !! IMO Just wish I could get it to work that way , more often !!

Have a Great Day and Fun Whistling !!

[Bloomfield]

OK!! OK! Dilute!! Dilute!!

[Kingfisher]

Geez , Bloomfield , when you were working on Poll Hapenny , a while back , wasn't that "magical quality" what you were shooting for ? I know I certainly was !

Have A Great Day and Fun Whistling !

[Bloomfield]

ALL-ONE! ALL-ONE!

[Kingfisher]

Have a Great Day and Fun Whistling !!

[Cynth]

I'm just a beginner, but I'll throw my 2 cents in. I started trying to learn some tunes with written in ornamentation signs, and I have gone back to just trying to play some simple tunes without ornamentation. The ornamented tunes were too hard for me and I didn't truly understand what I was doing. I have learned about cuts, and I do use them to separate notes of the same pitch along with tonguing sometimes--because I understand what I am doing when I do that. I practice ascending and descending cuts in finger exercises to get my head used to what I am doing and to the sound---I am using the Grey Larson book. Anyway, to my amazement, I was playing a simple tune out of another book and my hand, all on its own (I guess my brain was involved, but I am meaning that I wasn't aware of thinking about it), tried to make a cut in a spot that sounded nice to me. I started including that in the tune and I like it. So I have concluded that it is good to just have the basic tune learned very, very well (I realize that the "basic tune" could vary alot from player to player), memorized and accurately, even if very slowly, played. At the same time, be learning little step by little step about ornamentation, but don't put the ornaments in the tunes until you can automatically play the tunes and ornaments separately. Do the ornaments in finger exercises until you have them down---both as to technique and how they sound. Then I think your mind will prompt you to add ornamentation when you come to a spot where it might be appropriate. I'm sure a big part of this would be listening to other players and sort of soaking in what a traditional way of playing something might sound like. Then with your well-learned basic tune and your well-learned selection of ornaments, you will just start putting them together. Lee McCullogh (sp) recommends just learning the tune first and I think that is good. He says--this is from that FIST book---that the ornaments won't mean anything if you don't know the tune. And I think that it is better to play without ornamentation and gradually add things that make musical sense or that express yourself. The ornaments do end up giving the tune that "Irish" sound, and that is beautiful indeed. But I think it is better to at first concentrate on getting a good (sweet-- in Cathal McConnell's (sp) words) sound from the whistle and playing the notes accurately. Just to be able to do that would be a great accomplishhment for me. I think the whistle is very, very hard to play. I used to play the piano, so probably my approach is based on how I learned to play the piano and wouldn't suit everyone.

[DarnTootin]

Another beginner here.

One thing I'm not 100 % clear about, based on the posts in this thread: Is it generally, or always, true then that more advanced players are not improvising ornamentation? To what extent, if any, is ornamentation improvised?

Thx.

[Cayden]

How do you mean improvised?

I place and change ornamentation as I go along, it's part of variation in a tune in that sense you improvise in a conscious, deliberate way.