Ornamentation question

[crookedtune]

......but you have confirmed my suspicion of a secret world of ornamentation, in the classic sense, that nobody ever actually speaks of out loud. The unspoken ornamentation.

Moderator!! Diane's talking about it!!!

[sbfluter]

Yes, I'm talking about your big giant secret. Bwuhaahaahaa.

Somebody asked for an example. So I listened to my iPod where I've downloaded clips from here and elsewhere. I finally heard a good one, but I couldn't find it searching with the forum search tool.

So, if your name is Markus and you recorded Hills of Tara and Christmas Eve, there's your example. Lots of extra notes, lots of fluttery things.

Also, those Japanese fluters have some good examples, but they kind of cheat because there are two of them.

Even June McCormac would do it a little bit in her tutorial recordings, but she doesn't ornament a lot. She'll add a triplet here or there that she doesn't mention in her booklet.

But even disregarding the wilder embellishments, a lot of you even do basic cuts and rolls in a more decorative-sounding fashion than what a Grey Larsen-defined "articulation" would prescribe. You guys are doing something that little 'ol nearly tone-deaf me, with a mere 6 months of practice, is finding hard to duplicate.

I wish I could do it too, but I'm afraid maybe I'm just not musical enough for it. So, back to your regularly scheduled forum stuff. I'll go back to playing unadorned, boring tunes and hope that some day I can simply keep up with the session. Sorry to expose your secret.

[jim stone]

It'll come. patience.
It's amazing what you end up being
able to do. five years in december.
Took me three years just to figure
out how to hold the instrument.
You really have to rewire your brain.
There was this steady but gradual improvement,
sometimes so gradual I didn't notice it
until one day I returned to something
unplayable and played it.
Now the improvement is accelerating.
Slow practice with a metronome seems
to really help.

[skh]

I wish I could do it too, but I'm afraid maybe I'm just not musical enough for it.

Stop bashing yourself and practice a few years. Six months is not much.

[cocusflute]

I agree with most of what has been said, though I couldn't follow all of it.
I do especially like what Stone said, which is right on the money: "... Grey wants us to cut immediately above the note sounding. I prefer to cut well above that, as long as the flute responds quickly. I err on the side of contrast."
Most ornamentation is rhythmic rather than melodic.
I also like this, from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, in reference to what John Kerr said:
"...everyone knows it's better to have an expert show you - and not just tell you - how to play tennis or golf or a musical instrument. We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction."
(Pgs. 70-71, end of Chapter 2, Penguin Ed.)
Best is to have an accomplished player who can show you -- as one friend to another - what is being done with the tune. If this won't happen then private lessons are wonderful. Next best is a workshop.
Most players never hear what Diane hears. And those who do, always hear the music that they wish they could do as opposed to what they can do. It's that striving that makes you better. Hearing is the first step. Buy every CD that you can afford and listen, listen, listen.
There should always be a tune in your head and in there the phrasing is perfect.

[Flutered]

There should always be a tune in your head and in there the phrasing is perfect.

Well, that is so true - if we could only play all the little nuances that we hear in our head, wouldn't it be wonderful!

[hydromel89]

Didn't I hear someone on this board stating that ornementation serves the melody while articulation serves rythm. That made (and still makes) sense to my beginner's ears.

Pascal.

[jim stone]

It's a great blessing to have something to do that is both difficult
and beautiful, the mastery of which will take you
the rest of your life.

[pancelticpiper]

To me, cuts, pats, and rolls are not "ornamentation" at all, in the sense that an "ornament" is by definition something superfluous to the melody which is added for decorative effect. These cuts, pats, and rolls are rather a form of articulation which happens to be done with the fingers rather than with the tongue. I prefer the somewhat ponderous term "digital articulation".
"Ornamentation" in its strict sense is very little used in Irish traditional music. The only thing I can think of is the trill on F# favoured by uilleann pipers and some whistle/flute players, and things such as double-cut rolls. Even crans could be thought of as rythmic, rather than ornamental, devices.
Yes the cuts and pats are done crisply enough that their actual pitch is immaterial, "blips" I suppose.

[Tootler]

I'll go back to playing unadorned, boring tunes and hope that some day I can simply keep up with the session.

There's nothing wrong with that. I think sometimes too much is made of ornamentation and that traditional flute players often over ornament. I agree that's a matter of personal taste and mine is to be sparing with ornamentation.

Niall Keegan made a very good point in a workshop I attended a couple of years ago, that the music is basically dance music and it is vital to maintain a sense of rhythm. My understanding of what Grey Larsen says in his book is that the "standard" ornamentation (cuts, taps & rolls) are as a way of stressing the pulse in the music in what is otherwise a legato style of playing.

To Diane: I've not been playing the flute much longer than you have, but I have been playing recorder for over 25 years which has been a help in my approach to the flute. Once I could get a reasonable sound and was fairly happy with the basic fingerings, I have been concentrating on embouchure, getting a good tone and playing tunes simply and as well as I can. I think that until you have a tune comfortably under your fingers, adding ornamentation is likely to make things worse. My view, FWIW, is learn the tune properly first, then think about ornamentation. I know some will disagree, but I think in the early stages of learning an instrument, it is very easy to overload your brain by trying to concentrate on too many things at once. So it is better to do basic things well, then look at the embellishments later once you have achieved a certain level of competence.

Being able to join in a session with some degree of confidence is not a bad target to aim for IMHO.

Geoff

[sbfluter]

There should always be a tune in your head and in there the phrasing is perfect.

Dang tunes in my head are driving me nuts! But at least they've finally drowned out the transmitter in my filling so I no longer have to wear the tinfoil hat.

[Akiba]

SB--thanks for bringing up this topic. I too am learning from Grey's book, found his approach/explanation to "ornamentation" very helpful. From my listening, I have also heard a tremendous range of ornaments and sounds, things I did not think possible on the flute, many of which I still do not have a clue how to do, e.g. the "popping" quick triplets that Matt Molloy and others of the Roscommon school do--I know they ain't triple tonguing but I think they are using very focused air. Same on some rolls being spikey which I think comes from allowing the "grace notes" within the ornament to fully breathe...I don't know exactly. The range of sounds is staggering.

I wonder how much one's flute determines the possible ornaments one can produce (of course much of it has to do with the player). Certainly, I've found that ornaments sound completely different on a wooden flute as compared with a silver/Boehm flute. Moreover, I believe the Pratten and its big holes make "popping" precise ornaments more challenging, where as a Rudall or the Grey Larsen/Casey Burns small-holed flutes have their particular tendencies towards certain ornamented sounds and potentially "tighter" ornaments (I believe this why Grey plays smaller-holed flutes). SB--I think I've seen you with a Tipple with its very large holes and extreme diameter, all of which probably hinder ones ability to create a wide range of ornament timbres unless you have large quick fingers and a tremendous amount of air.

What do others think?

Regarding ornamentation and Irish Trad flute playing in general, I think of it as dancing on the flute. Just as dancers (Irish dancers, tap dancers) may do the same steps, the exact execution and sound of these steps differs from dancer to dancer, tune to tune, tempo to tempo. I feel it's the rhythm, the dance, that counts when playing a tune; thus, the ornament serves the tune and must maintain and compel the groove of the tune. If the ornament does this, it's cool; if not, it must changed or removed. Whether the ornament sounds exactly like Matt or Grey is just an exercise in categorization and imitation and less to do with music making/dancing.

Also, (is this post long enough yet...) Grey mentions that the sound of one's ornaments will change over time and the sounding of the cut/tap notes will diminish as one practices and plays over the years.

I'd love to hear how folks practice ornaments and which practice methods they think are best. I've been elongating rolls and slowing them way down to practice them, i.e. fully sounding the cut and tap notes, making sure they fall on the beat (which means they are not classical grace notes that are to be sounded before the beat of the home note).

[Akiba]

SB--I just read you also have a Burns folk(?) and Burns Rudall--you cover the whole gambit of hole size/diameter/bore with those 3...Do you notice a difference when playing ornaments?

[sbfluter]

I don't notice much difference between the two Burns's except that the Rudall is slightly more spaced apart than the Folk Flute, which is a small-handed model. I hardly notice it.

The Tipple flute is hard to do ornamentation with my left hand due to hole size and my finger size. My index finger sometimes protrudes into the hole because it's just a little smaller. I feel ok on the right hand. It's a big stretch but I can get good coverage with a piper's-type hold on my right hand, and can feel/hear the plunking sound of the holes closing under my fingers.

I've watched other players play a little bit despite there being not too many of them around here. I've seen other kinds of ornaments than the basic cuts, taps and rolls, or perhaps I have just seen them done differently from what I've been attempting to do, or maybe because I don't hardly watch myself play I just don't know what it looks like, but it sure seems like there are some flickery finger thingies going on when certain people play, and the sound is more fluttery than crisply articulated. Not that they are being sloppy, but that they are being fluttery on purpose. At least that's how it seems.

[jemtheflute]

Diane, I wonder if your "fluttery" ornaments are when a player plays a main note of the melody and immediately cuts it at the beginning, returning of course to the main note. This is a little different from attacking the same main note by briefly playing the note above it before playing it at all itself. In classical notation the former would be written with two linked grace notes - the note itself and then the one above (being fingered as a cut): the latter would be a single grace note - the one above the main note used as a cut. I'm not sure if the former is what some would call a "double cut". I certainly use both of these to articulate emphasised notes. For example on the top notes of the "eyebrow" figures in the B music of Paddy's Trip to Scotland I use the two note version. This is rather different in effect (though the technique is effectively the same) from using a cut to separate two repeated same-pitch notes.