Help with crans?

[CrazedHavoc]

Can anyone please tell me how to do one of these? I'm really having trouble with them. Thanks!

[MichaelR]

Check this site:
http://www.whistletutor.com/advanced.htm#lesson12

Can anyone please tell me how to do one of these? I'm really having trouble with them. Thanks!

[CrazedHavoc]

Thank you.... Dang they're kinda difficult.

[MTGuru]

You need this:



That lesson is OK as far as it goes. Just be aware that topic of crans is way more complicated than that. And many fine whistlers and fluters never use them.

FWIW, I usually cran with B1 - B2 - T3, and not as the video suggests.

[Key_of_D]

Hm, Listen to Willie Clancy.

[FJohnSharp]

I do B2-B1-B2

[MTGuru]

There was a long-ish thread about whistle crans last year:

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=52118

[pancelticpiper]

The old-time flute and whistle players didn't play crans the way they're played on the pipes.

They played what I'll call the "fluteplayer's cran".

It's very easy to play and though it doesn't sound much like the piper's cran when played slow, when played up-to-speed in the context of a tune it sounds cranlike. It's actually more like how cranlike ornaments are done on the accordion etc.

It's just another example of how each instrument finds its own path to produce the music.

Anyhow you just play bottom D - F# - E - bottom D.

That's it. Not rocket science.

The trick is getting the timing right.

Matt Molloy is often credited with introducing the piper's cran onto the flute. Don't know if he really was the first. But certainly it was his recordings which popularised the piper's cran on the flute (and by extension the whistle).

The piper's cran is four bottom D's in the space where only three notes would ordinarily go.

These bottom D's can be enunciated by any of the digits:

bottom-hand middle finger (F# cut)

bottom-hand index finger (G cut)

upper-hand ring finger (A cut)

The sequence doesn't matter and varies from piper to piper. I know because I've been to dozens of uilleann workshops over the last 30 years and every piper seems to do them differently.

I go F#-G-A. Some reverse that. Patsy Touhey went G-F#-A. Some pipers just go G-F#-G, reserving the A cut for seperating melody notes before and/or after the cran. Whatever.

[ahogrelius]

I do B2-B1-B2

Me too...

Cheers,
Anders

[Key_of_D]

I assume by "piper's cran" you mean the double cran correct? As I understand it, both crans came from the pipes, so that would leave me to believe both crans are in fact piper's crans...

[free-feet]

For low D cran i use...

xxx xxx
xxo xxx
xxx xxx
xxx oxx
xxx xxx
xxx xox
xxx xxx

For high D

xxx xxx
tongue
xxx xxx
xxx oxx
xxx xxx
xxx xox
xxx xxx

To put it in perspective, i've been playing for 3.5 years and i still struggle on speed with crans. For me, tunes with crans usually have their whole speed dictated by the speed i can play the crans in them.

Just another ten or so more years and i'm sure i'll get there!!!!"

[Whiddler]

I just started on them yesterday, and they seemed really hard at first, but they're not bad once you get going. Just practice them in slow motion over and over again. I'm learning the first kind described above by free-feet. It sounds really nice when you get the timing right. It's like a bubbly triplet.

[jemtheflute]

I use cuts to L3, R1, R2 usually, in both octaves, though of course in the second 8ve they all produce a "cut" to an out-of-tune C# below the D they are punctuating - which doesn't matter at all - it's the (correctly timed) rhythmic burble effect that counts; pitch of the cuts is not important in most contexts even for low D.

Following Pancelticpiper's suggestions above, I'm also trying to familiarise myself with the Patsy Touhy sequence.

Like most things in tootling, getting them off is just a matter of practice, working from getting the sequence you choose clean at a slow speed up to where you can fire it off in context at full rattle. I would recommend going for the full 4D/3 cut versions over the 2 cuts only methods. Regardless of its history in application to the flute and whistle, it is to my ear far more effective where musically feasible. There are musical contexts where the double cut methods fit in better, but you'll probably find those by realising that is what you are doing in those contexts, that the triple cut method just doesn't quite fit, without particularly intending them consciously.

[talasiga]

The old-time flute and whistle players didn't play crans the way they're played on the pipes.

They played what I'll call the "fluteplayer's cran".

It's very easy to play and though it doesn't sound much like the piper's cran when played slow, when played up-to-speed in the context of a tune it sounds cranlike. It's actually more like how cranlike ornaments are done on the accordion etc.

It's just another example of how each instrument finds its own path to produce the music.

Anyhow you just play bottom D - F# - E - bottom D.

That's it. Not rocket science.

The trick is getting the timing right.

Matt Molloy is often credited with introducing the piper's cran onto the flute. Don't know if he really was the first. But certainly it was his recordings which popularised the piper's cran on the flute (and by extension the whistle).

The piper's cran is four bottom D's in the space where only three notes would ordinarily go.

These bottom D's can be enunciated by any of the digits:

bottom-hand middle finger (F# cut)

bottom-hand index finger (G cut)

upper-hand ring finger (A cut)

The sequence doesn't matter and varies from piper to piper. I know because I've been to dozens of uilleann workshops over the last 30 years and every piper seems to do them differently.

I go F#-G-A. Some reverse that. Patsy Touhey went G-F#-A. Some pipers just go G-F#-G, reserving the A cut for seperating melody notes before and/or after the cran. Whatever.

thanks for that.