How much ornamentation is the correct amount?

[Akiba]

just enough

I think this link tells us little about ornamentation. It's like ITM rock--Irish flute meets Hendrix. I appreciate it's virtuosity; it's a sound tapestry. But musically, not sure--too much reverb/echo, too much too much. Surely nowhere near what we usually do as Irish flute players.

The other Seamus link is more on the mark, methinks (certainly more to my liking; it's amazing). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu26Y0DXyT8

[Akiba]

Thanks everyone for the well thought out answers. It seems that opinions are all over the place.

Just to clarify, I am not talking about the cuts or taps or glottal stops used to separate like notes, or the rolls used to add interest to dotted quarters. I already use those, and I think that I think of those more as a necessity than an ornament. I am talking about using them as ornaments, 2 or more per bar in every bar of the tune.

Jeff

Now I'm intrigued and a bit confused by this. Not sure what you mean by "ornamentation" as opposed to "articulation". Using ornaments 2 or more a bar every bar seems extreme, don't you think? Some of the great players do tons of ornaments, e.g. Molloy, Wynne, but is that really a sane goal for the rest of us or even necessary?

I found this transcription of Harry Bradley and was surprised at how much he uses strikes/taps, and he does seem to have nearly 2 ornaments per bar. http://www.flutefocus.com/23-ornamentat ... adley.html. In Grey Larsen's book, he has transcriptions of playing that is heavily ornamented, but again, how many of us can do what they do?

Funny, you have me feeling now that I don't have enough ornaments, that my playing is plain, dull with its mere sprinkling of rolls, cuts, strikes--how elementary and child-like.

jason

[mandoboy]

Funny, you have me feeling now that I don't have enough ornaments, that my playing is plain, dull with its mere sprinkling of rolls, cuts, strikes--how elementary and child-like.

jason

Exactly the feeling that I was getting and why I asked the question! I felt I was doing ok before all of this. I think I will keep working on adding more, but I won't be upset with the way I am playing until then.

Jeff

[Tjones]

Funny, you have me feeling now that I don't have enough ornaments, that my playing is plain, dull with its mere sprinkling of rolls, cuts, strikes--how elementary and child-like.

jason

Exactly the feeling that I was getting and why I asked the question! I felt I was doing ok before all of this. I think I will keep working on adding more, but I won't be upset with the way I am playing until then.

Jeff

My question to you both would be how do you learn your tunes? Do you use the dots or are you learning them by ear?

[Akiba]

Funny, you have me feeling now that I don't have enough ornaments, that my playing is plain, dull with its mere sprinkling of rolls, cuts, strikes--how elementary and child-like.

jason

Exactly the feeling that I was getting and why I asked the question! I felt I was doing ok before all of this. I think I will keep working on adding more, but I won't be upset with the way I am playing until then.

Jeff

My question to you both would be how do you learn your tunes? Do you use the dots or are you learning them by ear?

A mixture of both ear and dots. I'm too impatient and don't have the time/space to learn just by ear.

[mandoboy]

I also learn from both.

I have played mandolin for many years so I tend to learn a lot of tunes by just playing tunes that I already know by ear. When I do this I use what I need for articulation and add a few rolls, but I am not ornamenting a huge amount.

Mostly when I learn from the dots, I already know the tune by ear and use the dots as and easy way to learn, but I also don't usually follow them closely but follow what I remember from hearing the tune at a session or recording.

Jeff

[Tjones]

I guess my point would be that if for example, you were playing along with a John Wynne recording, you would hear and try and follow what he’s doing, picking up by example the way he plays. The way an ITM player plays a tune and the dots for the tune are most often quite different. My guess is, and it’s just a guess, that most of the great players don’t think about ornamentation, they just play the way they grew up hearing the music.

[Akiba]

Tj,

Funny that you mention John Wynne. I love his playing, particularly on "With Every Breath". I play many tunes from that album, many of them similar to how he plays them, putting in the ornaments I can, playing with some variation akin to JW's playing. But I bet only a few players can actually do all he can technically; he is truly a virtuoso of the Irish flute style. Listening closely, one can hear such an incredible degree of variation in his playing, such rich use of all kinds of ornamentation. I think I'd be less of a player if I tried to play exactly as he does, being so bogged down in trying to ornament as richly as he does. Hence, I do think that over-ornamenting tunes is more of hinderance for most than a sane ideal. What's more important, as has been said, is to get the groove right, the feel. Ornaments can be helpful and integral to that end, but not the be-all end-all.

[jim stone]

Again, when you go to teachers, two of them, and they both tell you to play a tune a certain
way, it's a good idea to listen to them. And of course we CAN do it, usually,
if not right away then by practicing. Nothing to take personally....
If, after playing it their way, you prefer another way, fine,
but one might as well play it their way first and see.

If you have to develop more chops to do it, fine! Occasionally somebody
moves the goal posts back. Good for you. Doing you a favor,
often enough. Sometimes a lot more is possible than we realize.

Spent a lot of time teaching an academic discipline where I occasionally
challenged people to do things they hadn't done before.
Lots of people rose to the challenge, a number felt
they were being wronged or I was unreasonable or....

Your call.

[m31]

My guess is, and it’s just a guess, that most of the great players don’t think about ornamentation, they just play the way they grew up hearing the music.

When I listen to Kevin Crawford's variations, which include some very clever use of ornaments, I'm pretty sure he's thinking about them, although perhaps not necessarily at the individual cut or tap level.

[Akiba]

Jim,

I think we need to know what these 2 teachers expect and Mndoboy's current playing level. Eventually, we all face our limitations in terms of talent, time, ability to concentrate, effective practice and instruction. If everyone could play like Matt Molloy, etc... Truth is, most folks should concentrate on playing in time, playing in tune, playing with good feel and phrasing rather than adding a boat load of ornamentation. I find when I'm more concerned with adding ornaments/variation than with the tune itself is usually when I screw up.

I'm a teacher too and understand the value of setting challenging goals for my students. But I'm also aware that a student's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky) comes very much into play: the challenge must be within a student's ability to achieve the goal. Most folk's ZoPeD is nowhere near the level of adding 2 ornaments a bar and still maintaining all the other requirements to play musically regardless of the amount of practice, focus, instruction. Again, I'm don't know mandoboy's specific situation; I'm speaking of most folks in general.

jason

[jim stone]

Well, these two professional teachers DO know his situation, having heard him play
and doubtless talked to him.

Now either they are BOTH of them incompetent teachers, which is conceivable but unlikely,
or they are not making excessive demands. Of course he may not be able to do what
they want then and there, but the idea is that you go home and practice
the ornamentation until it becomes natural. They're not asking him to 'load up
on ornaments' but to ornament in a certain way in that tune. Mando says he already can do
cuts, taps and rolls, so what they are saying hardly sounds unreasonable.
Hard work, no question.

Don't mean to be critical of anybody. If two teachers told him do to such and such,
I figure we help out more by encouraging him to give it a college try than by
suggesting both of them are loonys. They're his teachers, we're not.
Unless they really are loonys, which sounds unlikely in this case.

[Akiba]

Fair enough, Jim, point well taken. Go get 'em, mandoboy!

I guess I was answering the title question, How much ornamentation is the correct amount?, and whether using 2 ornaments per bar is a sane ideal, the answer to which would be it depends on the person. I do maintain that for most of us, the answer is "no". I don't think we should underestimate the power breath control and emphasis using one's air and embouchure can have in shaping tunes and getting the right feel, a skill I think just as important as ornamentation.

A local whistle teacher, who is an excellent all around musician, teaches ornamentation in tunes to true beginners as part of the initial learning process, saying the ornaments are absolutely integral to the music and should be learned right out of the gate. Personally, I'd rather see students be able to play all the notes straight, in tune and in time from low D to high b than to have them struggle with playing murky ornaments and not get the feel and basic framework of the tune. Maybe I'm wrong about that; I certainly do not have the credentials this teacher has.

[clark]

Some of the ornaments I put in a tune make it easier to keep up with the warp-speed fiddler in our band. I find that when where and how many ornaments change with the speed of the tune, my mood, and whether my arthritis is flaring.

Even when I learn a tune by ear I tend to focus on the bare bones of it at first. Somehow I seem to be able to filter out the ornamentation. When its in my fingers have the basic tune ornaments start appearing of their accord.
Clark

[MTGuru]

Even when I learn a tune by ear I tend to focus on the bare bones of it at first. Somehow I seem to be able to filter out the ornamentation. When its in my fingers have the basic tune ornaments start appearing of their accord.

Yes, a good description.

I guarantee that good players don't think in terms of "amount of ornamentation". Guaranteed. And if you want to play like them, you have to think like them. Even for pedagogical purposes, the notion of "how much" ornamentation will not get you there.

It's really: OK, here's a particular phrase I want to play. How can I articulate / ornament / shape this phrase so that it expresses what I want to express, and reflects my understanding of how these notes contribute to the tune. OK, now here's the next phrase. And the next. Whether you end up with 10 ornaments per measure or none, the number is meaningless.