Lilting Banshee Help

[celticmodes]

Trying to learn Lilting Banshee the ITRAD way and looking at youtube for examples of lilt and articulation. I've notice a lot of whistle versions and what's bothering me is the amount of tonguing of the double and triple notes. I would have expected to see more cuts on the doubles and long rolls on the triples.

Can someone enlighten me?

[NicoMoreno]

It's youtube.

Are you far from Ypsilanti? Go, now, and take lessons from Colleen Gavin.

[chris_coreline]

Trying to learn Lilting Banshee the ITRAD way and looking at youtube for examples of lilt and articulation. I've notice a lot of whistle versions and what's bothering me is the amount of tonguing of the double and triple notes. I would have expected to see more cuts on the doubles and long rolls on the triples.

Can someone enlighten me?

thinking about it, i would advise against tounging or cuts/taps. The way i play it is just using stops in the throat. I do tend to roll on the triples in the B section but only as a variation, most times i do that by stops aswell.
maby im not doing it right but theres my 2 pence.

[celticmodes]

It's youtube.

Are you far from Ypsilanti? Go, now, and take lessons from Colleen Gavin.

Looked her up on the web but can't find her. Any contact info?

[MarkP]

just play through the phrases without breathing, and with breathing, and you'll soon find different ways of doing it.

Personally, I cut the double As (with my first finger), tongue the next A, slide into the B, right hand roll the high Es (cut/tap) and end up tapping (or short rolling) the last A of the phrase (for emphasis). In the second part, I left hand roll the high A, and run straight down to the low G without much else. Slide up to the B and roll the Es going up again, then cut the high G on the run up (just for emphasis). Repeat... and short roll the final A.

But it's just my way, experiment with your way own way (but think about where the emphases should be to keep it jiggy - not too much "123, 123" and more like "1234-and-a-1234").

[jemtheflute]

I hope this may help - it was done rather hastily on my mobile phone, so it is an AMR file which won't preview on Boxnet - you'll have to download it and it'll only play in Quicktime unless you convert it - I didn't have time to do that, sorry - let me know if this is a stumbling block and I'll try to change it in due course.

As for the tune, I normally tongue the second (repeated) As in the A mucsic and very little else. 2nd time through I tried first cutting those As, then tapping them, then (which I do use) fast-rolling them. Caveat - I have never "learnt" or worked deliberately on this tune - just acquired it at sessions (pace another thread on the Whistle Forum!) Also, FWIW, I don't use the upwards phrase many put in the A music (cf 1st version given on The Session) - I have always felt it is a confusion, a phrase brought in from the somewhat similar The Tenpenny Bit which doesn't belong in this tune.

(Edited mostly for typos)

[celticmodes]

Thanks. That's helpful hearing the different methods. When you say tongue, you mean glottal or "k" instead of "t"?

P.S. Didn't want to place the question in whistle forum since they are more likely to tongue than we are.

[benhall.1]

Jem really means tongue. He uses a 't', not a 'k'. Yet still I let him be in my gang.

[jemtheflute]

Yup. I mean tongue and "t" (not "k"), though I use a fairly soft, very fast and light tongue stroke (linguistically, a voiceless alveolar plosive where the tip/just behind the tip of the tongue flicks against the alveolar ridge around the roof of the mouth, well behind the top teeth - so not like French tonguing with actual tongue-well-forward contact with the back of the teeth). I do these days make some limited use of "glottals" too, but I actually can't hear any significant difference between these two types of articulation unless one is also making a breath push to coincide with the stop (in Harry Bradley-esque fashion), for which the laryngeal stop is more effective as it actually stores/controlledly releases the pressure, which the tongue can't do so well - and which isn't IMO appropriate in this context - you just want a break, not a strong rhythmic emphasis. Oh, and I do exactly the same on both flute and whistle.

[MarkP]

a voiceless alveolar plosive

I wouldn't know one if I tripped over it but 10/10 for effort

[jemtheflute]

The thing itself is effortless - and a quick Wiki did the rest.......

[celticmodes]

"tongue flicks against the alveolar ridge" sounds like dirty talk :-p

[jemtheflute]

"tongue flicks against the alveolar ridge" sounds like dirty talk :-p

Try it. See if you like it. Let us know.......

[Cathy Wilde]

Trying to learn Lilting Banshee the ITRAD way and looking at youtube for examples of lilt and articulation. I've notice a lot of whistle versions and what's bothering me is the amount of tonguing of the double and triple notes. I would have expected to see more cuts on the doubles and long rolls on the triples.

Can someone enlighten me?

There are a lot of repeated A's and B's in that tune. This is just my observation, ... but besides being kind of a "clamp" or support for the instrument, the left hand is weaker for a lot of people. So they tend to avoid cuts on A and B, and their rolls are sometimes dodgy too. After all, it's hard to hold a flute and let go at the same time. Pipers, however, do it all the time, which is partially why it's a walk in the park for people like Nico.

But it can be done, and you should definitely talk to Colleen. She's great. If you don't have her contact info yet, let me know and I'll track her down for you.

P.S. Billy Clifford plays it very nicely. The recording is here http://ceolalainn.blogspot.com/2010/03/ ... flute.html

[celticmodes]

Wow. Billy Clifford seems to be "ha-ha" or "ha-ha-ha"ing the double and triples a lot in there. And I agree the left cuts of A are not easy...that's why I brought this up. I was doing what I thought was correct and it seemed to sound....crappy. So I wondered if maybe in that case there was some other technique.

I'll still work on my A cuts and rolls but in the meantime I've got to get this thing up to speed sounding somewhat acceptable.