Back D gracing

Thorpe · Post by **Thorpe** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:51 am

Could anyone give me and idea of the different ways of gracing the back D? Up until now a have only cut it using the thumb but ive hit tunes where i need more.

Help!!

Dan

djm · Post by **djm** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:33 am

Have you looked at some of the books available, like the Dance Music of Willie Clancy, or Seamus Ennis' The Master's Touch?

A very popular back D ornament is the pseudo-roll done by flipping the thumb rapidly back and forth over the back D. This requires that you close the back D with the side/edge of the thumb instead of the pad of the thumb.

You can also get a lot of mileage out of heavy vibrato using the A or G.

djm

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:42 am

Can you give a couple of examples of bits of tunes?

[Abc notation handy]

ddd triplet is favoured by some but not all ...... either
you're a Keenan man or an O'Flynn??!!

Play it by moving the thumb
rapidly over the d hole

Many would rather play variations to lift a long d into something
more interesting:

dcd
dAd
dBd
df#d
d2 d
d d2
3 staccato d's
d 3[Bcd]
ded
d 3[gfd]
3[BcB] d
3[AcA] d
d 3[f#ed]

or play a long d with the chanter off the knee, and c hole open, vibrato with one or two lower hand fingers

or dispense with the d altogether and pick another note from the arpeggio?
you can roll or triplet other notes.

and I'm only getting warmed up here

Long d's can be a feature of Scottish tunes....is it Irish or Scottish tunes you're playing?

Boyd

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:45 am

...oh ...and

grace into back d with either c# or ghost d

or even with some of the triplets mentioned above

Boyd

Thorpe · Post by **Thorpe** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:32 am

I only have heather clarkes book at the moment, But should i think about obtaining those books?

Thanks Boyd. any more???

Im playing a mixture of scottish and irish stuff but im still at a basic level and things like triplets are slightly beyong me at the moment. What im starting to do is build up a small repotoire (sp?) at the level im at until i move on to more technical stuff.

Cheers again

Dan

Thorpe · Post by **Thorpe** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:33 am

I only have heather clarkes book at the moment, But should i think about obtaining those books?

Thanks Boyd. any more???

Im playing a mixture of scottish and irish stuff but im still at a basic level and things like triplets are slightly beyond me at the moment. What im starting to do is build up a small repotoire (sp?) at the level im at until i move on to more technical stuff.

Cheers again

Dan

boyd · Post by **boyd** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:43 am

Most players will have at least one of those 2 books.
Ennis and Clancy are giants in the piping world.

A real investment to make would be a tenner of petrol now and again and travel to meet up with other pipers [see my private message to you].

This is not an instrument that you should learn from a book.
[Some would say you can't learn it that way!]
Just hanging out with other players, at various stages of their development, will give you invaluable information, tips on technique, sight of different makers' work, and helpful feedback [if you ask].

Boyd

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 6:26 pm

The Piping of Patsy Touhey also discusses the back D and ghost D, and also an ornament called a backstitch - a tight staccato triplet played with two notes in one hand and one in the other. This can be done to any of the top hand notes, of course - FGd, FGC#, FGB, FGA. FGA, sound familiar? Actually Touhey played GFd, GFA etc. etc., usually in conjunction with the "lone" note played twice - dGFd, C#GFC#, etc. It was very systematic.
The FGd triplet I use as a substitue for a roll in reels where a fiddler would play a bowed d triplet, like the 3rd part of the Boys of Ballisodare, which goes Bdd3), BCd3)gd BCd3)gd edBA, in its usual form. I play BdFGd3) for that first bar instead of Bdd3). This is just my own solution to this problem, you can also just play Bddd, or the "rubbed" back D triplet which others are talking about - Bdd3), just like the fiddlers, sort of. Some pipers find the sound of this scurrlious - obnoxious. "The rubbed back D is right out" according to Seamus Ennis.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 7:47 pm

Kevin, "rubbed" is a good term for it. I like that. I have heard many people espouse the same sentiment after Ennis' proclamation. However, it seems to be a more popular ornament than ever with pipers coming over from Ireland for the various tionáls. Even if you only use it once in a whole night, I think any ornament is worth learning.

djm

Roger O'Keeffe · Post by **Roger O'Keeffe** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:07 am

Experimenting with an old chanter of unknown make that had a good top hand, I developed an action which I never analysed very carefully, but it basically consisted of gracing with the B finger, and possibly relaxing the top hand so that maybe some of the other fingers come off the chanter in the same movement. It gives a lovely "liquid" sound on that particular chanter, which has a lovely clean sound on the top hand, though I never got round to applying the same technique to the Rogge. I have a suspicion that either Kevin Rowsome or Seán Potts does something similar.