Tip of the Whistle (aka Molly St. George): Ornaments or none

[Whitmores75087]

I love the way Paddy Moloney plays this on Chieftains 4. I'm the worlds worst ornamenter, but I tried playing it Paddy's way with lots of ornaments...and destroyed it. Then I tried playing it straight, keeping it flowing as much as possible, and it worked.
Why do I mention it? Not sure. Maybe there can be some good input on slow airs and ornamentation.
I have the impresssion it would take me 20 years (till I'm 76) to learn it Paddy's way, but I can get a decent tune today by keeping it plain.

[riverman]

I think plain can be good. You know in your heart if the piece is boring. If it's not, you might want to just keep it plain.

[MTGuru]

I'm an ignoramus when it comes to airs. But I always learn a lot by transcribing and imitating what accomplished interpreters like Paddy Moloney play. His ornaments are really just combinations of standard ITM techniques, so it's a matter of very close listening (I use Transcribe), and trying to capture what you hear within the usual limits of notation.

To keep things clean and avoid grace notes everywhere, I repurpose a few of the standard ABC ornaments in my transcription.

Mordent P: Flip / Pg = {ga}g
Double Mordent PP: Double flip / PPg = {gaga}g
Triple Mordent P"3": Triple flip / P"3"g = {gagaga}g
Trill T: Trill / TA = {abababab}A

Mordents are short flips on the beat, and can be doubled or tripled. Any more than 3 are notated as a trill. Trills begin on the trilled note, not above.

+turn+: Short cran / +turn+e = {egef}e

The short 5-note cran occurs here on d and e, and also on A. Can be substituted by a double flip PP.

Fermata H: Phrase ending

I find it easier to mark phrase endings with fermatas, rather than clutter the staff with long phrase markings. Fermatas here are not necessarily held longer, but imply a slight pause after the note.

Descending double graces: Unlike other initial grace notes in ITM airs, double graces in descending phrases usually steal time from the previous note, so that the following note actually falls on the beat. So, for example,

|c2 {dc}B2 {cB}A2 {BA}G2| = cd/c/ Bc/B/ AB/A/ G2

Copy from %%botmargin through %%newpage at the end, and paste into the Concertina.net converter. The PDF output should fit on letter-size or A4 paper.

%%botmargin 0
X:1
T:Molly St. George
T:(Tip of the Whistle - Paddy Moloney)
C:Thomas Connellan
R:Air
S:Chieftains: Chieftains 4, Track 3
N:Played on C whistle, original key FMaj
Z:MTGuru for Chiff & Fipple 2008-05-02
M:3/4
K:G
(3d>ef|{a}Hg2 (Jg{ag}f) (PPed)|Hd2 (P"3"ed) (cB)|
(PB2 Hc) B ({cB}A>{BA}G)|HE4 (3{c}(A>B)d|
(3PPe>fg Hf2 (3:2:4Je/-PPed/B|+turn+A2 PHB2 dD|
(EJG) .A/.B/.A/.B/ (TAG)|PPHG4|]
(3D>EF|PHG3A (B{cB}A)|(JBPB- HB2) (3PG>AB|
(c>B c)d Pef|{a}g2 PHG2 (3d>eg||
PPa2 Pb2 PPa/g/+turn+e|((3d>eg PHe2) (3:2:4e/-PPed/B|
PA3B d/4PB3/4(PA/G/)|{B}PHA4 PAB||
(c-{d}c/B/) (cd) ef|{a}Hg>(e JHa)>g {Le}(f{gf}e/)d/-|
d>(e JHg) B {cB}(A>{BA}G)|HE4 (ef||
{a}g>{ag}f) PPe+turn+d HcPB|(cB) (PA{BA}G) HED|
(PPEJG) (6:4:6.A/.B/.A/.B/.A/.B/ (TAG|PHG6)|]
%%newpage

[MTGuru]

Oh, and here's a facsimile harp setting from the Bunting collection of 1840, courtesy of Glenn Weiser:

http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/tba_mo ... george.htm

[MTGuru]

Commenting on Peter's now-vanished remark that there may be an important layer of ornamentation texture in the playing of someone like Seamus Ennis that lies below the threshold of conscious perception.

It's interesting to think about this empirically. At a reel speed of MM=120, each eighth note (quaver) occupies 125 milliseconds. Cuts or taps may occur in around 1/3 of that time or less, say around 40 ms. A full 5-note roll will split a quaver into 25 ms parts. And note transitions and transients may occur at the level of 10 ms. This time scale is at the boundary of conscious perception or below, yet these individual micro-events do contribute to the overall musical perception, and much of a player's individual style and technique may be expressed by events at this level.

So I'd say there's definitely something to this theory.

[walrii]

Sigh. Here I've been working on cuts, pats, rolls, short rolls and crans thinking that, 20 years or so from now, I might have a handle on ornaments and articulation. Now, MT tells me I need to learn something called a flip. OK, MT, how do I play a flip? Are any of the notes articulations like cuts and pats or are they all the same length? If so, how long?

Yes, Peter, I will download some examples and listen to them!

Thank you both in advance. It's late and I'm having some fun at the keyboard playing put-upon noob!

Edited to add: MT, you didn't mention it above, but I assume you use grace notes in your transcriptions to indicate cuts, pats and rolls. So, e{a}g is a cut on g.

[MTGuru]

OK, MT, how do I play a flip?

Well, "flip" is my own term. I'm not sure that there's a standard term, but I hear it played all the time. It's like a quick mordent at the onset of the note, on the beat, like a single trill, and it functions as a more emphatic cut.

It's just: note - higher note - note. The higher note can be the next note above, or a higher note, just as with a cut. So {GA}G or {GB}G etc.

With the next note above, I also call it a "bounce", since that's the physical effect of the finger bouncing on the hole before it settles on. I hear this most commonly on the F# as |G {FG}F|.

One way to think of flips is in relation to ascending or descending cuts. For example, take |G {c}A {c}B|, the cuts executed with the first finger. If the first finger is a bit lazy lifting off for the cuts, the effect will be |G {Ac}A {Bc}B|. Voilà, those are flips. You've turned a technical difficulty into an asset.

Likewise with descending cuts: |G {A}F {A}E|, the cuts executed with the third finger. A lazy finger gives |G {FA}F {EA}E| as flips.

I assume you use grace notes in your transcriptions to indicate cuts, pats and rolls.

Grace notes for cuts, yes, and for double graces as described. But there are no rolls or pats/taps in Paddy Moloney's playing of this piece (really!), so none are notated. Graces from below are played as slides here, and are noted with J in the ABC, and an upward curving line in the PDF.

[TonyHiggins]

When you're listening to a recording of someone like P Moloney playing an air, listen also to the phrasing- parts of the melody stick together like phrases in a sentence. Also, listen to how phrases repeat or play off each other. Look for symmetry or asymmetry between parts of the tune. If you focus on this aspect, some of the ornamentation might make more sense-how it supports the phrasing. Then, the specific ornament becomes less important than where a phrase is ornamented.
Tony

[walrii]

One way to think of flips is in relation to ascending or descending cuts. For example, take |G {c}A {c}B|, the cuts executed with the first finger. If the first finger is a bit lazy lifting off for the cuts, the effect will be |G {Ac}A {Bc}B|. Voilà, those are flips.

Am I right in assuming the time spent on each note in the flip is approximately the same as a cut? In other words the A and c in G {Ac}A would each be about as long as the cut in G {c}A. If the above is true then I've probably played some flips but just called then "cuts I didn't get quite right."

I assume you use grace notes in your transcriptions to indicate cuts, pats and rolls.

Grace notes for cuts, yes, and for double graces as described. But there are no rolls or pats/taps in Paddy Moloney's playing of this piece (really!), so none are notated.

Sorry, I meant in general when you transcribe tunes, do the grace notes in the ABC notation equal cuts, pats and rolls. I have some of your transciptions and have taken {GAGF#}G to be a roll on G for instance.

[MTGuru]

Am I right in assuming the time spent on each note in the flip is approximately the same as a cut?

Yes, that's about right, walrii, especially in dance music. Just a quick blip. Like a cut, it's a finger articulation and you don't really want to hear the individual notes. In airs, the flip can vary in speed, and can slide around ahead of or behind the beat. And of course, double or triple flips take more time. Listening is the key.

Sorry, I meant in general when you transcribe tunes, do the grace notes in the ABC notation equal cuts, pats and rolls. I have some of your transciptions and have taken {GAGF#}G to be a roll on G for instance.

Yes, that's right. But I usually try to reserve graces for initial cuts and taps, and for other non-obvious figures that need to be spelled out. Otherwise, I think it's better to use dedicated notation when possible. It's what linguists refer to as capturing significant generalizations, which better reflect the underlying "deep structure" of a tune.

In ABC, I have usable symbols for rolls (normal, short, condensed, delayed), slides, flips, mid-cuts, mid-taps, crans, and trills. All pale reflections of the subtly different ways of executing any of these, of course.

[MTGuru]

Someone in the Flute Forum has started a thread on bounces and flips that might be worth looking at. Some parallel discussion to my descriptions above.

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=59665

[walrii]

The initial description in the flute forum sounded like an ornament taught at a workshop in Dallas last fall. Dan Lowery called it a flutter and described it as a double tap when going one step down. Except he played it so fast that it sounded like a tap with texture rather than a multiple blip figure. The fingering was the same as described in the flute forum:

XXX OOO
XXX XOO
XXX OOO
XXX XOO

Dan made the same comment as in the flute forum, that the fingers must be completely relaxed so the the lower index finger gently bounces or flutters off the tube. I didn't remember that discussion until I read the flute thread.

[squidgirl]

Could someone please point me toward an ABC reference or tutorial page that would tell me all how to code the standard ABC ornaments and other musical symbols? I want to start doing transcriptions, and feel compelled to try parsing MTGuru's example above...

edited to answer my own question:
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/d ... Notes.html

edited again to complain:
Hey, MTGuru uses letters that aren't in the tutorial for more weird stuff I don't understand -- like what's the J-thing, the curvy thing hanging off the front of the note? And where do I go to learn how to do stuff like that?

[MTGuru]

Hey squidgirl ... picky, picky.

The ABC 2.0 Draft Standard is here, and it explains in detail all the diddly symbols used by the Concertina.net converter and abcm2ps:
http://abc.sourceforge.net/standard/abc2-draft.html

For more tutorials and examples, check Chris Walshaw's Learning ABC page:
http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/learn.html

The J symbol is an just an upward slide.