When playing tunes that have F naturals, or even B flats, do you use those notes as the "note below" in a roll (a G roll or a C roll, respectively), or do you use F sharp and B natural?
Well I use (or used to use) the open string. Otherwise I'd say it would depend on how fast you execute the roll. Your ear should guide you. Lots of box players seem to have no problem playing an out of key note as the clearly audible last component of a roll, but it makes me squirm.
It depends on the note you are rolling I suppose. If your tune is in G but has Fnats and you are rolling the G, I'd use the Fnat. Like wise in C with a Bflat. And more commonly if you are in D but the tune has Cnats.
But if you look to the flute on this, when you roll your B, I just can't imagine not using the Csharp even if the tune has Cnats. Maybe you subconsciously lift your top finger less and only half cover the hole? I dunno though, I just can't see it making that much difference.
There's a good tune by Jean Francois Vrod that makes deliberate use of contrasting rolls on B,C,D and Bb,C,D so possibilities are there for exploration.
on a box the last component of a roll should still be the home note eg d__-f#-d-c#-d , so that shouldn't cause you to squirm, even if the tune was meant to be in Emin - and really if the the rolls are nice, crisp and rhythmical, you should kinda struggle to tell that a C#is being played instead of a Cnat anyway.
My example above is in on a C#/D box
to me the roll is a like a beautiful trick played on the ear - maybe playing out of key (or incorrect mode) notes is naughty, and maybe my ear is not ash sharp as others'. Still sounds good to me if it has the drive.
Sorry Brown C - I didn't mean the last component but the last "grace" - i.e. the note below. I only mentioned the box to illustrate the potential problem on the fiddle.
Again I guess it depends on the speed of execution. Rolls might be a "beautiful trick" sometimes but listening to many box players my ear is definitely not fooled.
To give another example on a C#/D, a conventional roll on F# uses F-nat as the "note below" and unless the player is _exceedingly_ smooth and snappy about it, the F-nat jumps out at you - result: barf!
I'm not against using out-of-key notes as graces per se - do it all the time on whistle for example. But if the pitch is clearly audible, well you must allow me the liberty to squirm.
This has to be the reason that lots of younger box players hardly use the classic five-note, two-row roll but tend to go for things along the lines of note-{higher grace}-note-note, not to mention single-note triplets.
Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
When playing tunes that have F naturals, or even B flats, do you use those notes as the "note below" in a roll (a G roll or a C roll, respectively), or do you use F sharp and B natural?
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by 54321
Re: Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
Well I use (or used to use) the open string. Otherwise I'd say it would depend on how fast you execute the roll. Your ear should guide you. Lots of box players seem to have no problem playing an out of key note as the clearly audible last component of a roll, but it makes me squirm.
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by Jeeves Tones
Re: Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
It depends on the note you are rolling I suppose. If your tune is in G but has Fnats and you are rolling the G, I'd use the Fnat. Like wise in C with a Bflat. And more commonly if you are in D but the tune has Cnats.
But if you look to the flute on this, when you roll your B, I just can't imagine not using the Csharp even if the tune has Cnats. Maybe you subconsciously lift your top finger less and only half cover the hole? I dunno though, I just can't see it making that much difference.
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
There's a good tune by Jean Francois Vrod that makes deliberate use of contrasting rolls on B,C,D and Bb,C,D so possibilities are there for exploration.
# Posted on March 18th 2008 by TomB-R
Re: Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
on a box the last component of a roll should still be the home note eg d__-f#-d-c#-d , so that shouldn't cause you to squirm, even if the tune was meant to be in Emin - and really if the the rolls are nice, crisp and rhythmical, you should kinda struggle to tell that a C#is being played instead of a Cnat anyway.
My example above is in on a C#/D box
to me the roll is a like a beautiful trick played on the ear - maybe playing out of key (or incorrect mode) notes is naughty, and maybe my ear is not ash sharp as others'. Still sounds good to me if it has the drive.
# Posted on March 19th 2008 by Brown Creeper
Re: Notes in Rolls in less-common keys
Sorry Brown C - I didn't mean the last component but the last "grace" - i.e. the note below. I only mentioned the box to illustrate the potential problem on the fiddle.
Again I guess it depends on the speed of execution. Rolls might be a "beautiful trick" sometimes but listening to many box players my ear is definitely not fooled.
To give another example on a C#/D, a conventional roll on F# uses F-nat as the "note below" and unless the player is _exceedingly_ smooth and snappy about it, the F-nat jumps out at you - result: barf!
I'm not against using out-of-key notes as graces per se - do it all the time on whistle for example. But if the pitch is clearly audible, well you must allow me the liberty to squirm.
This has to be the reason that lots of younger box players hardly use the classic five-note, two-row roll but tend to go for things along the lines of note-{higher grace}-note-note, not to mention single-note triplets.
# Posted on March 19th 2008 by Jeeves Tones