I posted a references about this CD under another thread, but I think this warrants its own subject line.
I have no love for the idea of mulitmedia tutors and I wouldn't have seen this had it not been for a friend loaning it to me this weekend, however, I may have to change my thinking.
Pop the CD into the player and auto start kicks in. I am told by MAC fans that it works on their systems too. A nice screen pops up with selections that get you a lesson on how to read music on up through the advanced with ornaments tunes. There is also an abbreviated interview with the teacher, in this case Sean Potts, along with some additional sage advice on dealing with the instrument.
I've been dealing with pipes fo about 7 years now, so I expected the beginners stuff to be well below my skill level, but I did find his tune selection to be interesting, with three tunes I didn't have. The advanced tunes are probably a bit above my skill level. When selecting any lesson, first a descriptive piece about the tune comes on the screen, and sheet music, with detailed ornamentation when it applies, and at the bottom of the sheet music is a series of camera icons. The first one plays the first part of the tune, the second plays the next and so on until all the parts are done, the final icon plays the whole tune.
When you click on the icon, your multimedia player opens, and you see and hear the teacher playing the tune, being able to see the fingers in motion as the tune is played. The one short coming is that i didn't find a way to say 'repeat this x times', and there could have been a delay between pushing the play button for repeats so you can be ready to start when the video does. I did discover, going out of the program to the Windows Media Player that I could set the player itself for repeat, and it would repeat until I turned it off. There is no connection between the sheet music and the video such as a bouncing ball to help you figure out what part of the tune you are hearing, which would be a help to those trying to learn to read music.
At this point I will make my main objection to this tutor. On at least one tune, full version, he starts it slow and speed ups throughout the tune, so when you do repeat mode you are constantly readjusting your tempo. This is bad enough in a sesision, but on a tutor!!!!?????
With just one look at the entire CD I learned several finer points of piping and I see good reason to spend the money on my own copy to get some pretty cool tunes and detailed technique. I think for anyone with about 5 years or less on the uilleann pipes this CD is a must have, and is probably useful to have for an intermediate piper as well. In fact they claim any piper will learn somthing from the CD. I would hope they come out with another one dealing with drones and regulators.
Madfortrad, www.madfortrad.com has a number of CD Tutors available for several instruments, fiddle, flute, piano, button accordion and concertina come to mind immediately, though some are still in the works. They are taught by notables in their field, the piping one by Sean Potts and the concertina by Nail Valleley for example. My impressioin is everyone needs the tutor for their respective instruments unless you know you know everything about what you are playing.
Right now madfortrad is having a $10 off sale...so don't waste any time, get right over to their site and have a look around.
The usual disclaimer applies, I am just a comsumer like yourselves and have no stake of any sort in the company.
Madfortrad Pipes Tutor
Madfortrad Pipes Tutor
I posted a references about this CD under another thread, but I think this warrants its own subject line.
I have no love for the idea of mulitmedia tutors and I wouldn't have seen this had it not been for a friend loaning it to me this weekend, however, I may have to change my thinking.
Pop the CD into the player and auto start kicks in. I am told by MAC fans that it works on their systems too. A nice screen pops up with selections that get you a lesson on how to read music on up through the advanced with ornaments tunes. There is also an abbreviated interview with the teacher, in this case Sean Potts, along with some additional sage advice on dealing with the instrument.
I've been dealing with pipes fo about 7 years now, so I expected the beginners stuff to be well below my skill level, but I did find his tune selection to be interesting, with three tunes I didn't have. The advanced tunes are probably a bit above my skill level. When selecting any lesson, first a descriptive piece about the tune comes on the screen, and sheet music, with detailed ornamentation when it applies, and at the bottom of the sheet music is a series of camera icons. The first one plays the first part of the tune, the second plays the next and so on until all the parts are done, the final icon plays the whole tune.
When you click on the icon, your multimedia player opens, and you see and hear the teacher playing the tune, being able to see the fingers in motion as the tune is played. The one short coming is that i didn't find a way to say 'repeat this x times', and there could have been a delay between pushing the play button for repeats so you can be ready to start when the video does. I did discover, going out of the program to the Windows Media Player that I could set the player itself for repeat, and it would repeat until I turned it off. There is no connection between the sheet music and the video such as a bouncing ball to help you figure out what part of the tune you are hearing, which would be a help to those trying to learn to read music.
At this point I will make my main objection to this tutor. On at least one tune, full version, he starts it slow and speed ups throughout the tune, so when you do repeat mode you are constantly readjusting your tempo. This is bad enough in a sesision, but on a tutor!!!!?????
With just one look at the entire CD I learned several finer points of piping and I see good reason to spend the money on my own copy to get some pretty cool tunes and detailed technique. I think for anyone with about 5 years or less on the uilleann pipes this CD is a must have, and is probably useful to have for an intermediate piper as well. In fact they claim any piper will learn somthing from the CD. I would hope they come out with another one dealing with drones and regulators.
Madfortrad, www.madfortrad.com has a number of CD Tutors available for several instruments, fiddle, flute, piano, button accordion and concertina come to mind immediately, though some are still in the works. They are taught by notables in their field, the piping one by Sean Potts and the concertina by Nail Valleley for example. My impressioin is everyone needs the tutor for their respective instruments unless you know you know everything about what you are playing.
Right now madfortrad is having a $10 off sale...so don't waste any time, get right over to their site and have a look around.
The usual disclaimer applies, I am just a comsumer like yourselves and have no stake of any sort in the company.
Mike Euritt
concertina/uilleann pipes
# Posted on January 20th 2002 by unionpiper