Ok PB, Ceemonster, cag et al: while we're talking shop. What about those amazing stuttering rolls that the great Vallely uses. Anyone figure them out ?
I have no idea what he's doing. He plays in a style I've never even imagined trying to emulate; he's almost more of a jazz concertina player. I've seen him play at the pub a few times and other venues in the area, but I wasn't familiar enough with the ornaments I'm playing these days to have benefited from watching what he was doing and relate it to what I’m doing. At the time I wasn’t able to get tight three-note triplets on the same note like that so it all seemed way beyond me. I was always more fascinated with his musical ideas and ability to improvise. I asked him about that once though -- I said, "How do you improvise like that on a concertina?" And he replied, "Stop thinking of it as a concertina."
If you look at the demonstration video on his tutor CD-Rom, I think it is the last thing on it, you can see him doing it. It looks much like he is using two fingers alternatively on the one button.
Is he tapping on the opposite side while he's doing this? When I do the phantom button on the right side of the concertina I alternate between two buttons on the same note for the double bounce. I do that because that side isn't resting on my knee and doesn't reverbarate from the tap the same way and I need to compensate by alternating fingers.
I was just rueing the last thread on rolls petering out, and look, here's a new one.
My reason is this... Almost all discussion of ornaments revolves around which notes to use, and I would suggest this is moderately easily obtainable information. People who have been to classes often have sheets of them and are willing to share. They have small differences depending on the provenance.
The true clues needed are to do with when and how to play the notes ie. rhythm. A good example of the difficulties inherent in this is evidenced by the last thread and the debate over whether the D is bounced twice. If the discussion was rhythm based then the answer would have been more obvious.
One issue is that there is no easy basis for notating rhythm in Irish music, as everyone who uses dots has agreed to note it approximately and then play it with an understood swing. This is understandable, as representing it accurately in dots would mean dividing a jig bar into 24ths depending on how much swing you were using.
Theory: one reason an accurate representation is not in existence is Irish musicians are brought up on the music and inherently understand the rhythm of it, consequently they have no need of words or dots for it. Those of us born elsewhere coming to it later need way to comprehend it.
Unlike grace notes which have no theoretical time value, the notes of a roll do, and were they notated accurately timewise this would allow the most retentive of us to read it easily and the rest of us to painfully work it out.
i haven't pursued it the way i've chased the moves of some of the others because i'm allergic to the "Gatling Gun" fad in concertina ornamentation....though he played in my area a few years ago and i happily paid to go see him. i like the sound he is doing on that latest jazzy/traddy "buille" project of his....his staccato is there, but it's more delicate..
.
BUT....i think everyone should be free to chase their dreams, so, in hopes of helping further yours.........
....
here is a link to a cnet paste of a madfortrad writeup on a niall vallely cd-rom, and i've snipped a quote below the link for your delectation:
http://www.concertina.net/kc_madtradreview.html
[Regarding tips and tricks for the intermediate player, I'm very happy with it. Niall Vallely explains his particular "concertina roll," which is really slick.]
on the issue of tut-tutting because people actually wish to know the elements of an ormanent.....my two cents is that while it is true that the overall sound or rhythmic F/X is what you are after, you get that first through your elements, then how you execute them, so you need to work on both....but more to the point, the fact is that all those irish fleadh kiddiwinks who are doing all these F/X standing on their heads, learn the specific elements at their teachers' knee.
it is the exact same thing with fiddle rolls and box rolls---sure, the master teachers remind you it's the overall F/X you're after, but nobody tries to withhold fiddle students from learning the precise elements of a fiddle roll. quite the contrary, they are taught in unbelievable detail and at great length, as well they should be....and if you think the same is not in play for concertina apprentices in ireland, you have been misinformed....
for non-irish adults in other countries who don't have a timmy collins or whoever within easy access to lay this stuff out for them, no, it is not that simple to acquire this information in comprehensible form, gallant and generous though the attempted third-hand explanations are....
I wouldn't have even tried to explain it in this forum if those videos of Edel and Ernestine weren't available to actually see and hear it being executed. I only wish the resource that the internet provides at this stage was available when I was trying to figure it out from way out here in the outback of Irish music.
I was watching Edel Fox playing Maude Millar this morning and saw she did two of them in quick succession in a close up that clearly shows the fingering at 196 and 199 on the timer.
I use these rolls all the time. They are extremely helpful if you're playing fast and need a right-hand ornament that would be equivalent to a long roll on fiddle or flute.
Take the B part of Green Groves of Erin. Plug these first two bar's into the concertina.net tune-o-tron.
The first two a's are separated by a normal cut from the button above. The "a/2a/2a" part is just your typical single-note triplet with fingers 2-1-2. The cut from above is obviously played with the 3rd-finger but I can't notate it in ABC.
Nice notation and nice roll, almost Vallely-like in its "two fingers one button approach".
The roll I am talking about has the same rhythm but the cut note occupies the place taken by both your cut and the note it graces , meaning it can be done without the fingerwork. You can clearly see it on the video.
For that passage I would play the "e" with my left hand index finger on the G-row and then play the "a" with my middle finger on the right hand side (G-row) and hold it down while I tapped the opposite side to make the first "a" of the triplet and bring my index finger on the same button for the second "a" and return to my middle finger for the third "a" of the triplet.
I see on Niall Vallely CD Rom, he is saying that when doing this roll say for example on the B middle row right, to use the second finger, then first and then second again as Devin talks of on the high G. Is there a reason for doing it this way as opposed to first finger, second and first? With the first second first at least you are back to regular fingering?
I see no advantage to ending up on a finger that isn't the home finger for that button. When I do these triplets I always land on the finger I normally use for that button, unless I've shifted my position for strategic reasons.
I’d just like to add that talking about these ornaments in here is like describing paintings in Braille. You really have to see and hear them being executing in person to get the gist.
Thank you Phantom for your reply and I must agree with your second point. Whilst I am glad of the technical know how as to how to do it, it is at this stage just that ,and I will wait until I can get someone to teach it to me on a one to one so that I can understand it in it's natural environment. Whils one cannot do it without the mechanics being explained, it is the sound I am after.
thanks much, pb. so those {c's} are cuts in there between the first "a" and the three more "a's"? .....i do a more primitive version, a-cut-aa, rather than a-cut-aaa...but motor-skills wise, i sometimes do better putting the cut at the end, a-a-cut-a.
yes, on the braille question, i agree. pb's written explanations & those on rolls in the ornamentation section of that online simon wells concertina tutorial are great....but there were elements i just did not grasp until somebody showed me the stuff in a workshop...
Regarding demonstrating rolls, I was in a Kate MacNamara workshop and asked her to show me how she did them. She said she couldn't show me, I would have to watch!
I think she meant they have to be automatic - that is the point about any ornament, it has to be second-nature.
sure, it has to be automatic....once you have learned how it is done, that is. in fiddle-land, for example, nobody who is articulate enough to explain a fiddle roll, refuses to do so. some who find the art of explaining tough might.....i'm not faulting kate mcnamara's reply, but i doubt that she was saying you don't have the right to have this explained to you by someone.......i'd confidently give you odds that kate mcnamara has taken at least some classes with timmy collins or whoever just like half the concertina players of her age in county clare, and fair play to her, i love her playing........but there is certainly no need for anyone here to feel they have to learn it by clairvoyance.......i promise you, those young players in clare are not telepathically gleaning the slap triplet "by watching".....
actually, come to think of it, i have heard tim collins very amusingly describe how, after he taught this ornament in a class, a now-famous and super-wonderful young concertina virtuoso, then a kid, did it every other second for a while. it was a great story. see, first it was explained and taught, then it was practiced......and then it became....."automatic," not to be confused with, learned-by-ESP.
The guy that showed it to me wasn't very articulate about it, a bit mysterious actually, and as a result I learned it wrong at first. When he saw me playing it a year later he said, "that's not it," but I thought he was joking. The following year I broke my little finger on my left hand and I had to compensate for not having any dexterity when my hand came out of the cast. This is how I stumbled on the right way to do it, but I didn't realize it till I saw him next time -- I still thought I had it right the first time. When he showed up that second time I showed him what I came up with to compensate for my broken finger and he said, "Hey... you finally got it right."
Over the last few months, from reading two recent threads on this forum and some on another forum, I have pieced together the journey Phantom Button took to learn how to do or make happen a certain sound, the sound/roll he subsequently named "The Phantom Button" and which can also be known as "Slap Roll". If I am not mistaken and misinterpreting his accounts, it seemed that having heard this been done (I think he might have mentioned the peculiar difficulties to low A as in Boys of Laois among other tunes) and not being able to understand completely how the sound was achieved, and having tried to figure it himself, he started to ask teachers and others. It now seems that with the benefit of hindsight, the teachers might not have been that forthcoming with the info. Then, whilst in Ireland (Ennis if not mistaken) he happened upon it being done and was pointed in roughly the right direction by a fellow session player. After spending a year practicing this roll, he met up with the person who originally showed him and it transpired he was "not doing it right”. He mentions that when this was being said, the chap was being a bit mysterious and it was only through the unfortunate circumstances of an accident to his hand, did he discover how to do it "right". It was even suggested, possibly light heartedly, to him on another thread that maybe he "didn't ask the right questions". In regards to other ornamentation, Geoffwright mentions that Kate McNamara was of the opinion that she couldn't tell how rolls were done, you had to watch.
I must say that as a person living in Ireland, this description or an approximation of the learning process strikes me as the norm rather than the exception; and as a discussion on sessions in Ireland on another forum showed, there are sometimes misconceptions about what actually happens in Ireland.
For example one would imagine that there should be no difficulty in accessing concertina teachers seeing we live in Ireland, the “the heart of traditional music” Maybe in Clare! But In Dublin to the best of my knowledge, there are currently about three to four teachers teaching at Comhaltas branches. There are maybe another two teaching on the borders of Dublin. One branch recently couldn't find a teacher and another teacher spent a week ringing around trying to find a replacement when they needed to get away for a few days. So access to tuition not to mention information on rolls is not so straightforward !.
Whilst those who teach are to be admired and given credit, it is also the case that for different reasons those who do so might not always be able or indeed willing to impart "some" information as to how certain things are done, just as fellow sessioners can be vague or mysterious when asked how they achieve a certain sound. Because these teachers have sometimes learnt by oral and aural tradition and sometimes by their own devices, they often actually genuinely don't know how they do things and it is only after a number of years teaching and being asked, that they actually figure out how, for example they play certain passages and indeed as the tunes are played differently every time, this also poses a challenge. It wouldn't be unusual for example to ask a teacher how they were getting a certain sound and to hear "gawd I don't know, I never thought about it". There is also the lesser-found example of the thinking, which says, " I had to learn how to do it myself, so you do likewise". This might be found more in sessions than in the teaching/class environment as those who agree to teach, having ventured out week in and out in all sorts of miserable weather for very little recompense, are only too delighted to help. As best they can! And difficult as it might be for those who learn later in life to understand, and in a world of precision engineering and computer access to all knowledge, in some cases the players now helping out by teaching, have been playing for many many years and have been “just doing things” without any thought to how.
There is also a thinking in Ireland which puts ornamentation very far down the line in priorities and whilst we can hope that by going to Willie Clancy week we will sudden know all the inner secrets, many a pilgrim has learnt on landing in Miltown Malbay that these secrets are not that easily uncovered. There has been many a conversation among teachers afterwards relating how a particular pupil arrived in with only one thing on their mind and that was how to play like Tommy Peoples, Noel Hill or whoever only to be put firmly in the picture.
So, I have no difficulty in imagining the journey Phantom Button took and whilst he might have been a bit luckier in his search if living in Ireland it is by no means certain that he would have acquired his knowledge over night and indeed it was only through sheer determination and considerable expense in coming to Ireland on a regular basis to perfect his art that he eventually stumbled on to how it was done. A comparison was made to fiddle rolls, and I must say that there is a world of a difference between explaining and indeed demonstrating fiddle and concertina rolls. Bearing in mind to begin with that the word roll is being used as a communicative device regarding concertinas whilst the execution of fiddle rolls is very much agreed. One only has to witness the odd discussion here on how ornamentation is achieved on the concertina to see that there is very little common agreement and that when you read suggestions in how to execute rolls on a concertina which includes descriptions such as “buttons shouldn’t sound but should be more a percussive device” and there follows a lengthy discourse on this, I feel that it is a tad simplistic to argue that it is only a matter of being shown the mechanics; and no matter what workshop you are in, only a very small percentage of the time will be given over to ornamentation and if you don’t get it, you will be left to your own devices. Whilst pupils in Ireland, regardless of age are t certainly not learning by clairvoyance, the learning process is most definitely not as straightforward as some outside of Ireland seem to think( is this a case of faraway hills), if for no other reason than the tune and the ornamentation cannot sometimes be separated and what is more, you will be told that and reminded that learning is not always like buying an item off the shelf.
Finally, as a recent discussion on sessions in Ireland showed, there are subtle but very real dynamics to both the learning and playing of this music and there is a protocol for want of a better word to how it happens. One has to accept that the learning is sometimes an apprenticeship dictated by the nature of the music and unless one is lucky enough to have a player living close by who can and is willing to give you a lot of time then you are going to have to learn almost by osmosis with the weekly lesson or annual trip to Miltown, Kilrush or Catskills there for encouragement. There is no guarantee that having been told or shown how to execute a roll, that it will be set in stone and by the time a few years playing has passed, you most likely will have your own way of doing it, which in turn leads me back to the teaching and the challenges therein for both teacher and pupil!
[whilst we can hope that by going to Willie Clancy week we will sudden know all the inner secrets, many a pilgrim has learnt on landing in Miltown Malbay that these secrets are not that easily uncovered.]
Ah, so that is why Irish-born concertina players are being taught, and mastering, these ornaments at age eleven! great to have that cleared up!
[there is a world of a difference between explaining and indeed demonstrating fiddle and concertina rolls.]
actually, i beg to differ. elements or execution of fiddle or uillean pipe rolls can also vary greatly with the region or the individual player no less than concertina embellishments. but with the exception of those individual souls who withhold information for reasons ranging from noble to egotistical, the "standard" rolls are freely and generously taught. i did a couple of years on fiddle before giving up due to tendonitis, and rolls and ornaments were explained and demonstrated to me very freely, including discussions of different options one might have, and including caveats that individuals produce their own versions, and that one needs some basic fluency and appreciation of the tradition in order to be able to do ornaments. i'm not advocating anything different. i'm also aware that having an ormanent diagrammed or dissected won't make a player out of you. and i'm equally-not-unaware of the phenomonon of learners who put the "icing" (ornamentation) before the "cake" (flow, swing, experession).
but none of that changes the fact that few of these ornaments are learnable by "osmosis." i know, i know, there are veterans who will claim that, for reasons ranging from ego to sincere cultural bias, but it's not not so. this is why there are acres of explanations to be had of uilleann pipe crans. obviously, no one of these is the only or best way to do it. but you arrive at your own by having studying and learning models.
the one melody-line concertina ornament i have been able to grok without having it explained, demonstrated, or written, was the same-note triplet a la chris droney or the clean style of john williams on his first, self-titled cd (he can be heard ornamenting much more busily elsewhere). i actually happen to love this ornament for concertina as well as box, and i used it and didn't bother with anything else until i could get my concertina tunes to flow, not fast, but flowing and a bit swingy. then it was time to consider what else, if anything, i might like to experiment with adding in. (i actually think you can be a great concertina player without adding anything more.)
i don't like noisy concertina ornaments, but i found i liked the smoother slap ornaments and the lighter rolls. and the simple fact is, no way could i or the vast majority of folks have grasped these ornaments by "osmosis." granted, i am a dope about being able to learn by watching spatial motion, but my contention stands. i only began to get a handle on this stuff by a) reading written diagrams or descriptions; b) having both explained and demonstrated by workshop teachers; and c) watching videos like, thousands of times. and c) would absolutely not have done it without a) and b).
where i have gotten huge amounts of learning by "osmosis," is in the areas of swing, lift & expression. my visits to clancy week paid off bigtime not so much from class (i was in box classes where it was nothing but ear training), but from seeking out places where i could be a fly on the wall and watch players i admire, in all instruments. that was the school and it was great! i spent hours and hours and hours watching people like eileen o'brien and her nenagh and loughrea gang, and hours and hours watching the west clare mafiosos like joe ryan, john kelly, etc, and hours listening to kitty hayes, peter laban, jackie daly, conor keane, and their session gang in coore. i did the same thing in ennis and east clare. in this sense, i am with you all the way about "osmosis," but when it comes to ornaments, we, just like the young irish learners, need a leg up!
CP writes: "One has to accept that the learning is sometimes an apprenticeship dictated by the nature of the music and unless one is lucky enough to have a player living close by who can and is willing to give you a lot of time then you are going to have to learn almost by osmosis with the weekly lesson or annual trip to Miltown, Kilrush or Catskills there for encouragement."
~~~
This is the thing -- if you're way out in the outback of ITM, as I am, the opportunity for an apprenticeship in Irish concertina is extremely slim. The fella who originally revealed the phantom button to me did so almost by accident. Even though he taught it to me he wasn't a "teacher" but is indeed a friend. Perhaps if I paid him to be my teacher it would have been different, but I was just lucky that my observation one evening prompted the correct question regardless of how the answer was still a bit vague. His explanation might have been ambiguous but he certainly understood it enough to recognize when I got it right.
I asked him how he learned and he said his teacher showed him and it took him forever to get it. He had the benefit of regular lessons, (or an "apprenticeship.") Edel Fox said it was something Tim Collins showed her, and I'm assuming he was her regular teacher, but I may be wrong. I’m guessing most of the players in Ireland learned it from regular teachers – something I never had. But when I reflect back on my encounters there are people who use this technique that I've asked at point blank how they're getting it and I've received murky answers every time. Maybe it's yet another aspect about being Irish that I don't understand.
So far the things that indicate I'm not Irish are, (besides not having been raised in Ireland or as part of an Irish family)
1. I know the names of just about every tune I play
2. I freely divulge the mechanics of the phantom button to anyone that asks.
There are more of course, but these two are relevant to the music.
Thanks Ceemonster and Phantom. I must apologize for my lack of clarity and would say that both the last paragraph of C's and the last few lines of PB's say what I was trying to say more precisely and accurately.
When I said "apprenticeship" I was meant it more as apprenticeship to the music as opposed to the act of going to a teacher. Also as C said, sometimes you can enroll in classes either on a weekly basis and/or of the summer school variety, to find that you will not get what you specifically need at that time, whether that be tunes or technique.And indeed you might manage to get classes with someone who's technique you admire to find that class is all about tunes and not technique or visa versa.Of course there then might or might not be options, depending.There is a friend of mine who travels from outside Ireland to summer schools regularly at great expense and on one occasion found the teacher ( not Martin Hayes)to be more interested in telling stories of where the tune came from, which in turn led to more funny stories, which in turn led to very few tunes being learnt. Great if you are interested in that aspect of it- she just needed tunes !This was at a certain stage of her musical journey and she wasn't aware she could change class and so left for home with just a couple of tunes.
On the other hand, with tunes being so readily available now at places such as this site, the act of going to a class can be more about how to play the tune as opposed to learning the tune. And this then in turn leads to a search for a teacher who's style you admire. And of course even in Ireland this person might not teach or be acessible.On the other hand even in Clare( where in the tradition of far away hills being green, it appears they have an abundance of help available), the likes of Edel and others have had a number of different teachers in their search for development.
And yes, the not knowing the names of the tunes and inabillity or unwillingness to pass on certain information can be an Irish thing. On the subject of not knowing the names, as an Irish person, I fluctuate between sort of understanding it and sort of being frustrated by it but on the subject of withholding information on "how to", I have no time whatsoever for it..I know the name of most tunes I hear/play because the music being a passion I make it my business to seek out the names and indeed a friend who is likewise passionate can give you alternate titles and history, versions etc of tunes.But there is this "sort of cool" aspect to not knowing the tune names,it can be fashionable and/or maybe it is back to the old "find out for yourself.
Having said that, I have no interest in whether a tune is in D twice removed or whatever which I am sure is of importance to others but to me of no interest. I just play the tune and am more concerned with other aspects and once the sharps and flats are right, I have more to be worried about such as lift and swing etc. So I am sure that maybe there are people who would find my lack of knowledge on that front to be annoying.
I suppose I set out originally to say that whilst , it might be more easy/efficient /rewarding to learn in Ireland than say other places, it can be relative. Depending on what you need at that particular time, the learning curve can be sometimes as challenging in Ireland in a different way as it can outside of the country and indeed more so in that you would think that it should be straight forward(ish). It seems that we are expected to have it in our blood.
I first heard of this "Phantom Button roll" here and when I asked about it here in Ireland, the answer I got was also murky !!!
Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Ok PB, Ceemonster, cag et al: while we're talking shop. What about those amazing stuttering rolls that the great Vallely uses. Anyone figure them out ?
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by Fliúiteadóir
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I have no idea what he's doing. He plays in a style I've never even imagined trying to emulate; he's almost more of a jazz concertina player. I've seen him play at the pub a few times and other venues in the area, but I wasn't familiar enough with the ornaments I'm playing these days to have benefited from watching what he was doing and relate it to what I’m doing. At the time I wasn’t able to get tight three-note triplets on the same note like that so it all seemed way beyond me. I was always more fascinated with his musical ideas and ability to improvise. I asked him about that once though -- I said, "How do you improvise like that on a concertina?" And he replied, "Stop thinking of it as a concertina."
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
If you look at the demonstration video on his tutor CD-Rom, I think it is the last thing on it, you can see him doing it. It looks much like he is using two fingers alternatively on the one button.
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by cag
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Is he tapping on the opposite side while he's doing this? When I do the phantom button on the right side of the concertina I alternate between two buttons on the same note for the double bounce. I do that because that side isn't resting on my knee and doesn't reverbarate from the tap the same way and I need to compensate by alternating fingers.
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I was just rueing the last thread on rolls petering out, and look, here's a new one.
My reason is this... Almost all discussion of ornaments revolves around which notes to use, and I would suggest this is moderately easily obtainable information. People who have been to classes often have sheets of them and are willing to share. They have small differences depending on the provenance.
The true clues needed are to do with when and how to play the notes ie. rhythm. A good example of the difficulties inherent in this is evidenced by the last thread and the debate over whether the D is bounced twice. If the discussion was rhythm based then the answer would have been more obvious.
One issue is that there is no easy basis for notating rhythm in Irish music, as everyone who uses dots has agreed to note it approximately and then play it with an understood swing. This is understandable, as representing it accurately in dots would mean dividing a jig bar into 24ths depending on how much swing you were using.
Theory: one reason an accurate representation is not in existence is Irish musicians are brought up on the music and inherently understand the rhythm of it, consequently they have no need of words or dots for it. Those of us born elsewhere coming to it later need way to comprehend it.
Unlike grace notes which have no theoretical time value, the notes of a roll do, and were they notated accurately timewise this would allow the most retentive of us to read it easily and the rest of us to painfully work it out.
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by cag
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
i haven't pursued it the way i've chased the moves of some of the others because i'm allergic to the "Gatling Gun" fad in concertina ornamentation....though he played in my area a few years ago and i happily paid to go see him. i like the sound he is doing on that latest jazzy/traddy "buille" project of his....his staccato is there, but it's more delicate..
.....
.
BUT....i think everyone should be free to chase their dreams, so, in hopes of helping further yours....
....
here is a link to a cnet paste of a madfortrad writeup on a niall vallely cd-rom, and i've snipped a quote below the link for your delectation:
http://www.concertina.net/kc_madtradreview.html
[Regarding tips and tricks for the intermediate player, I'm very happy with it. Niall Vallely explains his particular "concertina roll," which is really slick.]
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
on the issue of tut-tutting because people actually wish to know the elements of an ormanent.....my two cents is that while it is true that the overall sound or rhythmic F/X is what you are after, you get that first through your elements, then how you execute them, so you need to work on both....but more to the point, the fact is that all those irish fleadh kiddiwinks who are doing all these F/X standing on their heads, learn the specific elements at their teachers' knee.
it is the exact same thing with fiddle rolls and box rolls---sure, the master teachers remind you it's the overall F/X you're after, but nobody tries to withhold fiddle students from learning the precise elements of a fiddle roll. quite the contrary, they are taught in unbelievable detail and at great length, as well they should be....and if you think the same is not in play for concertina apprentices in ireland, you have been misinformed....
for non-irish adults in other countries who don't have a timmy collins or whoever within easy access to lay this stuff out for them, no, it is not that simple to acquire this information in comprehensible form, gallant and generous though the attempted third-hand explanations are....
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I wouldn't have even tried to explain it in this forum if those videos of Edel and Ernestine weren't available to actually see and hear it being executed. I only wish the resource that the internet provides at this stage was available when I was trying to figure it out from way out here in the outback of Irish music.
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
In the last discussion I posted a way to do right hand rolls including a link to a pic of a transcription of one.
http://users.tpg.com.au/cghent//righthandroll.jpg
I was watching Edel Fox playing Maude Millar this morning and saw she did two of them in quick succession in a close up that clearly shows the fingering at 196 and 199 on the timer.
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by cag
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I use these rolls all the time. They are extremely helpful if you're playing fast and need a right-hand ornament that would be equivalent to a long roll on fiddle or flute.
Take the B part of Green Groves of Erin. Plug these first two bar's into the concertina.net tune-o-tron.
X:1
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Amix
e"2"a{c'}"2"a/2"1"a/2"2"a e"2"a{c'}"2"a/2"1"a/2"2"a | e"2"g{b}"2"g/2"1"g/2"2"g e"2"g{b}"2"g/2"1"g/2"2"g
The first two a's are separated by a normal cut from the button above. The "a/2a/2a" part is just your typical single-note triplet with fingers 2-1-2. The cut from above is obviously played with the 3rd-finger but I can't notate it in ABC.
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by mcdevincabe
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Nice notation and nice roll, almost Vallely-like in its "two fingers one button approach".
The roll I am talking about has the same rhythm but the cut note occupies the place taken by both your cut and the note it graces , meaning it can be done without the fingerwork. You can clearly see it on the video.
Now to learn how to do yours...
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by cag
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
For that passage I would play the "e" with my left hand index finger on the G-row and then play the "a" with my middle finger on the right hand side (G-row) and hold it down while I tapped the opposite side to make the first "a" of the triplet and bring my index finger on the same button for the second "a" and return to my middle finger for the third "a" of the triplet.
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
too bad i find this algebraic notation completely opaque, sigh....
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
cee, the passage is "e a aaa e a aaa" the "aaa" being the triplet and it's all on the G-row.
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by mcdevincabe
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I see on Niall Vallely CD Rom, he is saying that when doing this roll say for example on the B middle row right, to use the second finger, then first and then second again as Devin talks of on the high G. Is there a reason for doing it this way as opposed to first finger, second and first? With the first second first at least you are back to regular fingering?
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I see no advantage to ending up on a finger that isn't the home finger for that button. When I do these triplets I always land on the finger I normally use for that button, unless I've shifted my position for strategic reasons.
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
I’d just like to add that talking about these ornaments in here is like describing paintings in Braille. You really have to see and hear them being executing in person to get the gist.
# Posted on January 21st 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Thank you Phantom for your reply and I must agree with your second point. Whilst I am glad of the technical know how as to how to do it, it is at this stage just that ,and I will wait until I can get someone to teach it to me on a one to one so that I can understand it in it's natural environment. Whils one cannot do it without the mechanics being explained, it is the sound I am after.
# Posted on January 22nd 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
thanks much, pb. so those {c's} are cuts in there between the first "a" and the three more "a's"? .....i do a more primitive version, a-cut-aa, rather than a-cut-aaa...but motor-skills wise, i sometimes do better putting the cut at the end, a-a-cut-a.
yes, on the braille question, i agree. pb's written explanations & those on rolls in the ornamentation section of that online simon wells concertina tutorial are great....but there were elements i just did not grasp until somebody showed me the stuff in a workshop...
# Posted on January 22nd 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Regarding demonstrating rolls, I was in a Kate MacNamara workshop and asked her to show me how she did them. She said she couldn't show me, I would have to watch!
I think she meant they have to be automatic - that is the point about any ornament, it has to be second-nature.
# Posted on January 22nd 2008 by geoffwright
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
sure, it has to be automatic....once you have learned how it is done, that is. in fiddle-land, for example, nobody who is articulate enough to explain a fiddle roll, refuses to do so. some who find the art of explaining tough might.....i'm not faulting kate mcnamara's reply, but i doubt that she was saying you don't have the right to have this explained to you by someone.......i'd confidently give you odds that kate mcnamara has taken at least some classes with timmy collins or whoever just like half the concertina players of her age in county clare, and fair play to her, i love her playing........but there is certainly no need for anyone here to feel they have to learn it by clairvoyance.......i promise you, those young players in clare are not telepathically gleaning the slap triplet "by watching".....
# Posted on January 23rd 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
actually, come to think of it, i have heard tim collins very amusingly describe how, after he taught this ornament in a class, a now-famous and super-wonderful young concertina virtuoso, then a kid, did it every other second for a while. it was a great story. see, first it was explained and taught, then it was practiced......and then it became....."automatic," not to be confused with, learned-by-ESP.
# Posted on January 23rd 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
The guy that showed it to me wasn't very articulate about it, a bit mysterious actually, and as a result I learned it wrong at first. When he saw me playing it a year later he said, "that's not it," but I thought he was joking. The following year I broke my little finger on my left hand and I had to compensate for not having any dexterity when my hand came out of the cast. This is how I stumbled on the right way to do it, but I didn't realize it till I saw him next time -- I still thought I had it right the first time. When he showed up that second time I showed him what I came up with to compensate for my broken finger and he said, "Hey... you finally got it right."
# Posted on January 23rd 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Over the last few months, from reading two recent threads on this forum and some on another forum, I have pieced together the journey Phantom Button took to learn how to do or make happen a certain sound, the sound/roll he subsequently named "The Phantom Button" and which can also be known as "Slap Roll". If I am not mistaken and misinterpreting his accounts, it seemed that having heard this been done (I think he might have mentioned the peculiar difficulties to low A as in Boys of Laois among other tunes) and not being able to understand completely how the sound was achieved, and having tried to figure it himself, he started to ask teachers and others. It now seems that with the benefit of hindsight, the teachers might not have been that forthcoming with the info. Then, whilst in Ireland (Ennis if not mistaken) he happened upon it being done and was pointed in roughly the right direction by a fellow session player. After spending a year practicing this roll, he met up with the person who originally showed him and it transpired he was "not doing it right”. He mentions that when this was being said, the chap was being a bit mysterious and it was only through the unfortunate circumstances of an accident to his hand, did he discover how to do it "right". It was even suggested, possibly light heartedly, to him on another thread that maybe he "didn't ask the right questions". In regards to other ornamentation, Geoffwright mentions that Kate McNamara was of the opinion that she couldn't tell how rolls were done, you had to watch.
I must say that as a person living in Ireland, this description or an approximation of the learning process strikes me as the norm rather than the exception; and as a discussion on sessions in Ireland on another forum showed, there are sometimes misconceptions about what actually happens in Ireland.
For example one would imagine that there should be no difficulty in accessing concertina teachers seeing we live in Ireland, the “the heart of traditional music” Maybe in Clare! But In Dublin to the best of my knowledge, there are currently about three to four teachers teaching at Comhaltas branches. There are maybe another two teaching on the borders of Dublin. One branch recently couldn't find a teacher and another teacher spent a week ringing around trying to find a replacement when they needed to get away for a few days. So access to tuition not to mention information on rolls is not so straightforward !.
Whilst those who teach are to be admired and given credit, it is also the case that for different reasons those who do so might not always be able or indeed willing to impart "some" information as to how certain things are done, just as fellow sessioners can be vague or mysterious when asked how they achieve a certain sound. Because these teachers have sometimes learnt by oral and aural tradition and sometimes by their own devices, they often actually genuinely don't know how they do things and it is only after a number of years teaching and being asked, that they actually figure out how, for example they play certain passages and indeed as the tunes are played differently every time, this also poses a challenge. It wouldn't be unusual for example to ask a teacher how they were getting a certain sound and to hear "gawd I don't know, I never thought about it". There is also the lesser-found example of the thinking, which says, " I had to learn how to do it myself, so you do likewise". This might be found more in sessions than in the teaching/class environment as those who agree to teach, having ventured out week in and out in all sorts of miserable weather for very little recompense, are only too delighted to help. As best they can! And difficult as it might be for those who learn later in life to understand, and in a world of precision engineering and computer access to all knowledge, in some cases the players now helping out by teaching, have been playing for many many years and have been “just doing things” without any thought to how.
There is also a thinking in Ireland which puts ornamentation very far down the line in priorities and whilst we can hope that by going to Willie Clancy week we will sudden know all the inner secrets, many a pilgrim has learnt on landing in Miltown Malbay that these secrets are not that easily uncovered. There has been many a conversation among teachers afterwards relating how a particular pupil arrived in with only one thing on their mind and that was how to play like Tommy Peoples, Noel Hill or whoever only to be put firmly in the picture.
So, I have no difficulty in imagining the journey Phantom Button took and whilst he might have been a bit luckier in his search if living in Ireland it is by no means certain that he would have acquired his knowledge over night and indeed it was only through sheer determination and considerable expense in coming to Ireland on a regular basis to perfect his art that he eventually stumbled on to how it was done. A comparison was made to fiddle rolls, and I must say that there is a world of a difference between explaining and indeed demonstrating fiddle and concertina rolls. Bearing in mind to begin with that the word roll is being used as a communicative device regarding concertinas whilst the execution of fiddle rolls is very much agreed. One only has to witness the odd discussion here on how ornamentation is achieved on the concertina to see that there is very little common agreement and that when you read suggestions in how to execute rolls on a concertina which includes descriptions such as “buttons shouldn’t sound but should be more a percussive device” and there follows a lengthy discourse on this, I feel that it is a tad simplistic to argue that it is only a matter of being shown the mechanics; and no matter what workshop you are in, only a very small percentage of the time will be given over to ornamentation and if you don’t get it, you will be left to your own devices. Whilst pupils in Ireland, regardless of age are t certainly not learning by clairvoyance, the learning process is most definitely not as straightforward as some outside of Ireland seem to think( is this a case of faraway hills), if for no other reason than the tune and the ornamentation cannot sometimes be separated and what is more, you will be told that and reminded that learning is not always like buying an item off the shelf.
Finally, as a recent discussion on sessions in Ireland showed, there are subtle but very real dynamics to both the learning and playing of this music and there is a protocol for want of a better word to how it happens. One has to accept that the learning is sometimes an apprenticeship dictated by the nature of the music and unless one is lucky enough to have a player living close by who can and is willing to give you a lot of time then you are going to have to learn almost by osmosis with the weekly lesson or annual trip to Miltown, Kilrush or Catskills there for encouragement. There is no guarantee that having been told or shown how to execute a roll, that it will be set in stone and by the time a few years playing has passed, you most likely will have your own way of doing it, which in turn leads me back to the teaching and the challenges therein for both teacher and pupil!
# Posted on January 23rd 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
[whilst we can hope that by going to Willie Clancy week we will sudden know all the inner secrets, many a pilgrim has learnt on landing in Miltown Malbay that these secrets are not that easily uncovered.]
Ah, so that is why Irish-born concertina players are being taught, and mastering, these ornaments at age eleven! great to have that cleared up!
[there is a world of a difference between explaining and indeed demonstrating fiddle and concertina rolls.]
actually, i beg to differ. elements or execution of fiddle or uillean pipe rolls can also vary greatly with the region or the individual player no less than concertina embellishments. but with the exception of those individual souls who withhold information for reasons ranging from noble to egotistical, the "standard" rolls are freely and generously taught. i did a couple of years on fiddle before giving up due to tendonitis, and rolls and ornaments were explained and demonstrated to me very freely, including discussions of different options one might have, and including caveats that individuals produce their own versions, and that one needs some basic fluency and appreciation of the tradition in order to be able to do ornaments. i'm not advocating anything different. i'm also aware that having an ormanent diagrammed or dissected won't make a player out of you. and i'm equally-not-unaware of the phenomonon of learners who put the "icing" (ornamentation) before the "cake" (flow, swing, experession).
but none of that changes the fact that few of these ornaments are learnable by "osmosis." i know, i know, there are veterans who will claim that, for reasons ranging from ego to sincere cultural bias, but it's not not so. this is why there are acres of explanations to be had of uilleann pipe crans. obviously, no one of these is the only or best way to do it. but you arrive at your own by having studying and learning models.
the one melody-line concertina ornament i have been able to grok without having it explained, demonstrated, or written, was the same-note triplet a la chris droney or the clean style of john williams on his first, self-titled cd (he can be heard ornamenting much more busily elsewhere). i actually happen to love this ornament for concertina as well as box, and i used it and didn't bother with anything else until i could get my concertina tunes to flow, not fast, but flowing and a bit swingy. then it was time to consider what else, if anything, i might like to experiment with adding in. (i actually think you can be a great concertina player without adding anything more.)
i don't like noisy concertina ornaments, but i found i liked the smoother slap ornaments and the lighter rolls. and the simple fact is, no way could i or the vast majority of folks have grasped these ornaments by "osmosis." granted, i am a dope about being able to learn by watching spatial motion, but my contention stands. i only began to get a handle on this stuff by a) reading written diagrams or descriptions; b) having both explained and demonstrated by workshop teachers; and c) watching videos like, thousands of times. and c) would absolutely not have done it without a) and b).
where i have gotten huge amounts of learning by "osmosis," is in the areas of swing, lift & expression. my visits to clancy week paid off bigtime not so much from class (i was in box classes where it was nothing but ear training), but from seeking out places where i could be a fly on the wall and watch players i admire, in all instruments. that was the school and it was great! i spent hours and hours and hours watching people like eileen o'brien and her nenagh and loughrea gang, and hours and hours watching the west clare mafiosos like joe ryan, john kelly, etc, and hours listening to kitty hayes, peter laban, jackie daly, conor keane, and their session gang in coore. i did the same thing in ennis and east clare. in this sense, i am with you all the way about "osmosis," but when it comes to ornaments, we, just like the young irish learners, need a leg up!
# Posted on January 24th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
CP writes: "One has to accept that the learning is sometimes an apprenticeship dictated by the nature of the music and unless one is lucky enough to have a player living close by who can and is willing to give you a lot of time then you are going to have to learn almost by osmosis with the weekly lesson or annual trip to Miltown, Kilrush or Catskills there for encouragement."
~~~
This is the thing -- if you're way out in the outback of ITM, as I am, the opportunity for an apprenticeship in Irish concertina is extremely slim. The fella who originally revealed the phantom button to me did so almost by accident. Even though he taught it to me he wasn't a "teacher" but is indeed a friend. Perhaps if I paid him to be my teacher it would have been different, but I was just lucky that my observation one evening prompted the correct question regardless of how the answer was still a bit vague. His explanation might have been ambiguous but he certainly understood it enough to recognize when I got it right.
I asked him how he learned and he said his teacher showed him and it took him forever to get it. He had the benefit of regular lessons, (or an "apprenticeship.") Edel Fox said it was something Tim Collins showed her, and I'm assuming he was her regular teacher, but I may be wrong. I’m guessing most of the players in Ireland learned it from regular teachers – something I never had. But when I reflect back on my encounters there are people who use this technique that I've asked at point blank how they're getting it and I've received murky answers every time. Maybe it's yet another aspect about being Irish that I don't understand.
So far the things that indicate I'm not Irish are, (besides not having been raised in Ireland or as part of an Irish family)
1. I know the names of just about every tune I play
2. I freely divulge the mechanics of the phantom button to anyone that asks.
There are more of course, but these two are relevant to the music.
# Posted on January 24th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Concer rolls again - Niall vallely's ?
Thanks Ceemonster and Phantom. I must apologize for my lack of clarity and would say that both the last paragraph of C's and the last few lines of PB's say what I was trying to say more precisely and accurately.
When I said "apprenticeship" I was meant it more as apprenticeship to the music as opposed to the act of going to a teacher. Also as C said, sometimes you can enroll in classes either on a weekly basis and/or of the summer school variety, to find that you will not get what you specifically need at that time, whether that be tunes or technique.And indeed you might manage to get classes with someone who's technique you admire to find that class is all about tunes and not technique or visa versa.Of course there then might or might not be options, depending.There is a friend of mine who travels from outside Ireland to summer schools regularly at great expense and on one occasion found the teacher ( not Martin Hayes)to be more interested in telling stories of where the tune came from, which in turn led to more funny stories, which in turn led to very few tunes being learnt. Great if you are interested in that aspect of it- she just needed tunes !This was at a certain stage of her musical journey and she wasn't aware she could change class and so left for home with just a couple of tunes.
On the other hand, with tunes being so readily available now at places such as this site, the act of going to a class can be more about how to play the tune as opposed to learning the tune. And this then in turn leads to a search for a teacher who's style you admire. And of course even in Ireland this person might not teach or be acessible.On the other hand even in Clare( where in the tradition of far away hills being green, it appears they have an abundance of help available), the likes of Edel and others have had a number of different teachers in their search for development.
And yes, the not knowing the names of the tunes and inabillity or unwillingness to pass on certain information can be an Irish thing. On the subject of not knowing the names, as an Irish person, I fluctuate between sort of understanding it and sort of being frustrated by it but on the subject of withholding information on "how to", I have no time whatsoever for it..I know the name of most tunes I hear/play because the music being a passion I make it my business to seek out the names and indeed a friend who is likewise passionate can give you alternate titles and history, versions etc of tunes.But there is this "sort of cool" aspect to not knowing the tune names,it can be fashionable and/or maybe it is back to the old "find out for yourself.
Having said that, I have no interest in whether a tune is in D twice removed or whatever which I am sure is of importance to others but to me of no interest. I just play the tune and am more concerned with other aspects and once the sharps and flats are right, I have more to be worried about such as lift and swing etc. So I am sure that maybe there are people who would find my lack of knowledge on that front to be annoying.
I suppose I set out originally to say that whilst , it might be more easy/efficient /rewarding to learn in Ireland than say other places, it can be relative. Depending on what you need at that particular time, the learning curve can be sometimes as challenging in Ireland in a different way as it can outside of the country and indeed more so in that you would think that it should be straight forward(ish). It seems that we are expected to have it in our blood.
I first heard of this "Phantom Button roll" here and when I asked about it here in Ireland, the answer I got was also murky !!!
# Posted on January 24th 2008 by concertinaplayer