so the cran is used on the whistle and flute but originally came from/and or is most closely associated with piping, yes?
i play the whistle, which i love and don't want to become a fiddler, but i really love the sound of the fiddle and often find myself listening to and playing along with fiddlers.
curious to know if there are any sounds/rythyms/feelings that are particular to the fiddle that can be applied to other instruments, such as the whistle.
also, as per interesting discussion, what are some other sounds associated with particular instruments, like the piping cran, that can be applied to other instruments?
micho russell said he was copying his mothers concertina playing, and that is why he has a distinctive whistle and flute sound...
One thing that comes to mind is trebles - they work great on the
whistle if you double tongue - and of course you can slide easily
on some notes on the whistle. There are so many different ways
of playing fiddle that it's hard to generalize. The thing I like about
concertina and accordion is the notes are unambiguous - blat -
there's the note - no fuzziness. It's also a limitation, but
it's a nice thing to be able to do on flute and fiddle if you can.
Whistle also has that characteristic. When you listen to James Kelly you can hear that
clear articulation. Maybe it comes partly from growing up with
the concertina sound in the house.
Fiddler Kirsty Cotter developed a style where she interpreted all the ornamentation used in the GHB piobaireachd for the fiddle. Crunluaths and Taorluaths etc.
It sounded pretty amazing but not the kind of thing that I could see many other fiddlers taking up.
Paddy Carty played the fiddle on the flute, John Carty plays banjo on the fiddle, Seán Keane plays the pipes on the fiddle. Hup mentions that James Kelly has more than a hint of concertina in his earlier recordings, and Bobby Casey played just about every instrument on the fiddle. In Sliabh Luachra people play the fiddle on the accordion. It's not really something that can be broken down into specific ornaments as such - though there are a few that are obvious crossovers. It's much more about rhythmic expression than simply copying ornaments that are more suited to one instrument than another. If you listen to old unaccompanied recordings of brilliant musicians for a few years you'll absorb it. Better yet, play with brilliant musicians for a while and you'll absorb it much quicker.
Learning a tune, by ear, from a different instrument than what you are currently playing helps this process nicely. I enjoy learning tunes on a banjo from a flute. It helps me (attempt anyway) a smoothness in my playing.
Turn the phrase like a fiddler would. And I agree with the treble thing, It really works if you triple blow the notes that the fiddler has to triple bow the on the one string (not when crossing strings). Not very well explained. Sorry. Flute player,tells you all you need to know really.
Since I play an instrument without much of a tradition or an established style in Irish Traditional Music (the mandolin), I often find that I strive to emulate the sound of other instruments - fiddle, concertina, accordion, pipes. The particular instrument probably depends on where I learned the tune from, or who I am playing with. I don't know whether this is ever evident to the listener - my technique is probably not nearly refined enough to convey it - but it is what I hear in my head as I play.
Nothing to do with Irish trad, but one of the finest examples I have heard of the mandolin capturing the sound of another instrument is the playing of New York klezmer musician Andy Statman (himself a superb clarinetist as well), where he seemingly replicates every trill, grace note, slide, bend and dynamic exactly as it would be played on the clarinet. http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/zev-feldman-andy-statman/id310360378
The guys that come to mind first are the ones who borrowed elements of the Scottish pipe style to their instruments. I heard fiddler John Turner play a piobaireachd many years ago, and it was great. Phil Cunningham (Silly Wizard) would play things on his piano accordion in a Highland pipe style.
When I first started learning Irish flute back in the 70s it seemed to me that the guys I was hearing had styles derived from other instruments. My two main influences were Paddy Carty who as mentioned above seemed to have a style designed to blend with fiddles, and Matt Molloy who had many piping devices in his playing. I had the (wrong) impression that the flute was the poor relation of the pipes and fiddle, because the pipes and fiddle each had its own very distinctive style which came from the particular properties of each instrument, whereas the flute seemed to be always mimicking something else.
I hadn't at that time heard old guys like John McKenna and modern guys like Conal O Grada who played in a wonderful flute-specific style that capitalised on the things that a flute can do that the fiddle and pipes can't do.
I played the guitar for about twenty years before taking up the fiddle, so my first obstacle was to stop trying to transfer guitar to fiddle. The guitar did give me a leg up on some of the fiddle ornaments, just from having developed the quick movements, but the actual execution on fiddle is significantly different and required patient retraining. Eventually, the fiddle experience began to feed back to the guitar. Previously, the guitar ornaments were just an occasional trifle, but once I got comfortable with the fiddle, my guitar playing seemed to lack diddley, so I started playing more rolls, trebles and cuts. Sometimes I reach for a cran and occasionally it works. Sort of.
Guitar rolls can be executed a few different ways in addition to the fiddle approach, even crossing two strings.
I had learned Baroque ornaments during a foray into classical guitar, but it was fiddle playing that inspired me to develop the diddley in my guitar playing.
also, bob himself, if you played the guitar for 20 years and then learned the fiddle, at what age did you learn the fiddle? i have heard some people say that a few instruments that you cannot attempt to learn when you are too old are(obviously)the pipes and the fiddle...could you share your experience of learning the fiddle later, how challenging was it?
You hear a lot of piping in Noel Hill's concertina playing, part of why I gravitated towards his tuition" Quote
I do not agree, what I hear is an attempt to imitate Donegal fiddle playing , the result [imo] is something different, that I can only describe as a musical agitation, and an overall feeling of restlessness.
I was about thirty when I took up the fiddle. Probably too late to get into Julliard, but not to learn a trad fiddle style. There was a good discussion here not too long ago about learning an instrument as a mature adult. The consensus was that the problems and perils are usually overstated.
At around the same time I also took up mandolin, clawhammer banjo and whistle. Fiddle was number three or four on my list, so it was just an occasional indulgence for a couple of years. Eventually, I realized that I could actually play and started taking it more seriously.
A friend of mine took up the fiddle in his late fifties, after more than forty years of playing guitar. He was playing easy tunes - and playing in tune – in a few months, while still performing on guitar.
I think the only thing that's difficult about taking up an instrument at a mature age is lack of time. Another thing is perhaps a lack of patience especially if you've achieved a good level of proficiency on another instrument.
After using whistle only for learning flute tunes for years (mostly in the car :( ) I realized it's possible to get close to a closed-fingering-piperish style using tonguing. I've also been listening to a lot of Brian McNamara lately, which certainly colors things.
sweet! i am 30 years old now
and i really want to play flute and fiddle
and i was thinking that it might be too late, but i guess it really is never too late
i think i will give the fiddle a try!
thanks for all of the interesting discussion, as usual.
i am grateful for the session and its members
peace
Great concept Tintin... the fiddliest fiddler etc!
The underlying notion to me is that each instrument has unique capabilities and properties, and each style/player uses these to a different extent.
For the fiddle, one thing it can do that the flute and whistle cannot is play doublestops/chords. What makes the fiddle unique is that the rythm comes from a bow. Shetland fiddling and American "old time" fiddling make much more use of doublestops and rythmic bowing than mainstream Irish fiddling, and to me is more "fiddley". My grandfather's fiddle (he was a West Virginia mountain fiddler) has the fingerboard filed down to be flatter, have less arc, and the nut and bridge are carved to suit. On this fiddler it is nearly impossible to play the D or A strings singly. Imagine an Irish fiddler who did not, and could not, play on the D or A strings without chording!
For the flute, what makes it unique is the breathing, and the way that the embouchure can be varied for different volumes and tone colours. To me, smooth flowing fluteplaying isn't as "flutey" as strongly rythmic fluteplaying, where the breath spots give lift and drive to the music.
What sets the uilleann pipes apart are the staccato ornamentation and the regulators. Most good pipers use both of these to good effect. The most "pipey" piper, perhaps, is Finbar Furey, who often plays the regs as a constant presence, a continous component, of the pipe's tone. In jigs for example he often plays four chords per bar all the way through. This style is more "pipey" to me than players who might play 20 or 30 regless bars, then hit two chords, then leave off the regs for another 20 bars. I heard some guy from back in the 20's, I don't remember who, who had a specific reg arrangement that seemed to be part-and-parcel to his way of playing the tune.
As Dragut Reis suggested earlier, the key elements of instrumental transposition in Ireland's traditional music involve individual expertise on a particular instrument being absorbed into the music of others adept on other instruments.
A classic example of this would be the influence of the pipes on the Donegal fiddle tradition, most notably evinced by the various recordings of the Doherty clan and, in more modern times, by the Ciarán Ó Maonaigh and Aidan O'Donnell recordings.
The pipes also had a huge influence upon musicians such as Noel Hill who told me this in an interview a few years back:
“I was fascinated by the pipes. I hear Clancy playing in my head all the time and there’s a very strong influence of piping on my playing. After moving to Dublin I spent a lot of time in the company of Séamus Ennis who often stayed with us and talked about music and piping – he was a remarkable man.”
With that in mind, listen to Noel's first solo album and it's relatively easy to determine how he's using the concertina's bass buttons to give a very subtle impression of the piper's use of drones and regulators.
Geoff, fair enough comment about use of drones.
except, Noel learned his concertina style as did Paul Davis, from a neighbour of Paul Davis a concertina player by the name of Paddy Murphy, Noels techniques regarding particular fingering come from Murphy, Nothing wrong with that, but lets give credit where it is due, noel hill was strongly influenced by another concertina player, by the name of Paddy Murphy
whistle type tongueing can be used on a harmonica too.
but harmonicas and non unisonic free reed instruments are an interesting case.
for example a tune played on a melody maker harmonica is going to be stylistically different to a tune played on a standard 10 hole blues harp, because you are sucking and blowing on different notes of the scale, in fact this goes for most free reed instruments, a bc will sound different from a c#d or a dg button accordion, because you are forced to reverse bellows in different places, the system with the most options for reversing is in fact the dg, the bc only has two notes of the scale b and e going in different directions. the dg has five
an anglo concertina played straight up and down the g row, is going to sound different from one played across the rows so to some extent style and phrasing is dictated by the limitations of the non unisonic free reed instrument
some of the same principles do apply betwen an anglo and a harmonica., for example[imo] choice of grace notes is determined by using a note in the same direction, so transferring a grace note [pitch wise that may be used on a fiddle] is not necessarily going to work, however the positioning of the grace note in the piece of music, most times will,providing you use a grace note that is naturally easy on the instrument.
transferring styles between instruments
transferring styles between instruments
so the cran is used on the whistle and flute but originally came from/and or is most closely associated with piping, yes?
i play the whistle, which i love and don't want to become a fiddler, but i really love the sound of the fiddle and often find myself listening to and playing along with fiddlers.
curious to know if there are any sounds/rythyms/feelings that are particular to the fiddle that can be applied to other instruments, such as the whistle.
also, as per interesting discussion, what are some other sounds associated with particular instruments, like the piping cran, that can be applied to other instruments?
micho russell said he was copying his mothers concertina playing, and that is why he has a distinctive whistle and flute sound...
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by currach
Re: transferring styles between instruments
One thing that comes to mind is trebles - they work great on the
whistle if you double tongue - and of course you can slide easily
on some notes on the whistle. There are so many different ways
of playing fiddle that it's hard to generalize. The thing I like about
concertina and accordion is the notes are unambiguous - blat -
there's the note - no fuzziness. It's also a limitation, but
it's a nice thing to be able to do on flute and fiddle if you can.
Whistle also has that characteristic. When you listen to James Kelly you can hear that
clear articulation. Maybe it comes partly from growing up with
the concertina sound in the house.
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by Hup
Re: transferring styles between instruments
I'm sure everyone here would agree that you can transer the style of any instrument to the guitar (not!)
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by harmonic miner
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Fiddler Kirsty Cotter developed a style where she interpreted all the ornamentation used in the GHB piobaireachd for the fiddle. Crunluaths and Taorluaths etc.
It sounded pretty amazing but not the kind of thing that I could see many other fiddlers taking up.
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by Jams_O'Donnell
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Paddy Carty played the fiddle on the flute, John Carty plays banjo on the fiddle, Seán Keane plays the pipes on the fiddle. Hup mentions that James Kelly has more than a hint of concertina in his earlier recordings, and Bobby Casey played just about every instrument on the fiddle. In Sliabh Luachra people play the fiddle on the accordion. It's not really something that can be broken down into specific ornaments as such - though there are a few that are obvious crossovers. It's much more about rhythmic expression than simply copying ornaments that are more suited to one instrument than another. If you listen to old unaccompanied recordings of brilliant musicians for a few years you'll absorb it. Better yet, play with brilliant musicians for a while and you'll absorb it much quicker.
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by Dragut Reis
Re: transferring styles between instruments
You hear a lot of piping in Noel Hill's concertina playing, part of why I gravitated towards his tuition.
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by Michael Eskin
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Learning a tune, by ear, from a different instrument than what you are currently playing helps this process nicely. I enjoy learning tunes on a banjo from a flute. It helps me (attempt anyway) a smoothness in my playing.
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by shanty
Re: transferring styles between instruments
'attain a smoothness'
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by shanty
Re: transferring styles between instruments
When going from flute or whistle to banjo just remember that tonguing in the banjo is bad for the fillings. Don't ask me how I know that, I just do.
- chris
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Try transferring fingure-style guitar to the duet concertina !
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Turn the phrase like a fiddler would. And I agree with the treble thing, It really works if you triple blow the notes that the fiddler has to triple bow the on the one string (not when crossing strings). Not very well explained. Sorry. Flute player,tells you all you need to know really.
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by bagfed
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Since I play an instrument without much of a tradition or an established style in Irish Traditional Music (the mandolin), I often find that I strive to emulate the sound of other instruments - fiddle, concertina, accordion, pipes. The particular instrument probably depends on where I learned the tune from, or who I am playing with. I don't know whether this is ever evident to the listener - my technique is probably not nearly refined enough to convey it - but it is what I hear in my head as I play.
Nothing to do with Irish trad, but one of the finest examples I have heard of the mandolin capturing the sound of another instrument is the playing of New York klezmer musician Andy Statman (himself a superb clarinetist as well), where he seemingly replicates every trill, grace note, slide, bend and dynamic exactly as it would be played on the clarinet.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/zev-feldman-andy-statman/id310360378
# Posted on September 15th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: transferring styles between instruments
This is a great thread!
The guys that come to mind first are the ones who borrowed elements of the Scottish pipe style to their instruments. I heard fiddler John Turner play a piobaireachd many years ago, and it was great. Phil Cunningham (Silly Wizard) would play things on his piano accordion in a Highland pipe style.
When I first started learning Irish flute back in the 70s it seemed to me that the guys I was hearing had styles derived from other instruments. My two main influences were Paddy Carty who as mentioned above seemed to have a style designed to blend with fiddles, and Matt Molloy who had many piping devices in his playing. I had the (wrong) impression that the flute was the poor relation of the pipes and fiddle, because the pipes and fiddle each had its own very distinctive style which came from the particular properties of each instrument, whereas the flute seemed to be always mimicking something else.
I hadn't at that time heard old guys like John McKenna and modern guys like Conal O Grada who played in a wonderful flute-specific style that capitalised on the things that a flute can do that the fiddle and pipes can't do.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Richard D Cook
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Following up on Richard's mention of McKenna and O Grada...here's the inverse to the opening question:
What players best exemplify their instruments? Who are the fiddliest fiddlers, the flutiest fluters, the pipiest pipers, etc?
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by mcswiss
Re: transferring styles between instruments
I vote for Patsy Touhy and Johnny Doran as incredibly pipey pipers.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Richard O'Mealy and Leo Rowsome as well.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: transferring styles between instruments
I played the guitar for about twenty years before taking up the fiddle, so my first obstacle was to stop trying to transfer guitar to fiddle. The guitar did give me a leg up on some of the fiddle ornaments, just from having developed the quick movements, but the actual execution on fiddle is significantly different and required patient retraining. Eventually, the fiddle experience began to feed back to the guitar. Previously, the guitar ornaments were just an occasional trifle, but once I got comfortable with the fiddle, my guitar playing seemed to lack diddley, so I started playing more rolls, trebles and cuts. Sometimes I reach for a cran and occasionally it works. Sort of.
Guitar rolls can be executed a few different ways in addition to the fiddle approach, even crossing two strings.
I had learned Baroque ornaments during a foray into classical guitar, but it was fiddle playing that inspired me to develop the diddley in my guitar playing.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Sean McGuire is the violiniest fiddler.....
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by SteelPlayer
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Agreed.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Dragut Reis
Re: transferring styles between instruments
I seem to recall something about a chap named Coleman from Sligo...
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: transferring styles between instruments
is there a whistliest whistler?
also, bob himself, if you played the guitar for 20 years and then learned the fiddle, at what age did you learn the fiddle? i have heard some people say that a few instruments that you cannot attempt to learn when you are too old are(obviously)the pipes and the fiddle...could you share your experience of learning the fiddle later, how challenging was it?
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by currach
Re: transferring styles between instruments
is there a whistliest whistler?
Mary Bergin
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: transferring styles between instruments
"Re: transferring styles between instruments
You hear a lot of piping in Noel Hill's concertina playing, part of why I gravitated towards his tuition" Quote
I do not agree, what I hear is an attempt to imitate Donegal fiddle playing , the result [imo] is something different, that I can only describe as a musical agitation, and an overall feeling of restlessness.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Dick Miles
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Pemba,
I was about thirty when I took up the fiddle. Probably too late to get into Julliard, but not to learn a trad fiddle style. There was a good discussion here not too long ago about learning an instrument as a mature adult. The consensus was that the problems and perils are usually overstated.
At around the same time I also took up mandolin, clawhammer banjo and whistle. Fiddle was number three or four on my list, so it was just an occasional indulgence for a couple of years. Eventually, I realized that I could actually play and started taking it more seriously.
A friend of mine took up the fiddle in his late fifties, after more than forty years of playing guitar. He was playing easy tunes - and playing in tune – in a few months, while still performing on guitar.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: transferring styles between instruments
I think the only thing that's difficult about taking up an instrument at a mature age is lack of time. Another thing is perhaps a lack of patience especially if you've achieved a good level of proficiency on another instrument.
# Posted on September 16th 2010 by SteelPlayer
Re: transferring styles between instruments
After using whistle only for learning flute tunes for years (mostly in the car :( ) I realized it's possible to get close to a closed-fingering-piperish style using tonguing. I've also been listening to a lot of Brian McNamara lately, which certainly colors things.
# Posted on September 17th 2010 by wormdiet
Re: transferring styles between instruments
sweet! i am 30 years old now
and i really want to play flute and fiddle
and i was thinking that it might be too late, but i guess it really is never too late
i think i will give the fiddle a try!
thanks for all of the interesting discussion, as usual.
i am grateful for the session and its members
peace
# Posted on September 17th 2010 by currach
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Great concept Tintin... the fiddliest fiddler etc!
The underlying notion to me is that each instrument has unique capabilities and properties, and each style/player uses these to a different extent.
For the fiddle, one thing it can do that the flute and whistle cannot is play doublestops/chords. What makes the fiddle unique is that the rythm comes from a bow. Shetland fiddling and American "old time" fiddling make much more use of doublestops and rythmic bowing than mainstream Irish fiddling, and to me is more "fiddley". My grandfather's fiddle (he was a West Virginia mountain fiddler) has the fingerboard filed down to be flatter, have less arc, and the nut and bridge are carved to suit. On this fiddler it is nearly impossible to play the D or A strings singly. Imagine an Irish fiddler who did not, and could not, play on the D or A strings without chording!
For the flute, what makes it unique is the breathing, and the way that the embouchure can be varied for different volumes and tone colours. To me, smooth flowing fluteplaying isn't as "flutey" as strongly rythmic fluteplaying, where the breath spots give lift and drive to the music.
What sets the uilleann pipes apart are the staccato ornamentation and the regulators. Most good pipers use both of these to good effect. The most "pipey" piper, perhaps, is Finbar Furey, who often plays the regs as a constant presence, a continous component, of the pipe's tone. In jigs for example he often plays four chords per bar all the way through. This style is more "pipey" to me than players who might play 20 or 30 regless bars, then hit two chords, then leave off the regs for another 20 bars. I heard some guy from back in the 20's, I don't remember who, who had a specific reg arrangement that seemed to be part-and-parcel to his way of playing the tune.
# Posted on September 17th 2010 by Richard D Cook
Re: transferring styles between instruments
As Dragut Reis suggested earlier, the key elements of instrumental transposition in Ireland's traditional music involve individual expertise on a particular instrument being absorbed into the music of others adept on other instruments.
A classic example of this would be the influence of the pipes on the Donegal fiddle tradition, most notably evinced by the various recordings of the Doherty clan and, in more modern times, by the Ciarán Ó Maonaigh and Aidan O'Donnell recordings.
The pipes also had a huge influence upon musicians such as Noel Hill who told me this in an interview a few years back:
“I was fascinated by the pipes. I hear Clancy playing in my head all the time and there’s a very strong influence of piping on my playing. After moving to Dublin I spent a lot of time in the company of Séamus Ennis who often stayed with us and talked about music and piping – he was a remarkable man.”
With that in mind, listen to Noel's first solo album and it's relatively easy to determine how he's using the concertina's bass buttons to give a very subtle impression of the piper's use of drones and regulators.
# Posted on September 17th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: transferring styles between instruments
Geoff, fair enough comment about use of drones.
except, Noel learned his concertina style as did Paul Davis, from a neighbour of Paul Davis a concertina player by the name of Paddy Murphy, Noels techniques regarding particular fingering come from Murphy, Nothing wrong with that, but lets give credit where it is due, noel hill was strongly influenced by another concertina player, by the name of Paddy Murphy
# Posted on September 18th 2010 by Dick Miles
Re: transferring styles between instruments
whistle type tongueing can be used on a harmonica too.
but harmonicas and non unisonic free reed instruments are an interesting case.
for example a tune played on a melody maker harmonica is going to be stylistically different to a tune played on a standard 10 hole blues harp, because you are sucking and blowing on different notes of the scale, in fact this goes for most free reed instruments, a bc will sound different from a c#d or a dg button accordion, because you are forced to reverse bellows in different places, the system with the most options for reversing is in fact the dg, the bc only has two notes of the scale b and e going in different directions. the dg has five
an anglo concertina played straight up and down the g row, is going to sound different from one played across the rows so to some extent style and phrasing is dictated by the limitations of the non unisonic free reed instrument
some of the same principles do apply betwen an anglo and a harmonica., for example[imo] choice of grace notes is determined by using a note in the same direction, so transferring a grace note [pitch wise that may be used on a fiddle] is not necessarily going to work, however the positioning of the grace note in the piece of music, most times will,providing you use a grace note that is naturally easy on the instrument.
# Posted on September 19th 2010 by Dick Miles