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Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

Two questions: I've been trying to find more info on the piping ornament called "Doubling" if I'm assuming correctly it's something like a long grace note in a decending melody line? aka agf {fe2}fef Or am I totally off track? Better yet can somebody please make an audio/video clip of a "doubling"? The second question is the trill marks in the Gow Collection in seemingly odd places, but maybe a mordent or a doubling would seem to work better for this?

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by B Rad

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

these are the questions when I wish bogman would stop by;

Re: Bagpipe Music versus Standard Notation
Posted on June 14th 2009 by bogman
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/21801/comments#comment453733

http://www.uilleannobsession.com/docs/Crowley_Tutor.pdf
"Doublings are little warbles-principally consisting of two or three grace
notes-usually done with an aooeot note of the melody and ths note over i t ,
They add a certain brilliance to the playing but should not be overdone."
~ pg. 11

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

I'm curious how an uillean piper would do a doubling, is it different than how the GHB's do it? I thought it was a simpler thing with only one or two cuts.

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by B Rad

~

There's only one person who ever taught me doubling, or what she called doubling. It was in British Coumbia; & it was simply a cut on the finger above & then the lowest finger itself.
Hope that makes sense. I use it all the time.

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

This might be of use:

http://www.potomacvalleyscottishfiddle.org/public/the_pipers_corner/index.html

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by Weejie

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

Can't help with Gow question, but on GHB the doubling uses 2 higher grace notes to double up a melody note, something like ta-DAA rather than just DAA. For example, on a B, you would play a high g grace note, followed by a d grace note, but because the chanter plays continuously and your fingers return to the melody note position after each grace note, you hear the sequence of notes (gBd) B, with the bracketed bit being quite rapid.

People sometimes play it more "open", so that a B2 melody note becomes more like BB - whence doubling. The exact grace notes played need to change depending on whether the melody note is on the lower hand (G to d) or upper hand (e to a).

Probably, by now, everyone's sorry you asked...

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by niallanderson

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

Oh yes... Search YouTube for "b doubling" and (at least for me) the top 5 or 6 hits are tutorial vids showing how this is done on the chanter.

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by niallanderson

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

"but because the chanter plays continuously and your fingers return to the melody note position after each grace note"

This is important to remember when comparing the gracing of a chanter to that of a stringed instrument. On a stringed instrument, the string is stopped. This means that any supposed playing of pipe ornaments on the fiddle can only be an approximation, and some might call it a poor imitation.

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by Weejie

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

I've been thinking that the thing you do on an uilleann chanter where you play essentially two cuts on one note with but with one finger was called "doubling."

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by DrSilverSpear

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

There is the song that pipers sing before they head off for the championships on Glasgow Green - "we're all off to doubling in the Green".

Ah well.......

# Posted on November 18th 2011 by Weejie

Re: Doubling Pipe ornament & Trills in the Gow Collection

http://www.scotmus.com/music/gow/collection-of-strathspey-reels/000.html
"Niel Gow's" A Collection of Strathspey Reels, 1784

~ From the Edition Notes, (6th paragraph)

"There is, of course, a lot of controversial debate about how the Gows' grace-notes and ornaments such as trills were originally played, let alone how they should be played now. Certainly, as originally written, they don't conform to the majority of modern Scottish fiddling practices."

# Posted on November 20th 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)

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