Slurring notes vs Playing Legato

[jemtheflute]

Glottal v laryngeal - I believe so. I seem to recall a long-ago extended discussion of that very point on this or the Whistle Forum. Certainly someone somewhere sometime strongly asserted that what we do with throat stops is not glottal stopping in the strict linguistic sense and that "knowledge" seems to have stuck and become pervasive. I've just done some quick Wikipedia checks on "glottis" and "larynx" for the anatomy and "glottal stop" for the linguistics. It would seem from that brief research that describing our throat stops, low or high in position, as "glottal" would indeed be linguistically correct. But I have this vague, nagging memory of having previously been convinced otherwise........

[david_h]

If stops can be 'low or high' in the throat then are they all the same thing?

FWIW: If I whistle with my lips I can only stop the air completely in one place, low down, and have both read and been told by a trained singer that that is a glottal stop. If I do it with my mouth open in seems to be what Conal O'Grada demonstrates on the CD with his tutor. It is what I do most of when playing flute. From various people's forum posts and my own experiments I have a 'working hypothesis' that it is what Catherine McEvoy does a lot. But it is not what I find myself trying to do in order to imitate what Harry Bradley demonstrates on the sound clips referred to above. That seems to come from the diaphragm. [/FWIW]

I wonder if different people do stops differently when whistling with their lips? I can't stop any higher than I do and maintain a mouth shape to whistle - but other people may well be able to. It's possible to whistle with the lips without doing any stops at all other than diaphagm pulsing so maybe lip whistling doesn't help clarify things.

[jemtheflute]

I think what you describe with the throat when lip-whistling is exactly the thing, though I agree one can also use open throat and diaphragm control only. It's certainly what I do when whistling and when cutting off note ends on the flute. I find the position in the throat moves with pitch when whistling - higher for higher pitches. For fluting my stopping position is mostly very low, lower than I tend to use for whistling, probably because it is done from an otherwise open, fairly relaxed throat for flute use. The kind used in speech tends to be in a pretty high position. But I think they're all the same thing.

[david_h]

This 'high' and 'low' seems complicated. High and low relative to what? Making a series high pitched shreaks seems to be happening higher up than a series of growls but since my Adams apple moves up for one and down for the other the bits of anatomy that are generating it may be the same ones. The area of resonance moves as well. If I read these Wikipedia pages correctly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_folds) the glottis is just above the vocal folds so a maybe glottal stop can seem higher or lower the way a vocalisation does.

(A voice from the next room has just asked 'Are you all right' and i haven't started experimenting with higher up choking noises yet.)

[jemtheflute]

Try putting fingers and thumb gently on your throat either side of your Adam's apple. Whistle a full range slow scale (or, for more obvious differences, an arpeggio) from low to high and back down, stop-attacking each note (repeat each pitch/attack a few times too). When I do that I can feel the location of the contact point in my throat moving up with the pitch, and of course the whole larynx/Adam's apple structure moves. This is because we vary the volume of the mouth/throat cavity to vary the pitch and part of the way we do so is by moving the throat structures. (Of course tongue position and jaw-drop are also used as part of the complex for cavity volume/sounded pitch control).

When playing flute one's throat should generally be relaxed and open, so the larynx will be at or near the bottom of its travel range. Compare that with a spoken glottal stop as in "uh-oh" (quite high on the first syllable, lower on the second, with the falling voice pitch) or Cockney style "bu'er" for "butter" (very high, at least when I try to do it).

[david_h]

Yes. It seems to me that is the same action but that the whole structure is higher or lower in the throat depending on what fits the voiced part.

Are some people doing something in their throat that is higher than wherever their glottis is at the time but lower than the back of their tongue?

[jemtheflute]

Pass.

[Nanohedron]

Who knows what people do. Everyone being different, at some point there's little choice but to talk around these things in a general way. I think the better question in the end is, does it work? Does it advance your playing? And above all, does it sound good? In a trad context, you also have to ask if it sounds "right".

That said, we need to keep in mind that our perceptions may be highly colored by our wishes. Hearing ourselves objectively will not always be the happiest thing, but there is no path to improvement without being honest with ourselves.

[m_abukhalid]

Just want to thank everyone for their contributions to this thread. I learn a lot everytime I have a read through it! The possibilities for articulation and expression on the flute are truly impressive!

[benhall.1]

So anyway, Nano, now that I've learnt Rutherglen Road ...

What do you put with it?



(Or have you told me already?)

[Nanohedron]

What do you put with it?

I confess I haven't gotten that far, yet. Dead easy to play on flute, though, isn't it?

[benhall.1]

What do you put with it?

I confess I haven't gotten that far, yet. Dead easy to play on flute, though, isn't it?

Fits pretty nicely. It's the ornaments that are still getting me a bit. It's not so much ones that have to be put in, as the ones I want to put in.

[Nanohedron]

A little story about the tune: A local fluteplayer and the aforementioned Scots box player were at my place for a house session. Box Guy played Rutherglen Road for Flute Guy who hadn't heard it before, and then Box Guy asked us didn't the tune sound Irish? Composer K. O'Neill's of that extraction, although a Scots national by birth, and IIRC that's what had prompted this line of inquiry (and they're friends, BTW). The fluteplayer and I looked at each other and said no, it sounded pretty Scottish to us. The box player was taken aback. We allowed that there might be combined elements somewhere in there, but the end product wasn't particularly Irish to our ears. After that, none of us were quite sure which end was up.

[Nanohedron]

[Thread revival. - Mod]

The reel Rutherglen Road especially sticks out for me.

Dammit! I can't find it. I hate not finding things.

The thing is, I know I've asked you this before, so if you can answer, I'll save the thing this time! Do you have a link to the reel Rutherglen Road? Or dots, or something? Youtube?

[Sorry for the thread diversion, but one needs to know these things!]

After all these years, I finally found it! It was posted 2 years ago, long after I'd given up hope. But this afternoon I figured the passage of time might afford me a better chance, et voilà. Here's the link:

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes/tune ... McKeFt.pdf

Second reel on the page. There are minor differences to the way I play it, but that hardly bears mention. Enjoy.

[benhall.1]

[Thread revival. - Mod]

The reel Rutherglen Road especially sticks out for me.

Dammit! I can't find it. I hate not finding things.

The thing is, I know I've asked you this before, so if you can answer, I'll save the thing this time! Do you have a link to the reel Rutherglen Road? Or dots, or something? Youtube?

[Sorry for the thread diversion, but one needs to know these things!]

After all these years, I finally found it! It was posted 2 years ago, long after I'd given up hope. But this afternoon I figured the passage of time might afford me a better chance, et voilà. Here's the link:

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes/tune ... McKeFt.pdf

Second reel on the page. There are minor differences to the way I play it, but that hardly bears mention. Enjoy.

Thank you. Nice tune. I'll save it.