How does a beginner know when to perform rolls

[brewerpaul]

Listen to a LOT of Irish music-- all instruments, many different performers. Get that stuff into your blood. You'll gradually start to know when to ornament. Try many different ornaments in different spots in a tune. Record the tune and listen to it. Sound good? Great. If not try something different.

[Mr.Gumby]

I don't think Ornament vs Articulation is just a semantic issue. Ornament implies something decorative added to the tune; Articulation implies something more intrinsic to your musical expression of a tune.

I don't feel you manage to make a sufficient case in favour of abandoning the notion this doesn't go much beyond semantics. Most of us are pretty much in agreement about most points, even while having a slightly different perspective and employing a different terminology. Semantics.

It is however useful to look at a bit of history: ornamentation has been the preferred term among those who play, think, talk or write about Irish Traditional Music for a long time. Both in the context of vocal/sean nos music and instrumental/ dance music. Used rightly or wrongly, the term isn't likely to be abandoned at the drop of a hat. Perhaps another term used in the past, embellishment, still has a use in this?

In this context it is perhaps worth looking at how Breandán Breathnach outlined different forms of ornamentation/embellishment in his 'Folk Music and Dances of Ireland' and on from that consider what a musician would consider 'the tune' and which approaches to that basic tune would be considered ornament, embellishment or whatever else the preferred term of the day.

[Steve Bliven]

Can it be that we're still dancing around a couple of differing types of "twiddly-bit"?

Given the previous example of the Kesh Jig, that ~GGG GAB seems pretty essential to the tune—the "bones" or however we define stuff that needs to be there. Surely the initial GGG could be varied in different ways but most every version I hear clearly establishes that as a major part of the tune before drifting in a variation in later run-thrus. Here the roll would not be "ornamental" but clearly "articulation" between similar notes (at least to me).

In other spots the cuts/taps/rolls are not critical to the tune and are put in to ornament or emphasize various portions at different times (and that, too, could probably still be called articulation). But those aren't essential and would be expected to differ widely in various players' renditions.

I don't know enough about Sean Nos singing to know whether this sort of "essential" vs. "stylistic/ornamental" dichotomy exists there and defer to those closer to that tradition.

But to get back to the OP's question (remember the OP?), "how do you know when to play rolls", it seems like it might be possible to demonstrate tunes or segments of tunes where rolls are essential (e.g., Kesh) and others where it's decorative/ornamental/non-essential/stylistic.

Not sure I have the appropriate vocabulary to express this difference that seems stuck in the back of my mind but there's some initial thoughts to bash at.

Best wishes.

Steve

[Mr.Gumby]

(at least to me)

I think you have it right there Steve.

While I take your point about seeing ~G3 as GGG and thus approaching that as articulation, it's a perfectly valid way of looking at it. I would not necessarily subscribe to it, in my mind a roll isn't equal to three notes articulated separately but rather a rhythmic device.

To clarify my point of view, looking again at the Kesh jig I'd argue G (Just one, unadorned G) in the opening statement is what carries the tune. Whatever happens around that note DGG G -BGG G- GAG G -GFG G- ~G2 G G - GzG G - ~G3 G - ~G2 A G, GDG G, G4 - GGG G or whatever else is embellishment/ornamentation/context/approaches: different environments for that one note that carries the tune. Stuff you hang on that central note. To dress it up. In my thinking that would be embellishment/ornamentation.

It's really two ways of thinking about the same thing. Albeit coming at it from different angles. At the end of the day all that matters is that you can bring over the tune. The rest of it: potato-potato.

it seems like it might be possible to demonstrate tunes or segments of tunes where rolls are essential (e.g., Kesh) and others where it's decorative/ornamental/non-essential/stylistic.

As I said before, it's really all about stylistic choices the player makes. A perfectly fine Kesh without a roll in sight is not at all far fetched. For a jig (or any other dance tune), rhythm is paramount, rolls can pleasingly add or detract from it but they're not essential at all.

[NicoMoreno]

A perfectly fine Kesh is not at all far fetched

Not sure I'd agree I'm quite sick of that tune, though.

[benhall.1]

A perfectly fine Kesh is not at all far fetched

Not sure I'd agree I'm quite sick of that tune, though.

I really like it. I also like the Irish Washerwoman. My Darling's a Sheep is beginning to pall though ...

[Mike Clougherty]

But to get back to the OP's question (remember the OP?)

I've just been sitting back and soaking in all of this info! Haha. I thought I would let everyone's stream of thought and conversation to carry on. All of this info has been extremely helpful. It's nice to know that my earlier statement about playing rolls when it feels right and sounds good isn't isolated to just me!

[StevieJ]

I do think I need to make clear here that in my thinking about a roll I would follow Breathnach's description of the rhythm of a free hopping ball. I suspect this is another(?) juncture where thinking about this (ornamentation vs articulation) diverges.

If you look at, for example, the jig Coppers and Brass BGB BGB AFA A when you introduce a simple roll here : ~B3 BGB ~A3 A-- I don't believe it is rhythmically the same device some pipers (and in extension some whistle players following a particular style) use to articulate three Bs (or As) by separating them by just taps B{G}B{G}B {G}BAG A{G}A{G}A {G}A-- when playing the same phrase.

Discuss (or not).

I see nobody has dived into this one. Well I reckon it's another case of both approaches (let's call them "straight" and "swung" rolls for the purposes of this discussion) being valid and working well in different situations and different playing styles.

I may have contributed in some small way to the prevalence of the "three equal notes separated by a cut and a tap" approach among whistle players who look to the internet to learn things in the early 2000s with the method explained in my (moribund) incarnation as Brother Steve.

I started by doing rolls very differently, actually, on fiddle, from listening to records with nobody to show me how to do them, and what eventually pushed me into doing them in some kind of satisfactory fashion (after a lot of unsuccessful attempts) was the sudden realization that (the way some fiddlers I was listening to at the time did them) all the action in long rolls was delayed, like a kick in the tail. Highly swung. Like Breathnach's bouncing ball idea, but exaggerated even.

Eventually I noticed that certain flute players I liked listening to played most of their rolls unswung. And even some of the old fiddlers - Bobby Casey's rolls for example sound pretty dah-blah-blah to me.

So that, combined with the technique for teaching rolls on fiddle that a friend showed me, led to my teaching rolls on whistle in that way. It wasn't until an observant student pointed out that I was doing something different in hornpipes that I realized that straight rolls sound altogether wrong if you are playing hornpipes with a swing.

So now I reckon that both approaches work - for long rolls in jigs and reels, you can play either method very happily. In a swung hornpipe you _have_ to swing the roll, let the ball bounce.

But for what I call off-beat rolls, well you can't swing them IMO. I've only heard one player try (a flash youngster who obviously listened to a lot of Flooky stuff) and it sounded terrible.

Maybe it's different for pipers?

[Mr.Gumby]

I see nobody has dived into this one. Well I reckon it's another case of both approaches (let's call them "straight" and "swung" rolls for the purposes of this discussion) being valid and working well in different situations and different playing styles.

I was waiting for you to jump in with the dablahblah roll.

The placement of a cut/tap/gracenote (relative to the beat) is a pretty important issue and the swung/unswung roll is probably another example of that.

I used the example of Coppers and Brass above because the pipers who use the 'three notes separated by taps' as I described above usually employ it along side 'normal' rolls in different iterations of the same phrase. Different devices for different occasions. Pipers ofcourse can (and do at times) play three non legato notes in phrases like that. But that is perhaps beyond the remit of the whistle forum.

[pancelticpiper]

For sure one can find traditional players who are, one might say, outliers. Tommy Reck is one such, Micho Russell is another.

But if you come upon a typical circle of 10 or 20 experienced pipers and fluters and whistlers playing the Kesh Jig you'll be hearing rolls from all or nearly all of them.

So I think I'm safe in saying that playing rolls is typical/standard/idiomatic of ITM woodwind playing at the present time.

Years ago there was a fluteplayer who was telling me he had a revelation of sorts listening to some old Irish fife player, how cool it was to tongue everything and use no cuts or pats or rolls, and that he was going to change his style to get rid of all that stuff. I never heard any actual change in his playing- he was still doing rolls in all the usual places.

About the multiple pat thing, there was an old Clare fluteplayer here, Ray Tubridy (cousin of Michael) who had an interesting thing he would do from time to time, play a series of four, five, six G's in a row with pats. I've never heard quite the same thing elsewhere, not the way he would do it.

With pats on the pipes, due to the semi-closed fingering, there's a grey area as to what's a "pat" and what's playing a series of separated notes, the same fingers being used. It's just a matter of the timing. Many pipers pat two fingers for B, giving a silence rather than a note in the pat. (Some lift the chanter to get a Bottom D pat.)

About semantics, one oftentimes finds people in a particular tradition using music terms in nonstandard ways. About the "rightness" or "wrongness" who can say, but the usages are nonstandard nevertheless.

So in Highland piping the term "slur" is used to mean a completely different thing than it means in the wider musical world. (The Jig Of Slurs was specifically composed as an exercise in performing "slurs". ITM players usually remove all the slurs from the tune, by the way, which is ironic.)

My problem with ITM learners calling cuts and pats "ornaments" isn't a semantic one, but a conceptual one. They often conceive of cuts and pats as being alien to the music rather than integral to it.

[Mr.Gumby]

So I think I'm safe in saying that playing rolls is typical/standard/idiomatic of ITM woodwind playing at the present time.

I would agree with that but there's a clear reason for it: people are being taught and a degree of standardisation has set in. Competitions are another push in a certain direction. But something having become common or even standard practice is not the same as considering something 'essential', it's still a stylistic choice.

I am not sure Tommy Reck could be considered an outlier. Being in his company opened my eyes to a few things (as did/does being in the company of other players) and the occasional sticking to the notes instead of the obvious choice perhaps of using the roll was one of those things. He didn't do it all the time but when he did it really stood out as a very pleasing and effective device. I could easily have given different examples, there's a lovely and distinct version of the Flogging Reel I got off Tony Linnane : it goes BGGF DGGA BGGA (3Bcd g--- in the first part. A very pleasing change from the usual one with the rolls and another reason to question the assumption that rolls are essential to a tune.

But yes, stylistic choices, different concepts. I my mind there are different things you can 'hang off' a note. They achieve different effects so I would tend to think of them as more ornamental. I wouldn't dispute cuts and taps as articulation, in the Flogging reel above {c}BG{A}GF etc would be obviously so but I suppose we could argue about the function there if you'd delay the cut and play {Bc}B2 {GA}GF DG{A}G where the simple cut, by delaying it and changing the placement of it to a slightly later point is significant to how the phrase will come out. It's a statement (to a close listener anyway). Articulation or ornament? A bit of both I'd suggest in this case as it's not completely utilitarian in its use, there's a distinct decorative element there as well.


FWIW, I enjoy churning these things around a bit, and hear different points of view. I am not too hassled about the label anyone wants to stick on these things. Not trying to prove anything right or wrong, in other words.

[Steve Bliven]

I see nobody has dived into this one. Well I reckon it's another case of both approaches (let's call them "straight" and "swung" rolls for the purposes of this discussion) being valid and working well in different situations and different playing styles......

....But for what I call off-beat rolls, well you can't swing them IMO. I've only heard one player try (a flash youngster who obviously listened to a lot of Flooky stuff) and it sounded terrible.

Maybe it's different for pipers?

I follow the "straight" and "swung" rolls concept and where you suggest they do/don't fit. But I lost you with the "what I call off-beat rolls". Perhaps an example would uncloud my mind....

And harkening the pipers? They'll just take this to whole new planes of controversy

Very much enjoying the subtleties of this conversation from folks with lots of experience with the tradition.

Thanks and best wishes.

Steve

[Mr.Gumby]

Off-beat rolls are these ones like fB ~B2 although some people would write f ~B3 but that's another one open for loads of discussion (and we've done it a few times already so maybe not again right now).

I'd strongly feel the first one is the correct rendition (or at least has always been the standard way of writing it, see Breathnach, Mitchell, Small etc) but in recent years the second has appeared on the internet, a lot, based on the three notes 'articulated by cut and tap' thinking.

[tstermitz]

Off Beat Rolls.

Typically a roll is placed on the strong beat at the start of the measure to add emphasis. An off beat roll is where the roll happens NOT on the strong beat, say on the last three notes of a group, or even across groups or across measures.

Brother Steve's website has some good explanations of this. Although his Long-roll and short roll page isn't linked to the main menu:

http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/b ... rolls.html

[Mr.Gumby]

Typically a roll is placed on the strong beat at the start of the measure to add emphasis.

It is pretty common to shift the emphasis in a tune by moving a 'normal' (short) roll and I am not sure the effect is the same as what Steve calls 'off beat rolls'

eg: B2 ~B2 BGEF|GABd efg (vs ~B3 A BGEF|GABd efg or ~B2Ac BE ~E2| ~G2 (3Bcd efg, the latter a configuration that nicely calls the whole articulation vs ornamentation question back into focus)

which is a distinctly stronger effect than when played for example as GB ~B2 BGEF|GABd efg especially when taken as

Bz ~B2 BGEF|GABd efg

where the strong beat is strengthened much more by moving the roll away from it and creating a bit of space/silence (I am partly thinking with my piper's cap on here but it equally applies to the whistle)