Slurring notes vs Playing Legato

[m_abukhalid]

Hello all,

I am having a little trouble differentiating between the two from the recordings and online lessons that Ive seen. My little peek into classical flute indicated you can articulate legato by using the more gentle "du" instead of the "tu" tonguing. Slurring would be where you keep the constant flow of air and just transition smoothly to the new note with no tonguing. This kind of aligns with my previous understanding of staccato, legato and slurs on the violin and guitar.

For the irish music on the flute, I understand that we primarly use glottal stops as opposed to tonguing to articulate notes and Im trying to practice that. But are there different degrees of glottal stops that would take you from staccato to legato or is the standard approach in ITM to slur the notes and use glottal stops to articulate specific notes you want to play staccato? Its difficult for me at the moment to tell from the videos whether the player is doing a very subtle glottal stop on each note or just slurring the notes.

[Nanohedron]

In Irish trad flute, note articulation is primarily done by gracing; that is the trad solution to the dilemma of how to articulate while playing legato. Sometimes it's so subtle you don't even realize you're hearing it. Tonguing and glottal stops should not be your first choice, but should instead be kept in the pocket, if they are to be kept at all, as a sometime adjunct for the sake of occasionally stronger punctuation. But make no mistake: In trad flute playing, tonguing and glottal stops are completely unnecessary, so using them is a matter of personal choice, or in many cases, habit. Heavy use of them will be more detrimental to a good trad sound than not, so if you use them, sparingly is usually best. One may certainly play in good trad fashion using no tonguing or glottal stops at all, instead doing everything you need with just the fingers; this is in fact the iconic model. Of course opinions differ, but indeed, some trad fluteplayers regard tonguing as a fault. So think about that.

In my humble opinion, glottal stops and tonguing would best be used to articulate rhythm, if they are to be used at all. For my personal taste, using the breath in a pulsing fashion is more effective to that end. It helps to remember that trad playing is its own unique discipline with its own goals, independent of classical fluteplaying standards.

That's roughly the general trad outline, anyway: the real business of articulation is all in the fingers. I would strongly urge you to study the Irish manner of gracing if you wish to pursue this seriously; without it, you'll be technically and stylistically rudderless.

[m_abukhalid]

Thanks for the reply! That clears it up nicely.

[Nanohedron]

Glad to be of help.

Oh, and do a lot of active listening to good players, too, so you can hear how they apply these things.

[jim stone]

I think Nano is making excellent sense, and here is another view, which I learned at the Saint Louis Tional (hint, hint). Tonguing is frowned upon, finger articulation is fine---and glottal stops go on the articulation side of things. They are expressive, give one an interesting way to attack a note one wnats to emphasize; and you can refine glottals so that they can be staccato. The way to practice, IMHO, is to whistle (mouth whistle) the tune. Generally when we do this we stop between notes. Those stops are glottals and you can do the same thing (occasionally) on the flute. This is in no sense meant to replace regular ornamentation, it's just added to the mix.

[tstermitz]

Probably you should get the Grey Larsen book, as he has an experienced and comprehensive viewpoint.

Personally, I use cuts, taps & rolls a lot, tonguing a little, breath pulses somewhat, but no glottal stops. I think glottal stops are used by a small minority of players, but I have no data to back that up.

I agree with the viewpoint that you should play without any tonguing at first, to become adept with the legato flow of notes, but using cuts as you need them.

[jim stone]

Here's somebody using glottals (know cause she taught me). I think a lot of people are confused and think there's something arcane. As mentioned, we do it when we mouth-whistle. It can be a very samll catch in the breath, one that helps articulate the next note. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh2Z1JY3h9w

[Mr.Gumby]

Another thread referred to Harry Bradley's work explaining the use of breath in flute playing. I have no direct link to it but you could do worse than looking that up.

[NicoMoreno]

Hammy Hamilton mentioned in a workshop I took with him (2007 maybe?) that he thought 90% or so of traditional irish flute players used glottal stops. I assume he meant at a professional level, and of course my memory may be off.

Harry does them a lot, and Mr.Gumby's link does point to Harry's audio blog that has a bunch of fantastic clips of his flute playing. At the end of the ones where he plays John McKenna tunes, he demonstrates his rhythm with the breath and glottal stop combination. I think on one of the posts he describes it, too.

[NicoMoreno]

Here's a link to the first one:
http://errantelbows.podbean.com/e/mcken ... l-track-1/

Interestingly, Harry is pretty careful to say that he doesn't do glottal "stops".

[ScottMaurer]

Interestingly, I was doing precisely the same thing as described there by way of imitation without realized that was what I was doing exactly. The technique seems to me to be a fair bit easier to do than describe. I agree with Harry though, it is not a stop, its a pulse that creates rhythmic separation between notes.

[bradhurley]

I think the key here is that there are different styles of playing the flute, and even the same player will take different approaches for different tunes: some tunes call out to be played more staccato and others more flowing and legato, plus passages within the same tune can be taken different ways.

Conal O'Grada says it well in his flute tutor: "Glottal stops are an integral part of some flute styles (e.g., Patsy Hanly, Catherine McEvoy, Harry Bradley, Matt Molloy and, of course my own). Some players use a lot of glottal stops (I use them on almost every single note), while others do not use them at all (e.g., Aoife Granville)."

Not everyone views a stop as an actual stop, as we've seen in Harry's case, but I think it's fair to say that breath articulation plays as important a role as finger articulation for many flute players. In fact as an experiment I've tried playing tunes with no finger ornamentation at all, just using glottal stops and breath pulses to separate the notes, and it sounds pretty good to me. Jack Coen's playing wasn't too far from that, in fact: he never used rolls, just cuts, triplets, and the occasional crann on the second-octave d. It was interesting to contrast his playing with Mike Rafferty's on the same tunes: Mike's was more smooth and flowing, although he too used plenty of glottal stops (at least what I call glottal stops) as you can hear in his recordings because he vocalized when he did them.

The flute and the whistle and the uilleann pipes all have the ability to insert silence between notes. It's a great option to have, and there's no reason not to do it.

[Peter Duggan]

The flute and the whistle and the uilleann pipes all have the ability to insert silence between notes. It's a great option to have, and there's no reason not to do it.

This!

Pure legato with nothing but finger articulation may suit some tunes/styles but, if maintained as dogma, ultimately prove to be a way of avoiding decisions (like which notes to separate or slur) that would have enhanced others. And, while you may (probably should!) treat such use of articulation and silence differently playing the same tunes on the three different instruments, there is, like Brad says, no reason not to do it.

[m_abukhalid]

Good evening!

I did get Grey Larsen's book and have been using it a fair bit as a reference whenever Im trying to understand a concept but found it difficult to go through it sequentially as a method book. I did look up this topic in it but it didn't really clarify this particular question for me. I like June McCormack's Fluit book and have been practicing the exercises for cuts as well as Tripping to the Well as a first tune from her recording. However, aside from great guidance on what ornaments to use there's not much textual guidance in the book with regards to breathing. Its forcing me to train my ear to listen to whats happening on her recordings, but I still have a ways to go.

The demonstration of the pulses on Harry Bradley's site is fantastic, thank you very much for the link! I think it is inline with what Nanohedron was saying regarding using pulsing/glottal stops to articulate rhythm. I will follow the podcast and listen to more of his examples for sure, especially as related to tunes Im working on. For now I guess I will continue with the challenging task of playing the tune by slurring the notes and using cuts to articulate as indicated in the Fluit book. Once I have that down, it would be interesting to play with the breath pulses (sounds itense though!) to try to emphasize the rhythm.

[Nanohedron]

The flute and the whistle and the uilleann pipes all have the ability to insert silence between notes. It's a great option to have, and there's no reason not to do it.

This!

Pure legato with nothing but finger articulation may suit some tunes/styles but, if maintained as dogma, ultimately prove to be a way of avoiding decisions (like which notes to separate or slur) that would have enhanced others. And, while you may (probably should!) treat such use of articulation and silence differently playing the same tunes on the three different instruments, there is, like Brad says, no reason not to do it.

I totally agree. Some tunes call out to be treated differently than others, and then there's ultimately the matter of personal style that one grows into.

In writing what I did, I want to stress that the OP was concerned with how to play legato while at the same time articulating notes; therefore my advice was that finger articulation is basic to the purpose in the trad idiom. I don't think this is a mistake. It was never my intent to suggest that flowy legato playing should be the only way; my apologies if I was ever misunderstood. Get the gracing and ornamentation down, and then yes, by all means, play with the rest. Even within the confines of trad, it's a big world.