Nice Irishy Tutorial

[Ganymede Piggot]

I don't usually play this style but have been enjoying this video, in particular learning what a couple of ornaments I'd heard before but not decoded are, a light speed mordant, and a light speed 5-note figure called a roll.  The roll sounds good with about 25% scratch added 

 

[palousian]

I don't think this is a very good video for learning Irish ornamentation... She plays with pretty good phrasing/bowing, so overall there is some good advice here... but the "light speed mordant" is kinda BS, and especially bad advice for violinists interested in Irish music.  She shows herself actually fingering the note.  Nope, don't do that.  First off, it isn't a mordant. No one in Ireland calls it that. The Irish call this a "cut" because it imitates the "cuts" done on whistle, flute, and pipes.  Done properly, you speed up the bow a little and TOUCH the note--do NOT push it down.  It should pop a bit, and you shouldn't really hear the pitch of that adjacent note.  This is hard for violinists because you're trained always to finger the note, but... not how it's done.  Also, she fingers the adjacent note to her first finger, and (though she mentions it in passing) the third finger, not the second, generally cuts the first finger note, though the second finger is used, depending on context.  The roll she demonstrates is, I'm sorry, a disaster.  For one thing, on the first finger, it is virtually always the third finger that plays the upper note, but again... DON'T push it down!  Then the lower note involves just barely lifting the first finger.  Again, the ornament should "pop," with a little more bow speed.  The way she is showing this will make violinists play all the five notes, like a "turn."  You will never, ever get that fast enough.  Oddly, she seems to have a lighter touch when she speeds up, but she fingers it incorrectly, and her description is a mess.  But her sound on it is in the ballpark.  I have seen two descriptions for doing a roll that are more helpful than what you see here.  The first came from my teacher, Tomás Glackin, patriarch of the mightly Glackin fiddling clan--he taught me that a roll is a cut, plus a light triplet.  So on the first or second finger, you generally use the third finger to cut, then immediately lift the first finger, just barely, to produce the lower note.  On the second finger, your first finger is sitting there for the same purpose.  The second explanation comes from Kevin Burke, who might have the most elegant rolls on the planet.  He also describes it more or less as Tomás Glackin did but sometimes he'll say that each note gets faster in a roll, along with the bow.  He also does not finger the upper note, and the lower "triplet" is the light touch I describe.  Anyway, you don't hear five notes in a properly-played roll.  I just found a video of Kevin Burke showing how to play a roll.  THIS is how you do it!!  Good luck out there! 

 

 

[Ganymede Piggot]

She's a she-devil standing agin the clan!