Submitted by happybean98 on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 09:02

Hi Sean, I just discovered your website today and have already picked up a few tips for my playing. Thanks! My question is about where to find sheet music with the embellishments marked on the music. I am able to play rolls, cuts, strikes and crans if the tune shows where to place them but I don't yet have the musical intuition to know how to put them into a tune myself. Do I just need to listen to music played live to figure this out? I have several instructional books of music but they only note the ornaments on a handful of the tunes and the rest are unmarked. Any tips on this? Thank you. Kathleen

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Hmm, that's a good question

Submitted by Sean on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 10:51.

Hmm, that's a good question -- I've seen a few "teach yourself whistle" type books that put ornamentation in the tune's sheet music but I've never seen a true tune book (such as O'Neill's, for example) that does so. Interestingly enough (well, to me...) Highland bagpipe notation always includes the exact ornamentation meant to be played with the particular tune, yet that tradition did not carry over to Irish traditional music. I'm not a publisher myself, but I'd imagine that the reason that such notation is so hard to find is because the style of music allows for so much variation -- some players choose to use a lot of ornamentation, others are very sparse.

It's a bit hard to explain exactly where to put embellishments because in Irish music there is no exactly. My advice would be to listen to a bunch of different players (whistle and otherwise) to get an idea for the style of ornamentation that suits your ear the best, and try to emulate that. As you're playing more, you'll naturally develop your own style.

Thanks for the advice! I'm

Submitted by happybean98 on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 10:30.

Thanks for the advice! I'm also looking into attending a session if I can find one close by. Maybe if I immerse myself in the music and have a chance to play along it may help me to get a better "feel" for how it is supposed to sound. I feel like I've learned an entire language from a textbook and never actually had a conversation with anyone yet. I can "read" the music from paper but I can't "speak" it yet. Does that make sense? I'll see if I can get a few more recordings and try and pick out what is being played.

Sessions are definitely a

Submitted by Sean on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:09.

Sessions are definitely a good idea -- I spent several years at some great sessions in New York with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and the whistle sitting on the table because I didn't know many tunes. Make sure you do a lot of listening and even record the sessions, if the other musicians are alright with it.

There's a lot of subtlety to traditional music which really can't be conveyed on paper. Good recordings and good sessions are a great way to get an understanding of the difference between the notes on the page and the notes as they're played.