For me, personally, ornamentation is the biggest hurdle when thinking about playing Irish flute and whistle. Coming from a “classical” flute background where everything is specifically notated, our biggest problem is “does that grace note come before the beat or on the beat?” and “does that trill start from the primary note or the note above?” In the world of folk/traditional music, it’s pretty rare that any particular bit of ornamentation is prescribed for the player. Rather, the melody will be written out in its simplest manner, and it’s left to the player to ornament the line as they see fit. This is pretty crazy, given that ornamentation might actually be the most important part of playing Irish music. The ornamentation is what undoubtedly gives this music it’s characteristic sound.
Primarily, there are three types of “single-note” or basic ornamentation:
- Slides
- Cuts
- Strikes/Taps
and two main types of “multi-note” or advanced ornamentation:
- Rolls (Single, or Short; and Double, or Long)
- Cranns
While vibrato is technically a type of ornamentation, I’ll cover that on its own page.
Single-Note Ornamentation
Slides
Slides are essentially a portamento from one note to another, much like on a violin. They are almost always diatonic (one note to its neighbor within the key signature), avoiding cross-fingerings or half-holing, but exceptions do exist. Slides are most commonly seen sliding upwards (from an E to an F#, for example), but you can definitely slide downwards, as well. Because of the construction of the instrument you do have some physical limits. Slides from C-sharp to D generally aren’t possible because you’re moving more than one finger at a time. So, most often you’ll see upwards slides from D to E, E to F-sharp, F-sharp to G, G to A, A to B, or B to C-sharp, with the inverse for downwards slides.
In order to properly execute a slide, you want to try your best to glide your finger “north-south” on the whistle (that is, from the fipple to the end of the whistle, or vice-versa). If you have larger hands, this can be particularly challenging, specifically because of the limited amount of space between the finger holes. You’ll often see players “cheat” at this by gliding their finger “east-west”. Personally, I don’t notice much of a difference between the two directions, but some purists might. Much like almost everything else on the whistle or flute, do what works best for you.
Taps (or “Strikes”)
Taps (sometimes called “strikes) are a great way to re-articulate a note without using your tongue. It’s essentially a very (very, very, very) fast grace note of the note below the note you’re trying to play. For example, you can play a G, without interrupting your airflow, and insert two F-sharp taps, and the end product will sound like you played three separate G’s (but with an “Irish” articulation).
Again, because of the construction of the instrument, you are somewhat limited in where you can place a tap. There’s no finger hole below a D, so you can’t “tap” a D (which would have been the non-existent C-sharp hole that gets “tapped” and the D as the primary note). Even in higher octaves, you can’t tap a C-sharp to D, because the characteristic of the sound is coming from the finger stopping the air for an extremely short period of time (milliseconds, probably); this would just be a C-sharp to D grace note.
Cuts
Cuts are often described as “the opposite of taps”, but I think that’s an oversimplification. To me, as a classical flute player, that would tell me “ok, then just play an F-sharp before the E, right?” Wrong!
I think a much better way to describe it would be to keep the “note finger” down and momentarily lift a higher finger. For example, if you’re playing a low E and you want to cut it, resist the temptation to lift that fifth finger (the “E finger”) to play a normal F-sharp grace note. On a cut, you’ll play a normal low E, (and here’s the important part), keep that E finger glued to the tone hole, and you’ll momentarily lift a finger higher up the instrument. From here, there are a couple schools of thought – but the thing that shocked me the most at first is that this new grace note is not a “real” note fingering at all. You would likely never use that fingering (the one for the momentary grace note) for any normal note in any normal situation*. This is just a way to play with the acoustics of the instrument and create a higher sound that breaks up the primary note.
*Disclaimer: Like many things on the whistle, there are a few ways to approach the specifics of this technique. Which finger to use when “cutting” is one topic that has many answers to it – not many of which are wrong. Depending on which system of cutting you choose to adopt, some of the cut notes (or “grace notes”, if that’s what you prefer to call them) may end up coincidentally being the fingerings of real, actual notes. The point, though, is that the listener isn’t meant to hear the “cutting” note. It’s meant to be a momentary change in the sound to help restart and decorate the primary note.
Some people prefer to always use the finger above the “note finger”. For example, if you were playing a D, you would cut with the E finger. If you were playing an E, you would cut with the F-sharp finger.
Some people say to always use the finger two above the “note finger”. For example, if you were playing a D, you would cut with the F-sharp finger. I think this creates a nice sound (on the whistles I primarily use – but that could be different on whistles from other makers), but it does also present a problem with running out of room on the instrument. Since there isn’t a C-sharp “finger”, you can’t really use this method to cut on an A.
Because both of these methods will produce a sound that cuts the note, they’re both usable, so some people prefer a combination of the two. Some will always cut notes in the right hand with the G or F-sharp finger and notes in the left hand with the B finger. As explained in the video below, whistletutor Sean Cunningham prefers to use the G finger to cut D, E, F-sharp, and G, while using the B finger to cut A and B.
Personally, I find that my left hand ring finger just happens to be the slowest moving finger that exists within a 50-mile range, so I try to avoid using that when speed is important. (When playing Boehm-system flute – or especially piccolo – I’ve been known to – quite often, too – absolutely cheat by use my right hand ring finger and reach over to the left hand “G” key when a G to A trill (or even G to A-flat, sometimes – and also on high D to E).
The takeaway here is that, like many aspects of playing Irish flute or whistle, you’ve got options. The main parameter here is to keep down the “note finger” and lift up a higher finger and then replace it as quickly as possible. Depending on how you think on the fly, you may want to find a system that establishes a specific finger to cut with for each note, or you may want to come up with a system that lets you use two or three specific fingers for all your notes. Maybe you’re the type of person who adjusts what you do, depending on the musical context. Whatever you decide works best for you is what will ultimately work best for you.
Bonus tip: I always had trouble remembering which one was a cut and which was a tap. I finally remembered it by thinking that a cut literally “cuts” my fingers into two groups with a hole in the middle when I lift a finger. A tap is when I literally tap on a finger hole.
Multi-Note Ornamentation
Rolls
Once you’ve mastered cuts and taps, a roll is easy to put together. In a roll, you’re essentially playing a primary, cutting it, and then playing the primary note again, and tapping it, which brings you back to the prinary note. This gives you 5 distinct sounds. For example, if you were rolling an E, you would play:
- E
- the “cut” note of an E, depending on your preferred method
- E
- the “tap” of the E (which is essentially a quick D)
- E
Since this is a combination of a cut and a tap, the same limitations of both cuts and taps applies. You can only roll on an E, F-sharp, G, A, or B.
Here’s a great video from Sean Cunningham that explains the slide, cut, tap, and roll:
Cranns
A crann (or cran) is an augmentation of the cut. Just like how the roll uses a cut and then a tap, the crann uses three cuts. However, this is where you’ll have to change whatever system you use for cutting, because you have to use three distinct cuts. Again, because of the construction of the whistle, you can really only do a crann on D or E. And again, like most things within the world of Irish music, there are multiple ways to do it.
The proper way to play a crann is to play the primary note, and then cut with the third finger above the primary note, then the first finger above the primary note, and then the second finger above the primary note. For example, if you’re doing a crann on a D, you’ll play:
- D
- cut with the G finger
- D
- cut with the E finger
- D
- cut with the F-sharp finger
- D
Some people, like Sean Cunningham, will cut with G, then F-sharp, and then E. See this video for a demonstration of Sean’s technique.