upper range

[RodCH]

If "ornaments" means hammer-ons and pull-offs, I do them up to about the 10th or 12th no problem. If I don't know what "ornaments" means then please disregard. Would not surprise me.

[MontanaMatt]

If "ornaments" means hammer-ons and pull-offs, I do them up to about the 10th or 12th no problem. If I don't know what "ornaments" means then please disregard. Would not surprise me.

I thought ornaments went on the holiday tree...

[Beanzy]

Mostly rolls, crans and trills in Irish trad, also cuts & tips on the fiddle, but they're a bugger to replicate on the mandolin. You can easily do ornaments like slides up the fretboard, but they get a bit 'tired' if you do many.

[foldedpath]

If "ornaments" means hammer-ons and pull-offs, I do them up to about the 10th or 12th no problem. If I don't know what "ornaments" means then please disregard. Would not surprise me.

In the context of Irish (and related) traditional music, a better word is probably "articulations" around the bare notes of the tune. "Ornaments" is how it's usually written in Internet conversations, although it tends to get confused with "grace notes" in Classical music. It's not the same thing, because these articulations are never written down in sheet music. It's up to the individual player.

Those of us who play Irish trad have to learn how to fake some of the articulations that fiddlers, pipers, and flute players do. Not just the quick triplet "treble" ornament we steal from the tenor banjo players, but also approximating cuts and rolls with hammers and pull-offs. Playing in first position allows a wealth of opportunity for these techniques. When you move up the neck, those opportunities are diminished because at least ONE of your fingers is now tied up where it isn't in first position, and you're also losing the sustain of open strings. If you're going to fake a fiddle roll, it really, really helps to have an open string handy to pull it off!

I thought ornaments went on the holiday tree...

Irish music without ornaments is like a Christmas Tree (or "Hanukkah Bush" in my family) standing there bare, without any ornaments at all. Just a sad tree. the bare skeleton of the tune.


I'm trying to keep an open mind here, and waiting to see some great examples of Irish or Scottish trad on mandolin in the usual keys these tunes are played in, and where the player is working out of closed positions up the neck instead of first position. Bring it on.

[foldedpath]

One more post and then I think I'm done. I've been working for a few years now on trying to figure out how to fake a fiddle roll on mandolin.

I posted the clip below in an earlier thread about rolls -- a jig called "Tony Malloy's." The fake fiddle roll with hammers and pull-offs is in the A parts, very quiet compared to the "treble" (triplet) ornaments, and I'm working on that. Need harder calluses, basically. And it will never be heard in a typical Irish session, but this is for solo playing. i only play trebles in sessions.

http://ptjams.com/mb/mp3/Mandolin%20Roll%20Demo.mp3

It's a very raw, rough recording of me on mandolin with no processing and the tempo is a little shaky. But you know what? Most of the tunes I've heard posted here and on YouTube on mandolin are too darned slow!

This music isn't slow, at least not the dance stuff. If you want to play this on mandolin, you'd better be able to keep up with the fiddlers and pipers. That's where a lot of this first position discussion lies; in the pure efficiency of not shifting your hands out of first position when you're playing fast.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone thinks this kind of "fiddle tune" could be improved by moving up the neck on a mandolin, while staying within the genre conventions and being able to play along with a fiddler at this tempo. And this isn't even getting close to what a session playing reels is like.

[trabb]

Foldedpath - thank you for sharing that clip. I'm not about to weigh in on the debate that's happening here but I've been reading with interest and trying to figure out what you mean by some of the different ornamentation you're talking about. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Hearing it helps.

[DavidKOS]

I have to admit, I find this discussion a bit puzzling. I am really trying to understand the argument for never playing up the neck, but I just don't get it. Maybe, just maybe, the argument can be made for specific genres, but overall. . .really?

.....
From this thread, I am getting the impression that there are mandolin players who have no interest above first position. I see a potential untapped market for Luthiers. Why not offer a discount model with only seven or so frets? Perhaps buyers who have no interest in a full neck of frets would be able to afford a higher-end instrument if those frets were eliminated. There must be some cost savings to be had.

I love that last part!

There is no problem with people NOT using the full range of the mandolin. If it suits their musical style, no skin off my back if they limit the range they use.

However I am in favor of having the full "Florida" range on the fingerboard...yup, even those frets many folks remove!

So I too have never understood the bias AGAINST the upper frets.



Yes...I use ALL of those frets at the appropriate time.

[JeffD]

Maybe you're better at this than I am, but that would slow me down. In some sessions it's hard enough keeping up with the Alpha fiddlers at their preferred tempos. Reaching out of position means a hand shift up, and a hand shift back down again. It seems to me that it's always more efficient (i.e. faster) not to shift your hand, if you don't have to.

I agree. Shifting itself adds its own weight of effort.

How many people here are actually playing Irish and Scottish trad music on mandolin in local sessions, where you're frequently playing up the neck? .

I can't speak for anyone but myself and my experience. My answer to the above question is yes, and frequently.

But my experience is that I have been pursuing classical mandolin techniques for a while now, and FFcP and other exercises and stuff, and just by tenacity and lack of a social life gotten somewhat better at shifting up the neck. The result is that I am doing it with everything now, and finding all kinds of places where it increases my ability to play the tune, to play faster, to notice increased opportunities for double stops, for making certain ornaments more easily, and where the genre supports it, to improvise. So for me it is that the increased ease with which I find climbing up the neck is leaking through to every genre. Even those genres like fiddle tunes and traditional Irish, Scottish etc., where one can do an amazing job in first position.

So the yea, even the genres that don't require it, as long as it doesn't clash with the style.

[foldedpath]

So I too have never understood the bias AGAINST the upper frets.

To be perfectly clear -- in my case and with my posts above in this thread, there is no bias AGAINST the upper frets. I've played up there in the past, when it makes sense for the music I'm playing.

My bias (and that's not quite the right term) is against those who tell me that because the music I want to play naturally lies in first position, and all my friends and session-mates on fiddles and mandolins play this music in first position, that there is something I'm missing out by not using the upper frets. That I'm somehow playing this music wrong because I'm in first position. Or that it's "boring," "stale," or whatever just because it's in first position.

That's ridiculous.

[DavidKOS]

My bias (and that's not quite the right term) is against those who tell me that because the music I want to play naturally lies in first position, and all my friends and session-mates on fiddles and mandolins play this music in first position, that there is something I'm missing out by not using the upper frets. That I'm somehow playing this music wrong because I'm in first position. Or that it's "boring," "stale," or whatever just because it's in first position.

Although I personally use the whole fingerboard, it is NOT a requirement and is indeed not needed for specific styles of music.

I do appreciate that in your case it is a choice to use mostly 1st position, not a technical limitation.

Big difference.

[stevedenver]

Speaking of technical limitations, i play way high regularly.

However, getting passable clarity or sustain above fret 21 is my limitation (among others fwiw).

Even with purposeful attempts, finger nail, finger tip , cant get more than a pitched plink.

How to get clarity and sustain, if you know, please?

[Beanzy]

The further up you go the nearer the bridge you need to pick. It's always going to be lesssustain as you've less mass moving, so making sure your plectrum advances in proportion to your left hand shuffles the sweet spot along.

One effect which gets some way around this is 'false harmonics'; where you fret a corresponding note then use another finger to creat a harmonic of the now shortened string. I'm still driving myself daft trying to get this to work consistently anywhere I try it, and where to fret, pluck and flick the harmonic are a constantly moving crossword puzzle for me still, so it's only on a few 'trick notes' that I've memorised where I can even begin to fit it in without grinding to a halt.

Speaking of grinding to a halt. I can play loads of different trills, mordents & grace notes up the board when I play other styles, (Haydn is great for those) but when playing Irish trad I don't think I've even considered moving up the fretboard. I'm sure I've probably done it at the end of a tune for a laugh, but in the thick of a set, it's all got so much else going on it would be a bit of a distraction from the job in hand and I just know I'd go and lose the drive and swing of the tune as soon as I began to think about it. I do it all the time in a BG solo without thinking, but I tend not to be relying on ornamentation as much in those, I tend to be involved in streams of notes, or a burst of tremolo, rather than trying to decorate the notes.
It would remind me a bit of when you'd hear the newsreader on an Nuacht reading away, then they'd hit a word or name with no Irish equivalent so it would get dropped in. It certainly wasn't 'wrong' but it sure stuck out like a sore thumb.

[DavidKOS]

Speaking of technical limitations, i play way high regularly.

However, getting passable clarity or sustain above fret 21 is my limitation (among others fwiw).

Even with purposeful attempts, finger nail, finger tip , cant get more than a pitched plink.

How to get clarity and sustain, if you know, please?

That's what tremolo is for!

[JeffD]

That's what tremolo is for!

There it is.

[stevedenver]

Trem is an option i know. Not always what fits the tune, though.