picking a jig- dud-udu, or dud-dud ?

[Loretta Callahan]

DUD DUD and DUU DUU is really hard to play ~ even with a jig I know well. I can certainly hear that jig rhythm in the picking sequence, but I can get a very nice jig rhythm with with my very vanilla DUDUDUDU. I'm not gonna worry about it now.

I'm just happy that I finally nailed Kid on the Mountain after two months ~ with no finger or wrist pain; just gonna work on the rhythm and feeling of that tune 'cause it feeds my spirit. Maybe I'll find that I need to change my picking style later in my practice or in the next life or something. This isn't a contest or school exercise for me; it's music that I like to hear and play. For others, it might be different, which is fine.

Personally, after 8 childhood years of a fundamentalist piano teacher's edicts killing any desire in me to ever touch a piano again, ever, I'll stick with the spirit of the music and play and appreciate what floats my boat ~ no matter who says "always", "never" or "must". That's just me. Many rules are very necessary and good ~ and some may keep us from getting sore fingers and carpal tunnel, others are made to be broken, imho. I won't play a mandolin with a chain saw, for example.

[Jill McAuley]

Jill, thanks for the info...Looks like a rare shopping trip (to Best Buy) is in order.
Another question, how does one know the shot is well framed on the flip when working alone? It appears that the shot perspective can only be seen from a user behind the camera.
(Oh, and Jill, I'm quite impressed you are posting at 6:18 am your time.)

That is one of the drawbacks of the Flip/Q3 - the whole shot perspective thing, but for improved video-audio I reckon I'll be able to deal with that!

Cheers,
Jill

[Eddie Sheehy]

Positioning a mirror behind the Q3 can help in framing the video...

[Jill McAuley]

Ah, great idea - thanks for that one Eddie!

Cheers,
Jill

[Randi Gormley]

Well, yes, it should have been 6/8 sted 3/4. my blushes.

[Ed Goist]

Positioning a mirror behind the Q3 can help in framing the video...

This IS a great idea, and it will make me look like Hendrix...Always a good thing.

[ampyjoe]

Ed, great job. That sounded really nice. I will be interested to follow your progress as you get to session speeds. I hope you let us know, it may provide some inspiration.

I clocked you at about 85 BPM on that. In the sessions I go to, that would get played at 130 minimum, sometimes up to 150. That has been my problem with DUD DUD. I practice with a metronome and can do DUD DUD up to about 96 BPM. But I hit a "wall" somewhere after that, depending on the tune. I can practice and practice and not break through it. Sometimes I practice and lose ground! But with DUD UDU I can get to sessions speeds with a reasonable amount of practice.

My dilemma is: Do I spend who knows how long "re-tooling" my picking pattern, all the while not being able to play jigs at sessions, or do I get up to session speeds in a reasonable amount of time, all the while further ingraining my alternate picking pattern?

I'm not terribly used to using a metronome, but I tried 130 (on a web page metronome) and I found picking DUD doable. The jig sounded to me on the fast side, but not ridiculously so. 150 on the other hand sounded to me way over fast, and not like a jig at all, though I suppose a better player might be able to make it sound jig-like.

Perhaps because I'm used to playing DUD, I find no advantage (speed-wise) in playing jigs DUD UDU. However, for runs of triplets in hornpipes, yes, it can help quite a lot if the hornpipe is going fast.

[mikeyes]

Well, I've been working on DUD DUD for a while, but I am about to give up on it. I find the concept is holding me back rather than empowering me. I can keep up at sessions with DUD UDU. I fall off the track with DUD DUD.

I do have a couple of counter points. It's already been pointed out that Enda Scahill's book says you can do it either way. Gerry O'Connor's "Complete..." book doesn't make a deal out of it one way or another. ?

I'm not an absolutist on this subject, but I have found DUD DUD the best way to learn jigs before you really start to play them in a serious manner. By that I mean that the DUD DUD form is much more likely to give you the lift a jig needs when you are learning to play. Later on, once you develop a style, almost anything goes.

Both Enda Scahill and Gerry O'Connor have told me that they teach DUD DUD to beginners for the same reason. While it is possible to play jigs well with DUDUDU, it does handicap you as a beginner. All the people mentioned who don't play exclusively DUD DUD have a lot of talent and are elite players. At that level guidelines are not as important as they are in the beginning.

Mike

[Dagger Gordon]

"I'm not an absolutist on this subject, but I have found DUD DUD the best way to learn jigs before you really start to play them in a serious manner. By that I mean that the DUD DUD form is much more likely to give you the lift a jig needs when you are learning to play. Later on, once you develop a style, almost anything goes."

A fair point, Mike. I can certainly see the benefit of learning jigs using DUD DUD, if for no other reason than that you are then playing sufficiently slowly to be aware of what you are doing.

But frankly, I would be surprised if many people were able to say exactly what they were doing when they were playing at full tilt. I certainly couldn't.

One comment which I usually make when this subject comes up is that the first time I ever heard of the DUD DUD jig picking pattern was here on Mandolin Cafe, by which time I'd been playing for about 30 years. No-one had ever said anything about it to me before - ever.
I've no idea whether Enda Scahill or Gerry O'Connor were told about this when they were young, but I suspect that when they started they just worked it out for themselves. They knew what jigs were meant to sound like, after all.
Maybe not, though. It could be that Irish tenor banjo has always been taught that way.

It seems to me that the emphasis in Irish tenor banjo playing has always been to get in lots of triplets, which in itself is surely going to affect the direction of your pick.

[Steve L]

"But frankly, I would be surprised if many people were able to say exactly what they were doing when they were playing at full tilt. I certainly couldn't."

Dagger Gordon


Ah, the truth at last!

[Loretta Callahan]

I always wondered about that. Maybe we beginners aren't s'posed to know this stuff

"But frankly, I would be surprised if many people were able to say exactly what they were doing when they were playing at full tilt. I certainly couldn't."

Dagger Gordon


Ah, the truth at last!

[Jill McAuley]

Maybe not, though. It could be that Irish tenor banjo has always been taught that way.

It seems to me that the emphasis in Irish tenor banjo playing has always been to get in lots of triplets, which in itself is surely going to affect the direction of your pick.

I think Dagger has an excellent point here - I do think a lot of tenor banjo approaches and techniques are automatically applied to the mandolin back home - I've rarely come across folk at home who would class themselves as purely trad mandolinists - rather I meet folks who play tenor banjo as well as mandolin. Many would primarily consider themselves banjo players in fact. Sure I myself play jigs DUD DUD on the mandolin because that's how I was taught them on the tenor banjo!

As Dagger stated re: Enda Scahill and Gerry O'Connor -they knew what jigs where meant to sound like and that to me is the key issue. Really and truly, folks who are new to Irish trad/Celtic music would do well to listen to LOADS of it as much as they can, so that they too can know what a jig is meant to sound like.

Cheers,
Jill

[Avi Ziv]

Really and truly, folks who are new to Irish trad/Celtic music would do well to listen to LOADS of it as much as they can, so that they too can know what a jig is meant to sound like.

Cheers,
Jill

Amen !!

btw - I must be in a minority as one who is primarily a mandolin player and picked up the banjo much later. I do approach the two instruments differently though.

[Jill McAuley]

Actually I find that there's a fair few folks here in the States who start on mandolin and then get a banjo later, whereas at home I meet a lot of tenor players, especially younger ones, who got a mandolin mainly as a way to have another category to compete in at the All Ireland! Also interestingly, I was exchanging emails a few years back with a fella from the States who'd gone over and competed on the mandolin at the All Ireland - he said he noticed that most of the other competitors approached the mandolin from a very tenor banjo-ish slant as regards technique and ornamentation.

Cheers,
Jill

[mikeyes]

But frankly, I would be surprised if many people were able to say exactly what they were doing when they were playing at full tilt. I certainly couldn't..

Both Enda Scahill and GO'C are very good mandolin players, I think Enda is an All-Ireland player if I am not mistaken. Both of them are familiar with the peculiar aspects of the mandolin.

What Dagger says about elite level performers is true in many fields (that they often don't know exactly what they are doing when they do it) is often true. But I have the videos that show Enda, Darren Maloney, Mick Moloney, and several others using DUD DUD in class. I also have videos showing them in concert using other techniques with jigs. But remember, these are elite level players who have fully developed styles and visions of the music. They have stepped outside the box for a reason. Everyone of them tell me that they teach DUD DUD to beginners for the reasons mentioned above and that once the basics are learned, the rest will follow.

What should be taken away is that learning the feel of music is the most important thing if you are just starting out and that DUD DUD makes that a lot easier even if it is technically harder at first. A lot of studies have shown that if a task initially seems more difficult to learn that students find themselves concentrating more and they tend to learn the task a lot better.

As for the mandolin to banjo business, Jill is right. A lot people I know in the States played mandolin or fiddle in other styles before getting into Irish banjo. Tenor banjo has never been that popular in these style As a result you will see a lot of North American Irish tenor banjo players using mandolin techniques, especially left hand techniques, that you won't see in Ireland. You'll also see thicker picks and a slightly different choice of mandolins due to the BG and OT influences.

Mike

[JeffD]

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given starting out was to listen to loads and loads of jigs so as to be able to internalize the feel of them - once that happens then whatever picking pattern of choice you go with kind of doesn't matter.

That should be written on the mandolin case itself. Really the best of the best advice.

[John Flynn]

I think that is the best advice. I had an experience at a session this week that was a revelation to me and it may be related. We played "The Road to Lisdoonvanrna." I had never played this tune until after I heard it at an earlier edition of this session about a year ago. As soon as I started to learn it, I used DUD DUD from the start. But I've never been able to play it with this group because I could not get it up to their tempo using DUD DUD, despite a significant amount of practice over several months. This past session, though, I tried playing it DUD UDU, even though I've never played it that way and "presto" I could play along at tempo for the first time. However, because of this thread I noticed HOW I played it. I realized that without thinking about it, I was putting the emphasis pretty much where I had been, but I was just going faster. So it would seem that the DUD DUD practice caused me to internalize how the tune should sound and after that, it didn't matter so much what my pick direction was. So in addition to listening more to jigs, I may continue learn new jigs DUD DUD until I get to the point that I "hit the speed barrier" and then continue DUD UDU.

[Randi Gormley]

... isn't Road to Lisdoonvarna a slide? ... or is it one of those tunes that has a couple of names and I've gotten it confused with something else? anyway, now I feel less guilty about reverting back to DUD UDU when I'm playing up to speed no matter how much I try to practice DUD DUD!

[John Flynn]

... isn't Road to Lisdoonvarna a slide? ... or is it one of those tunes that has a couple of names and I've gotten it confused with something else? anyway, now I feel less guilty about reverting back to DUD UDU when I'm playing up to speed no matter how much I try to practice DUD DUD!

There is debate on that, which I am not qualified to get in to, but it has taken up a lot of space on the thesession.org. Some people think it shoud be classified as a single jig, some think it should be a slide, some think it depends on how it's played. It would seem to be a candidate for DUD DUD in any case. At my session, we play it like a fast jig, at least to my ear.

On thesession.org, someone mentioned that the Cheftians even turned it into a reel on one recording!

[Randi Gormley]

Oh! that explains it. We play it as a slide, then. I'll have to check out the Chieftains version as a reel. The mind boggles.

[Dylan Hatch]

Here's my two cents on the jig picking pattern (it's been a while since I put in my 2 cents - I'm excited!)
I focus mostly on DUD DUD - I find it's a great, pulsing "home base" to operate from.
I have also given in to curiosity and started playing around with Dan B's DDU DDU (if he sounds that good playing it, there has to be something there, eh?).

With both of these approaches, I find this important benefit in addition to the innate pulse - As I get comfortable with the picking pattern, it seems "designed in" to the pattern to throw in 2 16th notes for any one 1/8th note (edit = fractions are hard!). Does that make any sense? There is almost an underlying "DDD DDD" pattern I can move into and out of - throw in some upstrokes to the DDD wherever I want a bit of embellishment - and then move back to my DUD DUD, DDU DDU, and whathaveyou.

Anyhoo, I appreciate your response (or indulgence) respectively and equally.

Does anyone else feel an occasional "DDD DDD" pattern to drive some embellishments?

[zoukboy]

@John Flynn: I think DUDUDU worked for that tune because it is a slide/single jig. These have a usual pattern of 1/4-1/8 1/4-1/8 rather than 1/8-1/8-1/8 1/8-1/8-1/8 on every downbeat so it is easier to pick them with a D-U D-U pattern. I play them that was and when they have a beat with three 8th notes I play that DUD.

Same thing for hop jigs, which have that same 1/4-1/8 thing but in 9/8 instead of 6/8 (or 12/8).

But for double jigs and slip jigs I use DUD DUD.

[bentley palfreyman]

I started out dud-udu for the same reasons, but I switched becuase I get more bounce with the dud-dud. took about three of four tunes to get it to feel natural but it was worth the effort. start with a new tune rather than trying to relearn one you know, one that is almost staight eight notes all the way through seems easier. hope this helps.

I've always picked jigs "dud-udu" - seemed faster, smoother + easier when I was learning. Altho getting a decent emphasis on the upstroke took some getting used to, that was easier than making the 2 "downs" in "dud-dud" work right- on rhythm and smooth.

I've run across a couple things + people recently saying they prefer the sound and/or rhythm they get using "dud-dud", even tho it might have taken a while to learn it and get it smooth.

So I'm interested in getting some idea of how many people use which one?

And also, hearing from anybody who has tried switching from "dud-udu" to "dud-dud"...
- did you SUCCEED? or was it like trying to quit smoking or write with your left hand ... tried but never broke the habit?
- if you DID succeed- how long before you felt "settled down" with the new picking pattern?
- and is it worth it in the end- are you happier with the sound and the rhythm?

thx
Chris

[Kay Kirkpatrick]

Of course for some of us "tempos get faster" means anything above 85bpm!

I'd laugh at this, Brent, only it's MY mandolin life, too!

[Loretta Callahan]

Disclaimer ~ I'm going to whine a bit.

Well, I do have the jig rhythm down ... DU DDU DDU DDU DDU .... when I strum .... but just as I thought I had nailed Kid on the Mountain .... it seems that my picking is stuck in the DUDUDU ... or whatever gets me through the jig.

My esteemed teacher, Zak, noticed my lack of proper jig picking. So, for now ... I'm gonna pull back on the jigs a bit ... focus on getting my reels, waltzes and polkas going .... and see if I can get the proper picking hard wired.

Apparently, I get the proper jig rhythm in much of my jig playing: you know: PineApple, Apricot ... but not with the picking. I have the feel of the rhythm, but my fingers and pick get there in their own way ....

Woe is me ... but I'm not giving up.