Tag: Ornamentation

Articulation on diverse pipes
Musical Instruments

Articulation on diverse pipes

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The preceding two posts examine instruction manuals for woodwind instruments and compilations of popular dance tunes published in the 17th and 18th centuries, looking for evidence of continuity between the way such music was ornamented in earlier periods and present-day practice. The collections include tunes that originated in Ireland and remain part of the traditional repertoire there, providing a useful basis for tracing the development of the battery of ornaments associated with that genre. The investigation continues in the present post but considers an expressive technique not covered by the title of the previous installments (Turns and Rolls — Part 1 and Part 2).

In a demonstration of Sligo-style flute playing here, Seamus Tansey says of ornamentation that “it all came from the pipes.” Players of other instruments have made similar statements. Such claims are as likely to trigger debate as avert it but uilleann pipes do have a particularly rich repertoire of ornaments, including pretty much all those used on other traditional Irish instruments.

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Turns and rolls — Part 2
Musical Instruments

Turns and rolls — Part 2

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The first part of this series presented a few 17th-century instruction books for the flageolet and recorder. It illustrated continuity in ornamentation practice as the first of them ceded its position in urban amateur music making to the second. The present post moves that discussion into the 18th century and brings reed instruments into it. An instruction book for the Baroque oboe — “hautboy” — comparable to those for the flageolet and recorder was published in London in 1695, titled The Sprightly Companion.

The tunes can be played comfortably on all the explicitly named instruments. (Unqualified reference to a “flute” at that date meant a Baroque recorder; in this case one in C.) Ornamentation is clarified with tablature as in the books examined last time. The Ɔ sign that indicates both a “beat” and a “shake” in them, is used in this one exclusively for a shake executed downward from the note to which it is applied. Here is the first line of the explanatory table with a concluding remark in this post’s banner image.

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Turns and rolls — Part 1
Musical Instruments

Turns and rolls — Part 1

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This post examines historical descriptions of a musical ornament that appears in several genres. In Western classical music it is referred to by the Italian name gruppetto (small group) or a native designation in the language of discourse, such as the English “turn.” Its manifestation in Irish traditional music is called a “roll.” Tutorial presentations in that context frequently mention its resemblance to the classical ornament but caution against confusing the two. Each has its own range of variants and differ in the rhythmic attributes of their performance, but share a basic five-note configuration — note; note above; note; note below; note.

An ornament called a gruppo appears in a treatise on improvised embellishment and ornamentation in vocal performance by Giulio Caccini titled Le Nuove Musiche (The New Music), published in 1601. The five-note figure now called a gruppetto is a diminutive of it in both grammatical and structural senses, formed by the final thirty-second notes of a long trill. The execution of the eponymous trillo is similarly apparent. It is the single-note ornament now referred to as a tremolo. As written, both labeled ornaments accelerate over the first several notes.

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