Jiganuary

For the past year, I’ve been learning to play the tin whistle from a starting point of very little musical experience. I’m hoping to write more about that process in a future post, but here I’m focusing on my most recent efforts practicing some jigs during January. Hence, ‘jiganuary’.

Partly this post has been spurred by my acquisition of some basic recording equipment (microphone and audio interface), so I now have the capability to put my efforts on the web, as you can find below.

What is a jig?

[First, let me prefix this with a disclaimer that while I feel my knowledge in these matters has progressed in the past year, I’m very far from an expert, so take whatever I say with a pinch of salt. (My answer a year ago would have been “not sure but think I’ve heard of those? Something to do with folk music?”)]

The tin whistle is closely associated with Celtic music, and I mostly play what can be referred to as Irish traditional music. The two most popular types of dance tune in that tradition are jigs and reels.

Jigs typically have a 6/8 time signature, which in practice means two groups of three 1/8 notes per bar (in contrast, reels have a 4/4 time signature so notes are grouped in 4s). I think of these groupings as ‘3-ers’ of notes, but that’s only my terminology!

Being a form of dance music (but different to ‘dance music’ as one growing up in the 1990s might think of it), the sense of rhythm is a key aspect. At least that’s what I’ve read - I’m still trying to get fully to grips with it. Basically, my take is playing the notes at the right time is more important than playing the right notes!

Ideally, we’re aiming for a consistent tempo through the piece. The beat can be emphasised by putting a little extra length/volume, typically to the first note in each 3-er (although apparently it can also make sense to instead emphasize the last note in places).

Focus for jiganuary

Other than increasing my rather small repertoire, what was I looking to improve during jiganuary?

Speed

The tempo at which I can play the jigs is rather slower than they’d usually be played. In terms of beats per minute, I’m playing at ~70-75 bpm (the convention is that each 3-er counts as a beat, so two beats per bar and 64 beats in total in each of the jigs below). I understand that these would more typically be played by experienced musicians at something more like 110-120 bpm (and that seems to tally with recordings I’ve been listening to from Spotify etc.).

In general, the advice is to only try to up the tempo once you’ve mastered other aspects at a slower pace (which I definitely haven’t). I’d definitely like to get these tunes going a little faster, but feel that will take time and patience!

Ornamentation

Another area I’ve tried to be conservative with is resisting the temptation to rush to ornament these tunes. Commonly, these tunes would be played with the addition of cuts, taps, slides and other ornaments in different places to add variety (and an extra level of difficulty).

I have played a few rolls on the long notes in The Kesh and Willie Coleman’s, but other than that have kept them quite plain.

Breathing

One particular area that I have been trying to work on during jiganuary is breathing.

A feature of this style of music is that there aren’t really clearly defined places for wind instrument players to pause for breath. Instead, the practice is to either cut long notes short or drop out a note (typically the middle of a 3er in a jig) in order to breath. In fact, variations in these breathing points are a feature that can add interest to the music.

Up until recently, I’d been more or less not worrying about that and just breathing at the end of phrases - if I didn’t run out of breath completely. That approach was ok to a point, but would add pauses and make it difficult to ever play in time with anything else. For the moment, my breathing points are more or less pre-planned rather than spontaneous, but I feel it’s a step in the right direction.

The tunes and my recordings

The Kesh

This is a well-known tune with a distinctive opening. We noticed that for a period last summer it was on heavy repeat in our living room as the background music for a commercial (think it must have been by Tourism Ireland) extolling the virtues of holidays in Ireland. As well as shots of the beautiful scenery, there were various clips of the music being played. This means in our household The Kesh is now known as ‘the Irish advert tune’.

I learnt this one relatively early in my musical career and, to simplify matters, I think I had replaced the only c sharp in the setting I’d printed with a b.

Now, that I’m a bit more practiced and can play c sharp (the note that sounds with all fingers off) without fear of dropping the instrument, I maybe should reconsider that pragmatic choice. The version below is what I’m currently playing.

The Lilting Banshee

Not to be confused with The Banshee (which is a reel that I’ve also been learning).

This one is relatively new to me (think I first looked at in in December). For whatever reason, possibly the relatively large number of repeated notes, I found this fairly quick to pick up to my imperfect standard.

Morrison’s

The date on my print out of this tune suggests I’ve been working on it since late October 21.

I find this one has a bit more variation than some jigs, with a distinct difference between the first and second parts, and unusually the second part isn’t a simple repetition. Maybe because of that, I haven’t found it the easiest to learn, but feel it’s definitely worth the effort.

Willie Coleman’s

I began adding this one to my repertoire during jiganuary itself and am quite pleased with how it’s coming along. It has a nice rolling feel to it (at least when played well).

I’ve noticed that in the first part the phrasing has some similarities to the jig Out On The Ocean, which was one of the first tunes I learnt, and I sometimes find myself unintentionally detouring into that instead.

In case you’re wondering why Out On The Ocean doesn’t feature in jiganuary, that is because I’ve realised there are some serious idiosyncrasies to my playing of that tune, and I am currently trying to unlearn and relearn it!

Although the high Gs that start the phrases are shown above as long rolls (~g3 in the ABC notation), I’ve seen versions where these are replaced with various other sequences that fit the space (such as g2g, gfg or just g3 with or without a pause for breath in the middle or at the end). Seems you can kind of do what you feel there.

What next?

Well, rereading the ‘Focus for jiganuary’ section above, I see there’s still plenty to improve, but also feel it sounds a little joyless, which isn’t how I feel about this hobby! Probably I’ll keep going with the jigs, but also try something different. Maybe a hornpipe.

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Extra shots

• The Celtic Women ensemble playing The Kesh and Morrison’s during their tour
  https://youtu.be/NBK-xqC9u8E
• Brother Steve’s Tin Whistle pages has some detailed thoughts on various aspects of whistle playing
  https://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/brosteve/
• The Tradschool website has a selection of recordings of whistle/flute music as well as a shop selling related books
  https://www.tradschool.com/en/tunes