Crans....

[Ritchie_Kay]

There were some threads about crans (rolls, fake crans or whatever....) recently which reminded me of something that I wanted to check.

 

In many reels which might go, for eaxmple, ADDD, I tend to put in a cran which would go ADD{dB}D.

Sometimes I have had the impression that people tend to do AD{dB}D - i.e replacing the middle D.

 

Specifically Niall Vallely's tutorial seems to do that.

 

Now, I can understand that one might play A2 D{dB}D as a variation - i.e. lengthening the first A but it seems that unless you want to do that you need to keep the three D's for rythmn.

 

Does any one have any comments? Particularly if you have received advice from a master. Michael Rooney talked about this in a class that I was in and whereas I though I knew what he was saying I wondered afterwards whether I had misunderstood...

 

thanks.

[bill_mchale]

There were some threads about crans (rolls, fake crans or whatever....) recently which reminded me of something that I wanted to check.

 

In many reels which might go, for eaxmple, ADDD, I tend to put in a cran which would go ADD{dB}D.

Sometimes I have had the impression that people tend to do AD{dB}D - i.e replacing the middle D.

 

Specifically Niall Vallely's tutorial seems to do that.

 

Now, I can understand that one might play A2 D{dB}D as a variation - i.e. lengthening the first A but it seems that unless you want to do that you need to keep the three D's for rythmn.

 

Does any one have any comments? Particularly if you have received advice from a master. Michael Rooney talked about this in a class that I was in and whereas I though I knew what he was saying I wondered afterwards whether I had misunderstood...

 

thanks.

 

I would actually say that there is no need to do anything with the A... Essentially a cran is one of those things a concertina player does when someone on another instrument would do a true roll. So DdbD is perfectly fine... essentially the db takes the place of the middle D.

 

--

Bill

[JimLucas]

Essentially a cran is one of those things a concertina player does when someone on another instrument would do a true roll.

And on other instruments, a cran (what a piper, fluter, fiddler, or whistler would call a "cran") is most often done on a note where a roll isn't possible.

 

E.g., on a keyless flute, there's no way to play a "tip" -- a note below -- on a low D. And on a fiddle, rolls are (AFAIK) always done entirely on a single string. But on a fiddle the same low D is an open string, so to play a true roll one would either have to flick the bow onto another string for the tip below, or else play the D and the entire roll on the G string. In both cases, it's normal to use a cran in place of the "impossible" roll.

 

In my experience, doing crans on notes other than low D on the flute or pipes is extremely rare, with a G cran being the most common of the uncommon. I would think that fiddlers would also be inclined to do crans on other open strings -- A, E, and the low G -- but I haven't paid close enough attention to know how often they do that.

[Ritchie_Kay]

I would actually say that there is no need to do anything with the A... Essentially a cran is one of those things a concertina player does when someone on another instrument would do a true roll. So DdbD is perfectly fine... essentially the db takes the place of the middle D.

 

--

Bill

 

Thanks, Bill - that makes sense. Ritchie