How to Play Cuts on the Tin Whistle

A cut has no length of its own. It lives in the first instant of the note it decorates, so it takes no time away from the melody and adds none. What you hear is closer to a consonant than a pitch, the 'p' in 'plah' rather than a short extra note. If you can hum the pitch of your cut, it is too slow.

The reason it matters is articulation. Tonguing stops the air for a moment; a cut keeps the air running and breaks the note with a finger instead. On two quarter notes of the same pitch, tonguing gives you 'ta, ta'. A cut on the second gives you one unbroken stream of air with a sharp edge in the middle, and that edge is the lift you hear in a good session player. You can still tongue on the whistle, and good players mix the two, but the cut is the sound of the style.

Any covered hole above the sounding note can cut it, because opening a hole higher up always pushes the pitch up for an instant. The obvious choice is the lowest finger that is down, the one that would take you to the next note up. It is the easiest to find and the hardest to hear: the pitch it flicks to is only a step away, so the break barely registers. Most players settle on two cutting fingers for the whole bottom octave instead, and the bigger jump makes every cut crisper.

Low D: every hole is covered, so any top-hand finger will do. Most players use the index or the middle finger.

E and F-sharp: the top-hand ring finger, on the third hole from the top.

G, A and B: the top-hand index finger, on the top hole. On B it is the only finger down, so it is the only one you can use.

C-sharp: no holes are covered, so there is nothing to lift. Tongue it or leave it plain.

The second octave uses the same fingerings as the first, so it uses the same cutting fingers. Many of the shapes you pass through during a cut are not real notes at all, and that is fine. At full speed nobody hears them as pitches.

Start on a long, steady E. Without changing the air, flick the top-hand ring finger up and back. Lift it only a few millimetres: the further the finger travels, the longer the trip takes and the more likely you are to hear a pitch. The movement comes from the knuckle, never the wrist or the whole hand. Do ten, and listen to every one.

Next, play four Es in a row on one breath and separate them with cuts instead of your tongue, so there is a click at the start of the second, third and fourth. This is the cut doing its real job. Then put on a slow metronome and land each cut exactly on the click, because a cut that arrives late drags the beat behind it. Move the same routine to F-sharp with the same finger, then to G, A and B with the index. The cut ornament drill sets this out as a daily exercise.

Keep some of your practice slow. The cut itself never slows down: at 60 beats a minute it is exactly as quick as at 120, and only the gap between cuts changes. Slow tempos are where a lazy cut has nowhere to hide.

Cuts have two jobs. The first is splitting repeated notes. Wherever a tune has two or three of the same note in a row, a cut on the second (and the third) separates them without stopping the air. The opening of Swallowtail Jig is the textbook case, 'G E E, B E E', with a cut on each second E. The Lilting Banshee does the same with the repeated As of its first bar, and the repeated Bs at the start of Cooley's Reel want one too.

The second job is accent. A cut on a note that falls on the beat gives it a small push, even when the note before it is different. In jigs that usually means the first note of a group of three; in reels, the notes on the beat. Start with the repeated-note cuts, which are easier to hear and harder to overdo. If cuts are new to you, an easy air such as The Star of the County Down is a good first tune: the run of Es in its first line gives you several clean places to cut, at a tempo that forgives you.

You hear a second note: the finger is too slow, usually because it lifts too far. Shorten the lift before you try to speed it up, since a finger that travels a few millimetres is fast almost by default. You hear nothing at all: the finger is not leaving the hole cleanly, often because it is pressing hard and peels off slowly. Cover the holes lightly. A cut needs a finger that rests on the hole, not one that grips it.

The note squeaks or jumps up an octave: your breath is surging with the finger. Keep the air completely level and let the finger do the work. Cuts on A and B feel wobbly: with only one or two holes covered, the whistle shifts in your hand as the finger snaps. Rest a bottom-hand finger on the body of the whistle below the last hole, covering nothing, and the wobble usually disappears.