Adjustments

I had the zero sum game sussed this evening, I thought. I made a positive decision not to do more weeding at the allotment, conveniently forgot about various household chores that need to be done, and decided I'd cook and pipe. It looked as though cooking would win out at one stage as I cheerfully threw in artichokes and peas and ginger and rhubarb crumble alongside asparagus and ricotta tart, but in the end I found some piping time.

I thought I'd play Magersfontein as I've been humming it all day, but it didn't come to my fingers so I let it be. I adjusted my Dargai set by playing that first with Bee following and Flett to close. I've made a minor adjustment to Bee, adding a doubling to the second or third note in. I've heard others play it, fiddled around to find the sound I wanted, and threw it in. Every time I play this doubling appears. I think this is the first time I've voluntarily added a grace without having to first beat it into my brain (I say "voluntarily" because sometimes they appear of their own accord.)

The other adjustment was to do with my belief in piping as a cure for headaches. For stress headaches, certainly, but the kind of headache you get with bad light and a PC screen pipes don't help.

Still good-byeing

I think that normally after a month of playing I stop. This month...well, I just wanted to wind down from a rabbit-in-the-headlights day at work, check that I still knew how to play The Rowan Tree (I do) and run through Sleat on the grounds that I thought of playing it on Sunday and wasn't quite confident enough.

The best of times, the worst of times

In some ways this was a really bad month to choose to play every day. To add to the expected busy period at work I had some stuff that can crop up at any time and of course would  choose the busy period in which to appear, plus something big and totally unexpected and very time consuming also appeared. This means I've been tired, cross, headachy and stressed out and the last thing I've needed when I got home has been more stuff to do.

It’s also peak allotment season with courgettes needing to be harvested every other day, sweet peas ditto, and things needing to be watered  most days.

On the positive side the piping has proved a huge stress release at the end of the day, providing I've not been too tired. The fan’s workload starts to ease off a little this month so he’s been more able to step in and do some cooking. The plot really only need s attention every other day. And the knitting season is dead on its feet: just one paltry pair of socks started in April and finished this weekend. Normally that’s maybe two weeks’ worth of knitting at most. 

I've started another project, but it will take no time at all to do. This is partly driven by a deadline (it’s for a forthcoming baby and has to be handed over before the mother-to-be leaves work) and partly just by the fun of it: one of my favourite things to knit and takes no time at all.

As ever when I get to the end of a month of intense playing I feel a mix of relief and regret. The relief is that I will have time to do other things, and that I will be able to choose when to play rather than feeling it’s another target for the day. Regret because I will miss playing every day, and because I never do as much, learn as much, improve as much as I hope to during these months. 

There will be others – am penciling in September.

The doctor will see you now...

For headache, loneliness (first whole day of the fan being away), weltschmerz, depression and a bad day at work we recommend one hour of tying in tomatoes, watering cabbages and picking strawberries, and half an hour of lovely pipe playing.

Works every time.

That's better

Bad day at work (don't ask) and as I drove home, muttering and cursing and developing a hideous headache, I started to think about my pipes. I got in, rushed straight back out for some milk and a newspaper, came back, flung off my coat and fell on my pipes like an addict. I only got about 15 minutes play (in A) before the fan came home. As I started cooking I felt an urge to play more, so while I was waiting for pans to boil, and later on for things to bake, I played another 30 minutes or so. After dinner it occurred to me that I really rather fancied playing my pipes, so I did, in D, for almost an hour.

I've played various tunes from dots books. I've noticed that while I am still having to work at getting the gracing in to the Cabot Trail (which is coming up to jig speed now) Balmacara and Glomach both seem to have a healthy smattering of gracings. Now the Trail is faster it can't go before the Captn so I need new partners for them. Suggestions on a postcard, please.

I've found new dots for the Highlanders (the Green Book only gives two parts) and have been practising the 4th part, and in fact all of it, over and over, getting bits right, getting it faster, the timings better. Sorting Troy. Getting there - must be better than I was, surely.

Having a go at The Snuff Wife, which works best in the parts where I can clearly hear the tune. I love the third part, those lovely falling ECA's lifting to E again. Being a non-piping version of dots I've been left to work out my own graces. I've been making life difficult. In the fourth part I was trying to tap down my G finger to split the two high G's with an F, but with then moving back to F anyway as the next note it was a nightmare differentiating between notes and graces and avoiding crossing notes. Finally worked out that bouncing my thumb off the chanter to give me a tiny high A grace is easier and sounds cleaner.

Similarly in the 2nd part there is tricky enough DGD, only the front of that is actually two D's. I've been striking down to low G between the two, and again having problems with crossing notes and with making one G a grace and the second a note. Turns out the easy way is a plain G grace between those two D's.

Of course, now I'm not certain whether to be cross that I can't play the original graces, cross that it took me so long to work out a better set of graces, or pleased that I worked it out myself. It's sounding better, and that's the main thing.

Mystery

I've been working on some faster tunes: Troy, which has really fallen by the wayside of late, and Athol Highlanders. I need to find dots to remind myself how the fourth part goes. The first part is OK, third ok-ish. But the second! For some reason I cannot fathom the first ACE is a doddle: it makes nice shapes with my fingers, it's good to play. The second, which comes straight after the first is next to impossible. Nearly every time I play I get it wrong, or just grind to halt. Then following that is the ADF, which is even worse, because I can't get it right even the one time. I've tried speeding up, slowing right down, repeating, repeating, repeating... I should record. At one stage I had more recordings of the Highlanders than anything else, but since I moved blogs and lost tunes I seem to have none at all...


Here's another odd thing. I only played briefly yesterday for headache-removing purposes, and decided to play D only. In D again today, and perhaps because I was going fast and getting things wrong and thrashing out bars rather than playing tunes I felt the need to give myself a treat to finish, so moved to A for a tune.... Actually feeling, just after 2 days of D, that I'm losing comfort with A, although much had to do with my hands being so cold and unable to stretch, and A is my favourite right now.


I'm also being plagued by a mysterious tune. I can hear it very clearly, although only as a plain tune: I can't hear any accompaniment, but I am sure it is a Mr MacInnes tune. I hum it, and after a while it morphs into the Heights of Cassino, which I haven't played or heard for an age. Very odd.


The other reason for the brevity of my playing yesterday was that we were going out to hear a spot of music from Messrs McGoldrick, Doyle and McCusker. No mystery there - just some great tunes and some great musicians and a really good night out.

Having such a good time

I started off with the usual drill this evening. Tired, headachey, disinclined to do much. After dinner I thought I might mess about with my newly invigorated chanter for a bit. That was fun, except I very quickly lost my lip. This is the trumpet name for it: I don't know what you call it on a practice chanter. It's not exactly lip, more the muscles along the lower jaw, but once they're gone that's the fun over for the evening, like it or not.

I thought I'd drag out my pipes, just for five minutes, because I felt I was very close to playing MacIntyre's Farewell by heart and I wanted to try it.

The pipes felt a little odd as I strapped myself in. I did have a close look at the bellows trying to pinpoint what what was odd, but I couldn't see anything. It wasn't until I was ready to go with my hands on the chanter that I realised I had Morag instead of the Monkey. She felt like an old friend and, apart from her usual bad habits (needing ridiculous amounts of air, flipping out the connector tubes at inconvenient moments), we got on well. She has a softer, less vibrant sound than the Monkey, a little quieter too, I think.

And I did it! I played Farewell by heart, not just once, but round and round. There are perhaps three places where I sometimes have to backtrack to get the right note, or pause to find it, but find it I do, every time. Admittedly it's just two parts, and on closer inspection only has seven unique bars, but nevertheless, I have learned it from a total standing start (because it's not even one I'd ever heard before) in seven days. Serious progress: a real milestone.

Happy? You betcha!

Nurse Morag

Another headache, and remembering my recent experience I thought I'd try the pipes cure. Just thinking about playing made me feel a little happier, and by the time I was strapped in and ready to go the headache was already lifting. Blasted through the Battle a few times, still feeling tired, but went on (in between a spot of cooking) to Flett (I meant to play Galloway, but my fingers had other plans) and the Rocks (three times through, no problem) and felt altogether better.

Mooching about on The Session the other day I found an interesting discussion that went well with what I was thinking the other day about tunes, and why some attract and others don't. This discussion asked why some continue to attract, some we fall out of love with, and others we just need a break from to rekindle the romance.

Headache 0, Pipes 1

I know that playing a very loud instrument doesn't spring to mind as the obvious cure for a headache, but when it's a tension (read bad-day-at-work) headache it actually works wonders. And I nailed the B part of Flett, mostly because when I looked at it the second half was the same as the second half of the A part, so there were only a few bars to learn.

I keep checking my emails, waiting to hear from Mr Kinnear when the monkey will be ready....

Satisfied

First posted Oct 24th, 2012 by newpiper

The title actually describes how I feel about my piping today. I've only played the once between this evening and my last post, but it went well. This evening I got home late with a headache and a real urge to get the pipes out. So I got them out, got straight into playing, ran through my dotless tunes without picturing the dots, or even really thinking at all: it felt as though the tunes were just there in the pipes and I was releasing them.

To go back to an oft-used metaphor, it's a bit like driving. When you begin then if you have a day or two away from it you really need to remind yourself of everything before you set off. I then had a stage where I was OK unless I had a longish break and then I would just have it in the back of my mind that I hadn't driven for a while and would need to get into the right frame of mind. Later on I'd find that I'd get in and drive off and only half way down the road realise that I hadn't driven for a while, and just note the fact that it didn't bother me. Nowadays - I've driven pretty much the same route twice a day for over 10 years - I don't ever think about it: I just get in and drive, and it feels natural and I don't need to think or readjust - it's just what I am doing.

I've been trying out Troy's Wedding, but not getting very far, so spent a little bit of time this evening trying to get Bonnie Galloway by heart. It's coming. I've got Castle Dangerous sorted. Work is too much of a distraction at the moment: taking up too much mental space. A week off next week and with my Christmas knitting projects well under way and the allotment ready to be put to bed for the winter I should have time to play and hopefully blog as well. Watch this space.

What Passion

First posted Feb 23rd, 2012 by newpiper

I think I've discovered another way of getting a half decent recording: lower your expectations. It's been a bit of a week - very busy, some good stuff (piping inspiration from Michael McGoldrick on Monday), some not so good - but there has been no time for piping. I picked the pipes up this evening while dinner was in the oven, tired and headachy (me, that is, not the dinner). I had a go at three new tunes and couldn't get them to sound even vaguely recognisable. Back to Vicki. This time it's the Golden Birch and I was pleased just to get a single half-decent run through.

My starting is terribly - very ragged - but that's because I'm reaching out to hit the record button and so don't have a good hold on the pipes. I muff some notes. I also feel the sound isn't very even, but I think that's down to my feeling tired.

A new problem - I'm not placing my fingers well - I struggle to find finger holes, I don't get my fingers cleanly on the holes. It's like trying to get an octopus in a bag - no sooner do I cram some tentacles in than others flap out. Annoyingly, even once I've got one tentacle in - and it may have been nicely in the bag for ages - it will suddenly escape. I've never had problems with my fingers before. And although I managed about two hours at the weekend I've managed barely 45 minutes over two sessions today. Not good.

And the passion? St Cecilia's Ode - I got rid of the headache and a slight tendency to grumpiness.

Recording - The Golden Birch. Retrieved - to be posted.