Heavens - I got a comment! Hello world! More specifically, hello Simon, and thanks for your encouragement, and thanks for spreading the word abut this tune - I'm so glad I've come across it. I've been listening to lots of versions of the Halsway Carol. I think my favourites are the one with bells, because it's nice and clear, and Nigel's own version. I'd not really come across hurdy gurdys before, and I'm quite smitten. I love the way it starts very gently and then that that percussive effect kicks in - marvellous!
So I've been trying to pick the tune out. I started on a whistle, and then in a moment of madness crossed to the mandolin. Despite violin lessons more years ago than I care to recall I don't find strings intuitive, however, sometimes they help with patterns. The tune seems to start, for instance, with two open string notes. Does that help? I’m not sure. I picked it out on the mandolin and wrote out the dots because I didn't think I could transfer what was then a mandolin tune for me direct onto pipes. I was wrong! I picked up pipes and I played it. Well, I played the first part, and I don't think it's quite right. Interestingly I got some of my best ever finger speeds, probably because somehow I'm not thinking about playing, I'm just thinking about the tune.
The fan is away this weekend but I am hoping when he gets back to get him to listen to the proper version and my version and he'll help me out. He can listen to a tune and go "well, that's a C and you're playing C sharp" whereas I just go "this note doesn't feel right". Oddly it's sometimes the correct note next to the wrong note that that feels wrong...
Anyway - no fan, no recording kit, but plenty of time to practise and I'm doing it in small bursts. Dusty Pipes and Hector both came back. In the end reading the dots to remind me didn't help. I know that I know the tunes, because I know when I've got them wrong. I've found that actually listening to the tune and working it out as I go along is more helpful than dots.
Kicking myself for not accepting the Halsway Schottische dots when they were offered, but I think I'm learning a lot by having to work the tune out for myself. It's a great tune and it's going to sound really good on Scottish Smallpipes!
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