I've not been well this week: nothing serious, but enough to feel that reading a book is hard work and knitting impossible, so piping has been out of the question. Feeling brighter this evening so I've been following Virtual Kirsten on her basic whistle lessons and just refamiliarising myself. I'm absolutely not looking at any dots. Somehow it's easier to play around with tunes on a whistle; the physical effort is less, obviously, but it seems less hassle mentally, too.
As I fiddle about some very old tunes are coming back to me - tunes that I played half a lifetime or more ago on an E flat whistle (it suited my small hands but the pitch was uncomfortable, especially in the second octave) and my old wooden recorder. Tunes I had forgotten that I knew but that my hands seem to have remembered and the whistle reminds them. My fingers get confused from time to time - forgetting there isn't anything for my right hand pinky to do, forgetting to take the bottom hand off when I'm playing top hand notes, looking for that thumb hole...generally wanting to act as though they are playing pipes or recorder. Occasionally I find I'm playing a pipe tune - Dusty Pipes, mostly, and Hector, of course.
Anyway, I'm pleased at how much I can remember or work out, and am hopeful that this learning will transfer to pipes, as my fan says it will. I'm also hopeful that I'll feel up to a gentle piping session this weekend - I miss it.
No comments:
Post a Comment