Monday 31 December 2012

Eagle's Whistle

I wasn't intending to play today. I want to play in the mornings when I'm fresh, but that's when the fan, who is poorly, dozes on the sofa. He loves me (and Morag) a lot, but I don't think he'd be keen on a pipe rendition breaking through his dreams!

I've had the Eagle's Whistle going round and round my head today: it is one of those tunes that feels as though it could be on a permanent loop, and hearing the Sea Stallions play it has brought it to mind (I also know it from Sealbh).

I had a poke about on the Session where it appears as a slip jig and there are the usual arguments about whether retreat marches exists and what makes a polka, and the dots in G or D. Luckily it also has the information that the tune is also known as Donovan's March, and that's how I found it on Ceol Sean. So I sat with the dots and decided to have a quick go. The tune itself is very easy. It's not the same as the two recorded versions, and the timing of some other versions I found was totally different. I think in this recording I'm playing the Ian MacInnes version rather than what the dots say, timings-wise, and I am also trying to piece together how I think the tunes goes, rather than what the dots do. I need more gracing. But it's a good tune; one I think I will try to learn.

By the way - my drones sounded hideous this evening: I did the first run through with two blocked off. The fan made minor adjustments, but one drone is foul, and comes and goes. I am not sure if that is me using the bellows arm too much (still!!) or one drone having problems (I've mentioned before that one seems to waver in and out). The second recording I did, just minutes after the first, was more confident and a much better speed. I mean - I know this is a slow tune, but even so, there's a retreat and there's standing on the spot going nowhere... Annoyingly the best recording I did I managed not to hit stop at the end, so it's followed by several minutes of me flapping about and then playing again, and as I can't edit it I won't post it. So version posted has errors while I try to follow dots with variants as I think they ought to be, and includes those nasty drones.



Check this out on Chirbit

Saturday 29 December 2012

Faster?

A year or two ago the fan and I saw Bellevue Rendevous at Folk at the Oak. Lovely venue, where we've seen some really great music. Bellevue are a fab band - and very nice people who will happily let you hold a nyckelharpa or a bouzouki. (This happiness on the part of professional musicians to talk to fans about music and instruments is one of the things I love about folk music.)

Anyway, I mention them now because one of my abiding memories of that evening was Mr Marwick, during a particularly fast and furious piece (I believe he said the musical direction read "play like the devil"), turning to his fellow musicians each in turn and simply saying "faster?", and, of course, they upped the tempo. Upping the tempo is something I'm really trying to do, but not getting very far with. My fingers keep falling over themselves and the gracing goes for a burton. My other problem at the moment is that I am still relying on the bellows for my air supply (why???) and as soon as I stop pumping I lose pressure, and I need a good steady pressure to play at speed. I'm also suffering from fingers tightening up, to the extent where I start to fear that I will snap the chanter if I don't loosen up. Also, my left hand is not well-positioned and I'm not closing down on the holes cleanly. All beginner stuff, all very annoying.

I am also wondering about optimum speeds. I've been listening to another Xmas present today: the grand concert of piping from 1995. It's a bit of a shame that three of the six pipers are on GHB, only two on smallpipes and one on border pipes. Still, it's good to hear some pipers and some tunes I've not heard before. I enjoyed Mr MacDonald and Mr MacInnes most. The others, Mr Duncan in particular, seem to think that the main point is to go as fast as possible. I prefer a more sedate pace, where I can hear the tune, the grace notes, the texture of the music.

To be honest, one of my problems today is that I am concentrating more on what's going in this post than I am on actually playing..... So, recording is an example of how badly things go wrong when I try to go too fast. It's the Barren Rocks of Aden. I've started slow and speeded up, and wobbled to a bad end, with the tempo coming and going throughout. And it is bad, but it's a darn sight faster than this effort from June, and probably faster than this from September. So maybe I am getting faster....slowly.


Check this out on Chirbit

Friday 28 December 2012

Botheration

As I added the tune for the previous post to Chirbit I listened to another version I'd done of it (earlier recording lost, which doesn't help). So the previous version is kind of OK, and the new version is...kind of OK. The newer one is dotless (which you can't hear, of course, but it's nevertheless true - but then, the other version only being earlier this month - took me a while to work out which post it belonged to - it may also be dotless), and I've got a few more gracings. I run the tune through twice in the new version, and maybe I'm a teensy bit steadier in tempo, but that's it.

When I started this blog I had visions of seeing clear progress. I thought version (a) of a posted tune would sound like an incompetent idiot attempting the pipes, version (b) would sound like a beginner doing her best, version (c) would sound like a reasonably competent piper, and version (d) would sound like a real piper playing real music. I suppose it's partly because that my base-line is reasonably high: I spent a year on the chanter (and a lifetime on recorder, on and off), I'm fairly decent at sight-reading, and by the time I started blogging I'd had Morag for three months and got over the really painful stage. The other thing is that I only post a recording when I've got a reasonably good one: pride, perhaps, stops me from posting anything that's a real mess, with the exception of the dog's dinner I made of the Atholl Highlanders, so the really bad days are just silent on here. But it's all so slow, and sometimes I seem to go backwards, which is very discouraging.

Anyway: today a bad day. I've been trying the Rocks and the Banks, at speed, but failing to get either right. Lack of practice - or perhaps tired arms from my marathon drive yesterday - means I am pumping too much and my connector tube keeps flipping out. I did record, and maybe I ought to post a recording, but a tune that just stops doesn't show anything.

Bother.

Thursday 27 December 2012

House guest

We've been away for a day or two. That's "we" as in me and the fan: Morag stayed at home. Taking Morag away with me is a bit like taking a large, smelly dog. Everyone says that of course they don't mind, and how  lovely I brought her along for them to see, but there is a gleam in their eye that says "could you not have put her in kennels?"

No piping today, but I've been listening to Irish pipes playing Irish and Swedish music, accompanied by a nyckelharpa. It turns out to be a match made in heaven.

Saturday 22 December 2012

I wish I could fly

Two days before I finished work my back rebelled against my not very comfortable office chair and I'm suffering from stiffness and horrible twinges in my lower back. When I lifted my pipes this evening they seemed to weigh a tonne. I strapped them on, but they're not quite right. The strap makes my ribs ache, the bellowing makes my back ache, and the bellows are putting pressure on my hip bone and the bellows strap is at an odd angle, cutting off blood supply and making my fingers number.

Despite all this I haven't done too badly. I'm still fighting the barren rocks. Sometimes I get them off pat, especially the first part, and at a real lick. Sometimes my fingers go too fast and fall over themselves. Often the B part gets mucked up. Struggling to get Teribus at all today. Bonnie Galloway comes and goes.

Still wanting to play a tune twice over, followed by another tune twice over. I got half way there with the Rowan Tree and the Barren Rocks of Aden. The Rowan Tree, twice through, no problems at all, but I fell flat on my face (metaphorically speaking) about three notes in to the Rocks. I think what had happened was that I'd got into the zone with the tree, and could have gone round and round forever, but the change of tempo pulled me out of the zone and left me feeling disorientated.

The fan says I'm like a fledgling that is flapping its wings and looking as though any moment now it's going to be able to fly. Personally, I'm starting to feel like Orville: I wish I could fly, but I can't. Appropriately for all these ornithological comments, the tune is The Rowan Tree, twice through, with the same error repeated throughout...


Check this out on Chirbit




Thursday 20 December 2012

So tired

I came home late (again) from work today. The fan offered to cook dinner, so I sat down with the crossword. I suddenly realised I've got no pressing chores: Christmas cards are all written and posted, cake made and covered in marzipan (and the icing can wait until Saturday), there's room in the laundry basket and ironing pile to squeeze a few more items, no urgent baking, the kitchen is reasonably clean and tidy, Christmas knitting is completed...so I pulled Morag out.

I'm tired (it has been the longest week, the longest term, if it comes to it, and my office chair seems carefully designed to inflict maximum back pain), but I strapped myself in and set off. Way too much pumping action and not enough bag action. My hands seized up really quickly - my right hand and thumb in particular. I kept getting distracted mid tune by the dust under the sofa so turned my back and got distracted by the Christmas tree. Work-related thoughts also drifting through my brain. Still, I managed to remember all my tunes, and briefly tried the Heights of Casino (I definitely need a cleaner set of dots) and the Boy's Lament for His Dragon. I enjoyed myself for half an hour until it was time to stop for dinner.

No recording, mostly because we never seem to have batteries for the machine and I couldn't be bothered to hook it up to the laptop, but next week I will play and record and play some more. If I can stay awake, that is.

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Still here...

...just very quiet. The usual Christmas stuff, visits, work, baking, and no time to play at all. I did take Morag away at the weekend and brought her out to show to people, and played a tune, almost OK, and sort of began to cobble together Auld Lang Syne.

The Christmas break starts on Friday and I can't wait and am longing to get some decent piping in there somewhere.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Morag's day out

After some dithering we decided to go to the Foresters session again, and a very good session it was, too. There's a mix of music, a mix of people, some very nice beer, and it's generally light-hearted and good fun. Morag and I had a go again. I went for the Banks of Allen thinking the fan might give some backing to hide behind, but no such luck. I fluffed and stopped - received applause and calls for an encore, so proceeded to mangle Bonnie Galloway.

I don't think I was quite as terrified as last time, just going by the fact that I only remember the first 3 seconds from last time before everything seemed to go black and nightmarish, and I remember the whole thing today.

Home again I played some more, feeling in the mood to carry on, and the fan joined in. With some encouragement from him I managed to up the speed of the Banks. To go back to the old car-driving analogy it's like being in a car on your very first time behind the wheel. Just as you feel you  have hit a dangerous and terrifying speed and are preparing yourself to hit hit G force and black out, your instructor kindly points out that if you go just a teeny bit faster you'll just about be able to move into second gear. I went at the speed of the very devil, I swear, and the fan said that I was just about approaching a half-decent pace. If I go any faster, said I, I shall need oxygen.

What I defnitely need is (all together now) more time to practice.

This is my 100th blog post, which is a milestone of sorts. No recording to go with it, but perhaps some sense of having moved a little way forward since I began piping in November 2011 and blogging back in February. Maybe if I spent less time blogging I'd have more time for playing, but I think that sometimes the feeling that I ought to blog has made me play. Although this is offically a private notebook I know there are silent listeners out there. They may not care much if I blog or not, but I feel a small sense of obligation somehow. No one knows if I don't play, but possibly someone somewhere knows if I don't blog.

Friday 7 December 2012

While the fan's away....


The fan’s out at a gig, so I’ve listened to Tryst and poked around Ceol Sean and have tried the Portree Men. Phew! It’s fast, and generally much harder to play than it sounds. Not sure why – something in the timing that doesn’t come naturally.
Then I tried The Celtic Society’s Quickstep. It’s what the fan would refer to as a bit of pig: horrendously difficult to sight read (although this is partly down to the dots being old-fashioned and not very clean). Lots of low notes – As and Gs, and fast again, but this I can’t get even a half recognisable run at.

Happier with Teribus. It’s one that apparent 90% of the piper’s repertoire that begins A D throw, and I slid straight into My Home Town instead. Then I pulled up a version on You Tube, was able to get the tune back in my head and played from there – no dots involved.
So the recording is The Rowan Tree – which, alongside the Barren Rocks, is my current, supposed party piece. Low key party clearly – just a few friends, drinks and nibbles. I got the start of the B part wrong – consulted dots and as soon as I saw the first two notes was fine, until I realised that I’ve been getting the last two bars wrong! I’ve been going up from the B to a C before I drop to two As, instead of B followed by three As....I think I prefer my version! Anyway, of course thinking about that meant I mucked up the opening of the B part again – I’m playing F instead of E. Fourth time lucky – although I’m still sticking that C in to the last bar. And, actually, I’m quite pleased with my gracing on this. I like all the strikes – they seem quite clean. The Gs are coming out as tiny blips and chirrups, the F doubling isn’t bad.

Recording - The Rowan Tree


Check this out on Chirbit

Thursday 6 December 2012

Music!

In total I had 40 posts with tunes on my Newpiper blog - so about half the posts. Of those I've lost 20 and retrieved 20, of which I've reposted 17. The other three I'm having problems identifying which post they belong to, especially as Podbean access is patchy this evening. This will be my 98th post, so less than a quarter will have music. For an audio blog that's not impressive: must try harder!

I played briefly the other evening, but my fingers were so cold I couldn't get the right hand cleanly down on the chanter to properly close the holes and ended up with some unpleasant sounds. On the plus side I did manage to remember a whole heap of tunes, including Teribus.

I need to see if I can assign labels to all these posts. I seem to spend more time on blog housekeeping than anything. It will be so good to have everything fixed.

Band practice this evening, of the pre-gig variety. Hopefully I'll get some practice in tomorrow while they are out, and maybe even record something.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Chirbit

On closer inspection SoundCloud turned out to be associated with FaceBook so I've gone for Chirbit instead. Hopefully I can now get some sound added to this audio diary!

In The Zone


Post written 02 December 2012

I played a very little yesterday, just to show off Morag to friends. I managed to play half of several tunes - somehow my memory wouldn't produce whole tunes.

I think I've mentioned before about the odd level of attention that is necessary to recall tunes. If my mind wanders the tune vanishes entirely, but if I concentrate too hard I also lose it. There is a perfect midpoint - the zone - in which tunes just come. Now I understand this I understand the fan better. I've always found it rather irritating when I've gone to him while he was playing,  sometimes just to say hello because I'd been out, or to ask something, and all I've got is a rather vague look and perhaps a nod. It makes me feel rather cut off, ignored, unimportant. Now I see that it's not to do with me at all, or even with the fan - it's just that he's in that zone, and once you're properly settled in you're not easily shaken out.

The zone is a private space and it feels uncomfortable slipping into it while people are watching. It also seems a little impolite, perhaps, stepping aside into a private space when you're with others. It's also almost a little embarrassing - exposing yourself to others while you're in such a private place. I think that's why playing in public is so scary. (I'm also aware that the fan pulls the most appalling faces when he's in the zone, and I don't know what I do and don't want to do anything that makes me look an idiot!)

Slipping into that space is still new to me, and hopefully eventually I will be able to go there at will, and immerse myself in it, regardless of who else is with me. I think I only just get inside the zone, not far enough in not to be aware of my audience, whereas I think the fan slips deep into the zone where having one's wife return from the shops, or offer you a cup of tea, or ask what you want for dinner is meaningless noise around the edges, shadows and glimmers of another life.

Teribus


Post written on 30 November

Not home too late this evening, despite the Waitrose detour that's becoming something of a permanent fixture on Fridays. Itching to get the pipes out. Had quite a good go - played around with Teribus, which I still haven't quite got by heart. I go round and round with the first ending of the B part and have problems remembering how the repeat goes. Still, it's sounding OK and I think it might pair with Bonnie Galloway. The version here is Teribus on its own and with dots, I'm afraid.

I would have played for longer, but decided to crack on with rebuilding the blog. Just as well I managed to retrieve it all yesterday as Podbean have taken it down again.



Teribus on Chirbit

Up To Date

So, I've now transferred all the posts from my old Podbean blog across to here. It actually looks as though the old blog is back again, but I'm glad to have everything here where I feel I can trust it to be around for a while. When I say "everything" I do, of course, mean all of the text. Much of the soundfiles are lost. I'll be posting what I have to SoundCloud or something similar and linking them to the relevant posts.

In the meantime I'm going to post some posts I wrote this week, which I didn't want to get lost among the "old" postings.

Monday 3 December 2012

Birthday Girl

First posted Nov 13th, 2012 by newpiper

You would have thought that the occasion of going out and buying your first ever set of pipes would stick in your mind. I know it was this time of year, but don't seem to have mentioned it in my diary or appointments diary. I know that once I had discovered that Simon Hope was just up the road I went to see him quite quickly. I'm not sure if that was out of excitement or not wanting to lose my nerve. It's a serious outlay - you can't get a cheap set in Hobgoblin as you can with many instruments, and the number of instruments I've tried and abandoned in my life is rather long...

The second time I saw Simon he had a set ready, which just happened to be the very spec I wanted, so I bought them. I'm not sure who was more surprised: Simon or me. I couldn't play them, but I parted with a large cheque and came home happy.

There's been a lot to learn in this first year. We've had our ups and downs, and some teething problems. It has taken us a while to get used to each other and feel comfortable together, but as difficult and frustrating as it is I wouldn't ever want to go back. She has changed my life in so many ways and even, I think, brought me closer to my fan. In short, she's one helluva girl, and I love her!

Happy Birthday, Morag!

Too Tired To Think

First posted Nov 12th, 2012 by newpiper

Music in my head all day and as soon as I got home and got the most pressing chores out of the way out came Morag. Rather tired, and struggled to recall whole tunes. Tried a few times over with various tunes and then gave in and resorted to dots. The problem with dots now, with a tune I know, I play the tune without looking at the dots, then when I'm not sure of a note I have to frantically scan the dots to work out where I am and what the next note is. My Home Town I managed to play with no prompting.

Teribus coming on nicely. That grip on the high A (do I mean grip? Too tired to think and can't be bothered to dig the green book out) arrived neatly and sounds great, although I am just assuming I am playing it right and haven't yet stopped to watch myself, as it were, to check that I am doing it right. Sometimes I find that missing out a grace note confuses me as to where I am in the tune, sometimes grace notes add themselves without my hardly noticing (which I think is terribly bad grammar but I am just too tired to think this evening).

Less than five months until the monkey is ready. Hopefully I'll have got a decent repertoire by then and have really improved. Still hoping to be able to put sets together and play three tunes straight through, with repeats, dotless, no errors. I think that's a reasonable aspiration, although I do need to get some faster tunes in to make up sets - too many slow and steady tunes doesn't make for good sets.

I noticed this evening that I am rocking between bellows and bag, tensing my shoulders, but I think that's tiredness. And I think the remembering tunes is not so much tiredness as my mind still being half on work and other things, instead of the music.

Stage Fright

First posted Nov 11th, 2012 by newpiper

So yesterday I was brave and took my pipes along to a session. It was a new session, very large, and I only knew the organiser. I got the pipes out, strapped on the bellows and sat the rest on my lap, partly to show that I wasn't an interloper, and partly stop me chickening out. You need to be quick off the mark to get a word in at a session when you're not joining in (everything else was either too English, or too Irish, and too darned fast). I knew the person running the session and she gave me the nod...and my musical memory deserted me and I made a horrible pig's ear of the Rowan Tree and the Barren Rocks. I knew it was wrong and couldn't quite salvage it - neither tune being in my head.

Still, I managed it, although it felt like one of those nightmares wherein you are about to sit an important test but have no idea what it's for. I was horribly embarrassed. The fan assures me I didn't disgrace myself entirely, and one kind person stopped me as we struggled out to say how nice the pipes sounded. I don't know who he was, but I like that man.

Threesome

First posted Nov 1st, 2012 by newpiper

I played a bit more yesterday and ended up back on the Kilbarchan Band website where I came across Teribus. Playing around this morning with putting The Rowan Tree up front and following it with Teribus and The Barren Rocks. I keep floundering on the rocks and needing the support of dots, for the B part especially. But I seem to have the stamina to play each tune twice through, one after the other, reasonably comfortably, which is good. Playing without drones because I cannot get them tuned. The fan is busy ripping out a bathroom, and the electronic tuner picks up the chanter perfectly, but seems deaf to the drones and insists they are all playing C.

Also wondering whether The Rowan Tree would go with My Home Town: they seem to share something - a mood, maybe. Or perhaps the Tree should be sandwiched between the Rocks and the Teribus: a 4/4 march set between two 2/4 marches. Actually: no. Speeding up from a slow start is good, but a slow piece sitting between two faster doesn't work, it seems.

And maybe the Rowan and Town, except they are mysteriously similar in that musical physics way and The Rowan Tree wiped My Home Town out of my head to such an extent it took three goes with the dots to get started again. Three goes partly because I just glance at the dots to get the shape of the thing, and not having the rhythm in my head I got the timing wrong. Also, of course, Castle Dangerous kept lurking, and I knew which notes I wanted for that... If I do put them together I think the Tree needs to come first, because that ends on low A, which leads nicely into the D throw, but dropping from the final strike on D on the Tree down to A to begin My Home Town doesn't seem to work.

So - time for a spot of lunch, and then maybe I'll try recording.

Amazing Grace

First posted Oct 31st, 2012 by newpiper


I meant to play a lot this week, while I'm off work, and somehow it hasn't worked out that way. The fan is out this evening, and I'm pretty sure the neighbours are out too, so I could have a real pipefest, but I found out this afternoon that a cat who used to visit us a lot was knocked down and killed by a car on Friday. It has really upset me, and I hoped piping might cheer me up, but all my fingers will play is Amazing Grace, which is lovely, but not one for lifting you up when you're down. Dotless - from nowhere, as it were - first came to me when I was thinking about Willie. Not a great version here - denuded of grace notes (I can hear them but not play them) - muddled start, and I all but dropped the pipes at the end - but played with love.
Recording - Amazing Grace.





Amazing Grace on Chirbit

Flett From Flotta

First posted Oct 30th, 2012 by newpiper

Not going too badly today. Flett from Flotta coming on slowly - played here with dots, but I can do chunks dotless. It's a bit slow... (the playing, not the learning. The learning seems to have speeded up. I play tunes over and over and I look at the dots and try to see patterns and break them down so I can see which sections repeat, which almost repeat).

I still find that one tune will knock another out of my head, especially where the tunes are similar in some way, or share even very short note patterns. Flett keeps knocking Bonnie Galloway for six. They both begin with E... On the other hand something suddenly caused The Rowan Tree to crawl out of the woodwork. I'd forgotten I was ever learning it, haven't played it in ages, and there it suddenly was.

I see I am still actually playing very simple tunes - the sort that you can find YouTube footage of 9 year olds playing, faster than me and altogether better than me. A while ago, when I was reading The Big Music, I got a bit distressed by one of the appendices. It shows a piping grading table, and it runs like this: complete beginner, learner, lower novice, novice. Yes - that's right - you get to the fourth stage and you're still only a novice. At the time it seemed very mean, but I suppose it actually expresses how slowly you learn (or how slowly I learn) and how much there is to learn.

Recording - Flett from Flotta.


Flett from Flotta on Chirbit

Lament for a Piper

First posted Oct 28th, 2012 by newpiper

I heard yesterday that the man who gave me some chanter lessons before I got my pipes has died. He took my desire to learn seriously. He pushed me to get grace notes just so. He encouraged me to think I really could play. He spoke kindly of my early attempts on the pipes, which he heard here, on my blog. He was a lovely man, and full of funny stories which he used to tell me as I struggled through doublings and taorluaths, and I will miss him. Good bye, Willie Allan, and thank you.

I wrote this yesterday, then couldn't post due to internet problems. This morning I turned on the radio, earlier than normal, and realised I was still tuned to Four Extra, and as the radio picked up the station there were the Royal Scots Dragon pipes playing Amazing Grace, courtesy of Ewan McGregor on Desert Island Discs. A moment of serendipity. I stood in the kitchen and listened to the pipes and thought of Willie.

The tune is Bonnie Galloway, dotless, of course. 

Recording - Bonnie Galloway. Status - lost.

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.

Six Dangerous Bars

First posted Oct 6th, 2012 by newpiper

I am determined to get Castle Dangerous off by heart, but why is it taking so long? Every time I get one piece the next piece goes. If I get the A and the B then as soon as I come back to the A I lose it again. It has to be the world’s easiest piece: the repeats are such that it amounts to just six bars worth of notes to learn.

We have new neighbours upstairs and I suppose while I've played this morning I've had half an ear open for them coming rampaging down the stairs to complain about noise – although considering it sounds as though they are re-enacting the Olympics up there they don’t have much of a leg to stand on. I've also been waiting for the fan to come home...and here he is.

Other than those six bars it has gone well - relaxed fingers, relaxed pumping arm, tunes coming well, all sounding good.

Nice Try

First posted Sep 25th, 2012 by newpiper

The fan is out and I thought I’d play to make it three days in row. I have done nothing but the Barren Rocks, over and over. I've recorded every time on the grounds that it would held me focus on the playing and forget the recording. Each time (how many? Too many! Actually....ten) I have mucked it up. I thought that part 2 would be a bit slow, because it’s not quite there. But the first part also messes up. Oddly it’s the opening two notes – it’s E then G grace on an F, but if I miss the grace, or start on F the whole thing goes to pot and I can’t start at all.

Of course, I did manage one very good play through. Was the recorder on? Of course not. The version I have posted is not great. The speed is reasonable. I can play faster but was trying to slow down to aim for accuracy (ha, ha). I make a real hash of the B part. Annoyingly I remembered this as the best attempt and deleted some better ones. Some versions that I thought were fast actually crawled along. Interesting that in many of the recordings I managed to go round three times. It’s not that I was enjoying myself that much: more an inability to count, I think!

Still feeling like hard work, though. Still having problem with pressure: just feeling as though there is too much air in the system, and I’m pumping too much (the two problems clearly connected). Still, since I've been tightening the bellows strap more I've got rid of the issue of it rubbing my inner elbow. What I do have though is the bag rubbing up my left forearm and marking it. My starts are improving – hear the nice little taradiddle that I've pinched from Vicki. And the Iain MacInnes-style blip at the end, too! And not to forget that this is entirely dotless.

Mind you...I've just had a listen to an earlier version, with dots, and I feel, this is better. Isn't it?

Recording - the Barren Rocks of Aden.


Barren Rocks

Playlist Update

First posted Sep 23rd, 2012 by newpiper

More practice. I'm making the effort to play all tunes through twice over - so A part twice, B part twice, A part twice more, B part twice more. Hopefully this is improving my stamina and also helping tunes embed themselves in my brain and fingers. If the tune goes well I enjoy this. I can actually listen to the music I am playing as I go, and, naturally, I enjoy listening to smallpipes, so that's good. If a tune goes badly I have to push myself to tackle it again instead of going on to the next one, although when things go really badly I find it's best to set a tune aside until I've warmed up with a couple of others. Sometimes I have to admit defeat and abandon entirely, and normally the next time I play the problems will have mysteriously ironed themselves out.

One thing that bemuses me is how I can play a tune with a repeating phrase, play it twice in the A part, twice more in the B part, two more times in the A part again, hit it in the next B part - so the 7th time of playing - and totally seize up and not be able to play it at all.

More good news - my D strike, which has stubbornly insisted on being a clunk of extraneous notes, has suddenly morphed into a proper gracing.

I had another little look at the Kilbarchan pipe band website the other evening and printed out Bonnie Galloway and Flett from Flotta. Hoping to put Bonnie Galloway with The Rowan Tree and the Barren Rocks as a set. The Rowan Tree is coming on quite quickly, dotless.

So, time to revise my playlist.

Pretty much totally dotless

  • Atholl Highlanders
  • Banks of Allen
  • Barren Rocks
  • My Home Town


Moving towards dotlessness

  • Castle Dangerous
  • Leaving Barra
  • The Rowan Tree


Stuff I am learning

  • Bonnie Galloway
  • Troy's Wedding


Stuff I want to learn

  • Heights of Casino
  • A Boy's Lament for his Dragon
  • Flett from Flotta

Old Friends (My Home Town)

First posted Sep 20th, 2012 by newpiper

Yesterday was hideous. Tunes wouldn't come, drones sounded vile, and I was really struggling with pressure and bellows. I seem to be keeping a steady amount in the bag and relying on somehow crashing down on the bellows and forcing air right through to the chanter and drones. Although both arms hurt, so that can’t be quite the whole story. Certainly the connector is flipping out, which suggests too much movement – and sometimes it’s whole upper-body movement when I hunch, twitch and sway. Not good at all.

Today is better. I’m still feeling uncomfortable with the pressure levels. I wonder if the drop in temperature is affecting Morag. Still, the tunes are coming today – notes in the right places, and I’m playing tunes through twice without too much trouble. Looser fingers, also: they've been tense of late. Not that they are helping with those clunky D throws...

The same old tunes today. You’d think I’d be sick to death of them by now – I certainly expected to never want to play them again the amount time it’s taking me to memorise them. But actually I love them: they are really great tunes and I am so glad to be able to play them, and I’m starting to feel that I know them well enough that they feel like old friends.

Recording is My Home Town. The usual red-button-itis, a few wrong notes, and once I hit the wrong note which sent me straight into the b part instead of the second A. At the end, thinking to decelerate slightly in order to come to a graceful and dignified halt, I held a grace note as well as an actual note. Doh! Oh, and two drones only as the third sounds foul and there’s no fan here to adjust. I really need to learn to tune them for myself.

Recording - despite the the text I never actually uploaded a tune with this post. 

Progress

First posted Sep 18th, 2012 by newpiper

Yes, I do really feel as though I am making progress now. Still working on getting those tunes by heart. Still too hit and miss for my liking: too many glitches and hitches, but coming on. Now I'm not concentrating 100% on remembering the tune I can look around a bit as my fingers play. So I am listening to my drones more, and also noticing how my breathing sits with the bellows and the bag. I'm hopeful that once I get these tunes properly done I'll be able to try tapping my foot as I play. You'd think that would be easy, but it is like learning to drive a car, when you can check the speedo, or change gear, or remember where the indicators are, but all three at once is too much to ask - and if it suddenly gets dark and pours down with rain the chances of you finding lights and switching on your wipers without causing a major pile up are vanishingly slim.

So, get more of my tunes by heart, learn to tap foot. Then I want to learn more tunes. I started on Joe McGann a while back, abandoned it while learning the others dotless, and now I don't fancy it. I mean - it's a great tune, and it sounds good when the Fan plays it, but it's his choice not mine and I don't have the real desire to play it. So I've set it to one side in favour of Troy's Wedding. More practice needed, as ever. The allotment season is drawing to a close now, just some pre-Christmas knitting to distract me, so hopefully I'll spend more time piping.

Banks of Allen Take 5

First posted Sep 16th, 2012 by newpiper

My goal at the moment is to play a tune twice through, dotless, and without mistakes. The Banks of Allen will be the first there, I think. My Home Town isn't that far behind. The fan has done some covert recording, which sounds okayish - but it's on his phone and there doesn't seem to be a way to transfer it t the PC in a way I can upload it here. So I've picked one of three awful attempts made at the end of today's session, when I was tired.

I've had a tune in my head these last weeks and managed to pick it out on the pipes today. It feels like a B part, because it resolves down to A at the end, and it feels like a pipe tune just because the fingering is nice and easy. But what the tune is, I know not, and neither does the fan. I sat and listened to Time and Tide as I've had that on in the car of late and can't fully concentrate on music when I'm driving, so thought perhaps I had absorbed it from there. The fan is inclined to think that either it's something I've made up, or it's a complete hash of Mr and Mrs Maclean of Snaigow. I think it's the latter. Either way, I guess it's something to be able to pick a tune out on the pipes like that.

Recording - The Banks of Allen. Status - lost.

Random Ramblings

First posted Sep 11th, 2012 by newpiper

On Sunday, after I’d posted and played, I went back and listened to the earlier recordings I’d made of the Banks. Bearing in mind those were with dots my new version really does sound more like a tune and less like a loose affiliation of notes. So I was quite pleased with that, in the end.

As always seems to happen when I commit myself to saving up for something, I've suddenly seen a heap of things I really want. These are mostly CDs. I've been looking for some other smallpipers to listen to. I could listen to Iain MacInnes forever, but I feel it would do me good to listen to some different styles and approaches. I poked around on Footstompin’ and found the various Grand Concert of Piping CDs and a couple of Allan MacDonald with Margaret Stewart. There’s also a compilation from a Hamish Moore piping concert that looks good. Then All Celtic Music have now got the third in the trilogy from Duncan Chisholm, which isn't pipes, but is Scottish; and an intriguing CD featuring nykelharpa and Irish pipes.

Neither of these were the reason I logged on to post this evening, but the reason clearly isn't going to come back to me...

The Same Old Same Old

First published Sep 9th, 2012 by newpiper

I feel I’m blogging by numbers here. I could just have a list of statements and tick as appropriate each time. There would be one about my drones being out of tune/ too loud/generally annoying. Another would cover the frequency of the connector tube flipping out. I’d need one to address inability to recall a tune/ annoyance at the poor quality of grace notes. Oh, and let’s not forget the all important “It’s ages since I last played/posted/recorded”. Fling in the endless repetition of the same few tunes and it’s piper’s groundhog day around here.

Still, I may move slower than an asthmatic ant carrying some particularly heavy shopping but I am moving, and generally in the right direction. The fan (to whose encouragement I owe a lot) says I am sounding fluent, getting faster. The other day he did what I've always secretly wished for and recorded me without telling me. The red button nerves are a menace and recording distracts me. I wasn't massively impressed: struggling to get the tune right with no dots (it was the Banks) and surprised at how loud it was (he was in a different room and only had his phone to record on), but actually, it wasn't that bad.

The other thing with learning tunes is that I have moved from thinking in terms of what the note I need is called to thinking in terms of shapes and patterns of where my fingers need to be, which I think is how I used to play the recorder by heart: finger memory.

So here are those blasted banks of Allen, once again. Don’t ask me why it is that the B part is the one that goes round in my head, but is also the part I struggle with. Familiar territory, and I could sketch a map of the main landmarks, but I don’t yet know every inch blindfold, backwards, so I guess groundhog day is going to continue for a while yet.

(And updating this I see it's the fourth time I've posted this tune. I need to listen to the other versions and I need to get it right so I can move on to something else)

Recording - The Banks of Allen.


Banks again on Chirbit

Slip Sliding Away

First posted Sep 2nd, 2012 by newpiper

Not too happy with today's playing. I had to really think hard to remember how Home Town went. Leaving Barra seems to have broken itself up into bits and I can't get them in the right order. The B part of Barren Rocks has gone in a puff of smoke. Also, physically struggling.

But then, my complaint is that I can't get tunes note perfect the first time round - and this is dotless. Two weeks ago I would have been - I was - thrilled to be able to play anything dotless. The physical issue is down to digging over the bed where I cleared out the sweet peas earlier. And the fan says my speed is coming on nicely. I must persevere, I must not lose heart. I am still moving very slowly in the right direction. 

I Remember, I Remember

First posted Aug 29th, 2012 by newpiper

So – I can still play my tunes! Town came easily enough, but I had a bit of a fight to get all the bits of the Castle in the right order, and had to check the opening notes of the second part. Banks OK except I keep swinging straight into the B part. I can’t play from memory while reading discussions on the Session...


I have worked out how Iain MacInnes does his trademark end note – keep the pressure up and swipe the thumb off the hole as you cut the pressure. At least – that’s what I think I’m doing. I can only do it by accident at the moment.


Drones sound awful today – no fan here to help me tune them.


Mr Kinnear has sent a receipt and the monkey’s estimated arrival is end of March!

I Did It!

First posted Aug 28th, 2012 by newpiper

I ordered a second set of pipes - beautiful hand engraved silver, combination A/D with a key for high B on the A and one for high E on the D, and a nifty switch to turn the drones on and off. Pipes are being made by Ian Kinnear in the east of Scotland. I can't wait! 

Musical Physics

First posted Aug 27th, 2012 by newpiper

This morning I've sat down and just tried to play the Castle, Home and Banks by heart. Castle and Home are the hardest...they both start D throw, E, F, A, F. It's so easy to pause too long on the first F and fall into Castle Dangerous when you mean to play Home Town. I also find it hard to hold both tunes in my head at once - they seem to cancel each other out by some strange law of musical physics. So the challenge is not remembering the tune, as such - it's being able to decide which of the two I want to play and then conjure it into my head, forcing the other out, without banishing it permanently. I've tried flipping between the two to really force myself to think about it.

Home keeps skipping into the B part - I have problems playing the A part twice, for some reason. That drop to low A after the F in the B part keeps throwing me. I rest on the F trying to remember where I go next. I think if I kept the grip in that might help.

Also had a brief go at Heights of Casino and Troy's Wedding. I need to find a clean copy of the Heights - difficult to tell the length of some notes from my version.

Still hating my drones and playing with them capped off. The bag is marking my left forearm as I try to put pressure on it instead of the bellows. Bellows tube still coming out a lot. But with a bit more work I think I can claim these three tunes to be some I know dotless (and let's hope that's more permanent than Dusty Pipes, the first tune that claimed dotless status, and which I think I no longer know.)

Morag's Revenge

First posted Aug 24th, 2012 by newpiper

Yesterday was hopeless, in practical terms. Musically not too bad – I remembered a reasonable amount by heart. But the connector kept popping out, the tubing came adrift from the connector, the straps felt wrong. It was a short and bad-tempered session. I think Morag’s sulking over the putative new pipes (still not ordered because I still want keyless and the fan urges keys and I am paralysed by indecision).

This evening working on Banks of Allen, and not doing too badly dotless, but the drones sound bad, and that middle drone is really weak and wavery. I've closed it off in desperation, but I’m so used to the three that two sound odd and that distracts me. Also suffering from a tense thumb on the right hand this evening. I've played. I've twice been interrupted by the phone. Recorded towards the end of playing (and considering the fan is out with the band tonight I've not played for long – an hour at most including phone calls). I’m tired, perhaps, and struggling with remembering the tune and with putting fingers on the holes, mostly because my hands are now tensing up. I recorded some versions with the middle drone only, and you really can barely hear – once I kick in another drone I get a big sound. Surely it’s not right? But heavens – I still sound like a total numpty beginner. Feels like a long journey, and uphill all the way.

Off By Heart

First posted Aug 21st, 2012 by newpiper

Yet another post without a recording...

Found half an hour to play this evening before I needed to start cooking. It has been a bit warm of late for playing, so it seems like a while. Fought with the bellows connector for a while until I realised that the last time the tube had come off the connector I'd managed to put the connector into the tube back to front...

I deliberately didn't get any sheet music out. I managed bits of Banks of Allen, the whole of the A part of Barren Rocks, ditto Castle Dangerous. Even with the fan playing it for me I totally failed more than a couple of chunks of Home Town (the first two notes are the same as the castle so I kept going in to that instead). Barra just wouldn't come to me. The Highlanders...well, they are coming on.

Anyway, considering this is the first I've tried by heart from a standing stop, as it were - that is, I've not just that moment played from dots - I don't think it was too bad a showing.

Still dithering over the exact spec for my new set of pipes and pestering Mr Kinnear with random questions.

Learning to Ride a Bike

Fisrt posted Aug 19th, 2012 by newpiper

Had a good practice on Friday. Discovered I could play My Home Town, Leaving Barra and Castle Dangerous from memory. It's bit like stabilisers on a bike. All stabilisers do is allow you to learn to ride with stabilisers. There comes a point where you still need to learn to ride without. Thinking about it just makes you fall off. What I need is the musical equivalent of my Dad hanging on to the back of my saddle saying "don't worry - I'm right here. I've got you; you wont fall" and then letting go, without me knowing, so that I sail off and I am really riding a bicycle all on my own. And it goes fine until the moment when I twist to look behind to tell Dad something, only Dad isn't there, and I fall off, because thinking about riding a bicycle is harder than riding a bicycle.

I was hoping to make a sidebar list of tunes I'm playing, but can't find a way of doing that easily, so I'm going to list them here and re-list at intervals, so I can (hopefully!) see my repertoire expanding. The fan says I should get to know thousands of tunes, but I know that no matter how many new recipes I try each year I always end up cooking the same amount - some of them may be new but old ones slip off. I seem to have a maximum capacity for recipes. Hope my tune capacity is going to be bigger. My current tune list is very small, but I'm slowly dropping out all those that actually suited the chanter better, or that I learned because the Fan suggested them - I'm finally building up a repertoire (as I said I wanted) of tunes I've heard and really love (and Ceol Sean is helping with that - going through Tryst the dots for practically all the tunes are on Ceol Sean).

So - those tunes.


Tunes I can play, with dots, but can do good chunks dotless
  • The Atholl Highlanders (dotless on this pretty much since I started with it)
  • Leaving Barra
  • Castle Dangerous
  • The Barren Rocks of Aden
  • My Home Town

Tunes I can play with dots only
  • Banks of the Allen (although I occasionally get bits of the B part dotless)
  • The Rowan Tree

Tunes I am working on at the moment
  • Joe McGann's Fiddle

Tunes on my pile of things I really want to learn
  • Troy's Wedding
  • The St Kilda Wedding
  • Heights of Casino
  • The Boy's Lament for his Dragon




Annoying the Neighbours

First posted Aug 15th, 2012 by newpiper

I did try to sneak in a quick practice yesterday, thinking it was early enough not to bother the neighbours, but I forgot that various doors and windows were open...and hadn't realised that our neighbours apparently keep very early hours. So my session was quickly curtailed. However, in order to minimise noise I blocked my drones off and could hear my chanter more clearly...and thus my grace notes, which aren't bad (although listening to Iain MacInnes as I type they are still too obviously collections of fast notes rather than those chirps and burbles that they should be).

Anyway, another go this evening (on the other side of the house, with windows shut, and early in the evening!) and experimented with blocked off drones. One at a time also means I can hear the drones and how they are doing. The middle drone still doesn't sound very strong, but they don't sound as wavery and inconsistent as they do when I've got them all going. Whether that's because I can manage even pressure for one but not all, or the waver is some trick of hearing with chanter and three drones going, I know not. I do know that my shoulders ached, which means I've been pumping too much, which means I need to practice more. (This - along with "I need more time" - should surely go on my gravestone).

Anyway, while I was fiddling around between tunes listening to a drone I suddenly discovered I was playing My Home Town. What with that, almost having the Barren Rocks sorted and the Highlanders still coming slowly that's three tunes I can nearly play by heart.

One of the odd things about playing by heart is getting the exact level of concentration. To a certain extent you can think too hard about it you just have to let your fingers go. It's like driving - you don't need to ask which gear you are in or are moving to - it comes naturally, and thinking "which gear am I in" normally means you are in, or about to move to, the wrong gear. On the other hand too little concentration and you miss a part or play a part three times instead of twice. You have to sort of listen to the tune without thinking about your fingers. At least, I think that's what I'm doing.

No recording again - it still takes away more from a session than it adds because it shifts my focus. I wish I could hit record at the start, stop when I end playing for the day, and just snip out the bits I want. Or maybe I should get the fan to record me so I'm not thinking about it...

Pondering

First posted Aug 14th, 2012 by newpiper

Yesterday I played and it didn't go too badly. No playing today as it's band night, which has become the traditional days for members of my family to ring me. So having yacked on the phone, fiddled about with bank things, and finished some bibs for a colleague about to go on maternity leave, I now have time to think...about my new pipes, my little velvet monkey.


I've already chosen the design, because it was the lovely engraved silver that caught my eye in the first place (I have a knack of picking out the most expensive item in a shop...) With cocobolo mounts. Definitely a combination set. This was initially because the fan said it would be easier to play with other instruments, but having played D...fabulous - I definitely want D, but why drop A? A is where I began, it's what makes pipes and pipe music - that being in A. And, yes, I could just have an A set and a D set. The reeds are in "split" stocks which means they are tucked inside the chanter and wont come to grief when I'm changing them. The only other smallpiper I know has a combination set and has no complaints. It means that if/when I get to go to sessions I need only carry one set of pipes. A combination set will take up less room in an already overcrowded flat, and, let's face it, a combination set is cheaper than two sets...


So then there's the drone switch, and I know that's pinched from uilleann pipes, and isn't traditional, but then arguably Scottish smallpipes themselves aren't traditional. Sometimes when I want less volume I block off my drones. Simon made me nice wooden pegs, which are on leather strings around each drone. Nicer than blu tack! However, pegs fall out and there are three to fiddle with. For combination pipes there would be four to fiddle with. Two things sold me on this. The first was Ian's suggestion, when I was playing Leaving Barra, that "in performance" (and, gosh, how nice of him to suggest that performance of any kind is something I could ever think about) it would produce an interesting effect to run through the tune droneless and then kick them back in for the repeat, which, the tune ending on D, could easily be done with one hand. The second issue is that when I block off my drones the pressure alters and I have to adjust like mad, but I found that with Ian's pipes it made no difference. Maybe that's the pipes rather than the drone switch.


So the big issue is keys. The fan feels that lots of extra keys would give me lots of extra notes and allow me to play lots of extra tunes in keys that won't scare off the rest of a session. Vicki has three keys on her A chanter, and would like three on her D chanter. So I have thought of keys. They aren't cheap, but they would make other people happy, apparently.


But Ian himself said something about ending up with a different instrument. I looked at the pictures of Iain MacInnes on the CD sleeve of Tryst. Pipes with no keys. Mike Katz on You Tube (presumably playing some of Ian's pipes). Pipes with no keys.


All day I've been humming the Boy's Lament and Leaving Barra. And then on the way home I stuck Mike Katz in the CD player, and I thought - yes, I like this music: the traditional tunes, especially. And the traditional tunes - Scottish tunes, pipe tunes - they're all in A. I don't need high B or C sharp or G something else, I just need those 9 notes. Think of the most rousing, heart-lifting march, the liveliest reel, the most heartbreaking piobaireachd and they all use just those 9 notes. And I think that although I have enjoyed playing with other people it's never what I set out to do, and I don't see why I should maul my instrument about in order to please those who play Irish music. I don't play a substitute for uilleann pipes, I don't play Irish music: I play Scottish music, I play a Scottish instrument. So I think that I will order a set as nature and the shades of pipers past intended: key less. Probably.

Banks of the Allen Again

First posted Aug 12th, 2012 by newpiper

I picked up my pipes too late yesterday evening- I was already tired and crotchety and things did not go well. Following my visit to Mr Kinnear I've tightened the bellows strap, which means my arm is no longer being rubbed, but I do now have a lovely bruise on my hip bone: I seem to have to really bear down on the bellows to get the pressure.

I've also gone back to the shorter bit of tubing between bellows and bag. The connector has been pulled out a few times, but on the whole it seems to work and improves the way things feel. I think it perhaps helps the drones rest closer to my body, maybe. I am still convinced that Morag is heavier than other pipes: I stood to play at Mr Kinnear’s, which I find too tiring with Morag.

I've been playing in a skirt, and find that the chanter tends to rest on the fabric and get stifled unless I hitch my skirt up. I sometimes play cross-legged, which the fan says can’t help, but I actually find it comfortable.

On the whole I feel there is too much pressure in the system, everything sounds little loud and sharp. I don’t think I've got my drones in tune, either, this afternoon, and the fan is at a session so I am stuck with it. I’m trying hard not to think about that little velvet, clinging monkey with its vibrant voice. If I put in an order today I’d have 8 months to wait, and even if I have them...well a great player may make much of a basic instrument, but a great instrument isn’t going to make a better player of me: only practice will do that.In terms of tunes I am finding some new ones to try, although the fan cautions against trying to learn too many at once.

I've found the marvellous Ceol Sean site and have the Boy’s Lament For His Dragon from there, also Joe McGann’s Fiddle and I've remembered I wanted to play the Heights of Casino and Troy’s Wedding. Perhaps I should stop collecting new tunes and just concentrate on the selection I have for now.

Here is the Banks of Allen, again, hopefully a little improved from before as I've been working on it this evening. Still struggling with gracing for some reason. It has taken way too many takes to record this: I've lost concentration somewhere along the line. I didn't once manage a perfect run through and kept collapsing totally after mistakes instead of picking up and carrying on. (I've also lost the knack of stopping cleanly)

Recording - The Banks of Allen.


Banks of the Allen on Chirbit

Return of the Atholl Dogs

First posted Aug 6th, 2012 by newpiper

Yes, really - two posts in one day. Ran through the usual playlist. Not doing too badly and can play chunks of the Rocks and Barra by heart. But then I got tired quickly perhaps (it's the back end of the evening and I've had a glass of wine...) but it seemed to me I was needing a lot of pressure to keep the drones going, and they were giving up the moment I eased off.

The fan notes that compared to Mr Kinnear my hands look very tense on my chanter - and I know they are because sometimes it makes my thumbs hurt. Not a problem I've ever had with whistles or recorders, although I did have it with the chanter. Perhaps it's just mental tension, as it were, or perhaps it's the weight of the chanter. (And I'm trying not to think that when I have my new pipes - and I haven't actually put in a real order as yet - all will be well)

But I thought I ought to record. I ran once through the Highlanders (parts 1-3 only) with no problems. As soon as the recorder came out I flapped. I think I immediately start thinking about my blog post and criticising my playing, so stop thinking about the tune. So here is a reasonably fast, hideously inaccurate, and frankly not very tuneful version. Better than the previous attempts? Tunepal thought I was playing the William Tell Overture, or perhaps Atholl Brose. Somehow rather discouraging....

(And then I've deleted the bad version and posted the awful version. Re-recorded. Still bad - and this time I know I was definitely thinking about the blog and not the tune, hence the mess.)

Recording - The Atholl Highlanders. Status - retrieved - to be posted

Hiatus

First posted Aug 6th, 2012 by newpiper

So, another hiatus, this one caused by our trip to Scotland. On the way to Glasgow we stopped off at Edzell to say hi to Ian Kinnear and to see, hear and play his pipes. Well, they look good, and they sound really lovely when he plays them! I also loved playing them. I had a go on a D set, which is strange for all or two minutes, and then fingers get their bearings, and you're off.

The pipes were so comfortable. Morag, as I think I have mentioned, is a bit of a strapping lass, somehow, a bit of an armful. I reach around the bag to hold it. I have to get the bellows strapped on just so. I have to hold the drones until there is enough air in the bag to keep them buoyant, and I can't let off the bag for a second because the pressure drops away very quickly. Ian's pipes - well, the bag is soft and tucks itself close to your body, like a monkey just cuddling in to its mother. The drones somehow rest themselves against your upper chest, like the pipes are laying their head on your shoulder - which also makes it easier to hear them. Even before we tightened the bellows strap the strap didn't chafe and the bellows just sat - they didn't drag. I think they are lighter than my bellows. And the sound - the sound had - oh - a vibrance, a clarity - especially the D - clear and bright - and the top and bottom notes on both chanters very satisfying indeed.

So I went away feeling as though I could still feel those pipes cuddled in to my side, and with pipe music playing in my head. I've been reading a book about pipe music, and in Glasgow there are pipers on the streets, and I heard a rather good border piper at a session in the Oran Mor, so I feel as though I've thought about nothing except pipe music all week. Came home yesterday and immediately got my pipes out and had a go, and thought - heavens, actually I'm not too bad at this.

But I need to really listen to the tunes in my head. To really listen and recognise and think "oh - that tune has that name" or "so that's how that bit goes". I also want to be able to select tunes, as it were, to take control of which tunes wander through my head. I feel as though this is something I need to do to become a musician. I feel that even if I'm not there yet I am identifying the steps I need to take, the road to follow.


Sunday


First posted Jul 29th, 2012 by newpiper

I am still here. I played earlier in the week without blogging, but just the once. What’s been stopping me playing? Not sure, although I am reading a lot of books at present. Filling in time until I go on holiday, for which I've bought Kirsty Gunn’s Big Music. Hope it’s worth the wait.

The other evening I tried Joe McGann’s fiddle - just the first part, but it shaped up quite nicely, quite quickly. It’s one of those tunes that ceases to be recognisable below a certain speed, and when I can’t hear the tune as I feel it should sound when I'm playing it then the dots are hard to read, if that makes any sort of sense. The Barren Rocks coming along at a good speed, although I had stripped out all grace notes and feel it might be nice to throw a handful of simple ones back in. Actually – having just played it through again I see I do grace some notes – I just have to have my wits about me to catch myself doing it. It’s clearly sort of automatic. I’m just dropping my D finger down between the two Ds at the end of each part and a strike to G would be better, I think, if I can do it cleanly. The problem is that when you’re not even aware you've been doing something it’s quite difficult to stop or alter it.

No recording. Fan at a session and no sign of the recorder. He may have taken it, or it may be in one of the many drawers and cupboards in this room...