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.