My Home Town Revisited

First posted May 27th, 2012 by newpiper

The fan has been out at a pre-gig practice session today, so I’ve had the place to myself. I’ve played for about an hour over an hour and a half period and it has again gone really well. I am tantalisingly close to nailing That Tune. How close? One record button away from it – not perfect pretty much every time, but as soon as I hit record I fluff. I’m pleased with the tempo, although I would like to get some gracenoting in and don’t seem to be managing that at the moment.

The Highlanders are coming on nicely although I really do need to concentrate.

This is a rerun of My Home Town, which, as the composer was John MacLellan, must be a tune about Dumfermline. The timing needs to improve and those D throws! They are so slow and clunk by a note at a time. There should also be grip on the B in the second part, but for some reason I don’t seem to be able to play that at all. Odd, as grips normally work well for me, although I am most comfortable with them on C. I've also chickened out of the strike on D because I have never managed to get that to sound like a grace note. Not note perfect, but otherwise sounding OK, I thought. I wish I'd repeated the whole tune the second time, but I was getting tired and wanted to quit while it was OK. A heap better than last time, certainly.

Oh – I’m not sure about the tuning of my drones. Not easy to tune with one hand and I normally get the fan to help. They don’t sound quite right: when I try each drone in turn they seem OK, but as soon as they are both going (I only use the two As) with the chanter something sounds adrift.

Recording - My Home Town.


My Home Town on Chirbit