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