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.