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