Down to earth

Struggling a little this evening, failing to feel comfortable. I'm not sure why: I'm not particularly tired. Struggling to get a clean start: everything seems to start from a squeak or a growl before it settles in. In some ways it's helpful, though, because it explodes that little myth I've been hanging on to that somehow Morag was holding me back, when actually Morag is a perfectly decent set of pipes and my faults and failings are mine alone.

Speaking of faults and failings... I've tried The Willows this evening as Vicki covered it on her podcast. She does some sneaky gracing which she doesn't mention at all, but on the plus side she explained how you might play the tune without G sharp and high B. High B I have! I keep making a pig's ear of the second A part ending - I just keep forgetting to skip to the next bars, or I hang aroung at the end of one bar pondering. A couple of times I've forgotten to play AA as instructed and have played AG instead, because that's what the dots say (and serve me right for an over reliance on the dots). Triplets not good. Oh, and ending on B feels all wrong, as does ending without running in to the The Three Ashes, which Vicki and Johnny normally put with the Willows. I find Johnny's tunes catch me out because they often do unexpected things, and I keep playing the expected note, only to find it's the wrong one.

On the positive side I hit that high B each time, without any squawking, albeit in a sort of hurried way, they way you yell "look! Look!" 2 seconds before whatever you're doing ends in disaster...

And as we're on the subject of disaster, I see that the error message that flashed up on the recorder meant that it ate the last bit of the tune. Botheration.


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