Donna e mobile

I feel rather fickle today. I got my pipes out to play and decided I really should give the A a go. I fiddled about to get comfortable and played the Tree to remind my fingers where everything was, then launched into my new tunes. It was a little hard work - both in terms of the pressure and the fingering, my bottom hand really having to stretch (although I'm not sure why as I had my practise chanter out yesterday afternoon and didn't feel I needed to stretch at all).

Anyway, it went reasonably well, and I thought what a nice sound the A has. It's deeper and richer than the D. It has more gravitas for marching tunes. I played once with the drones, just to try, and it was a bit of work, but not a struggle. I played the King. The fan likes the King in A. I need to decide which tunes go best with which chanter.

Played everything except Alick. Played for 30 minutes, felt tired, decided to have one tune on the D, and raced through the new tunes and Galloway, not feeling tired at all.

I love them both, the A and the D, and they almost feel like two different sets of pipes: they sound different, they play differently, both fingering and bellows. Maybe they should have two names. There was a moment when I thought I loved the D so much that maybe I had bought unwisely and should have had just a D set instead of the combination, but I love A, too: I'd miss it if I didn't have it. As a one instrument gal it gives me a little air of variety.

But the whole month has gone well. I haven't struggled, it's not been difficult to play every day - I've never felt it a chore, and I've always enjoyed it. Last time it felt like a real test of endurance, something I was never sure I'd manage.

I've totted up time spent. There were a couple of "not sure" entries, and I've disregarded those, but I make it around 18 hours playing. 18 hours! Not bad when you compare it to my total for the beginning of May which was 60 hours over 18 months, and this is almost a third of that in just one month!

I think I'm going to give myself a break and allow myself not to play if I don't want to, but it's definitely worth booking in another play every day month. Maybe September.