Droning on

I decided to have a bit of a play before the session today, mostly to help me acclimatise to drones. I stuck with D, to make life easier. It felt strange, the drones sounded so loud and I struggled to play any tune without errors. I kept wanting just to flip them off so I could concentrate on getting the tunes right. I persevered, but I didn't have any of that comfort and confidence that I've had before. I'm not sure how or when or why I lost that. Was it because I stopped playing so much over July and August, or is it because I've not given myself a break from it for a while?

The session was very small today, and I felt a bit exposed, perhaps, and a bit out of of practice at playing in public. I also worried that I wouldn't feel comfortable with my drones, and I know I ended up relying too much on the bellows. I also worried that my tunes would let me down, and even resorted to dots, as several other had, there were very few people there, and  I really wanted to play my Nova Scotia set.

As it happened I played, I felt a little nervous, and then I heard my drones, and it was like the moment at an uncomfortable party when you spot a friendly face in the crowd and suddenly realise it's going to be OK. I was comforted by their presence.

I didn't play my best. I wasn't fluent enough. My timing wasn't consistent. I was very thin on gracing. My fingers weren't light enough on the chanter. The fan says I really need sets - a single tune ends with an anticlimax. But I'm still not finding tunes that work together and at a session I'm afraid of fluffing and the more tunes I play the greater the scope for fouling things up. Nor do I want to outstay my welcome, musically speaking. The fan will play three tunes in a set, but he plays a lot faster than me. I don't want to feel I'm putting people through 6 or 7 minutes of musical purgatory.

I must get back to those previous levels of comfort. I must become more consistent. I need to know my tunes even better: I need to know that they won't let me down, that I will always get every last note right. I need sets. I need to get better at moving between A and D.

Most of all I think I have to relax and stop fretting. I just need to play and enjoy.