Wednesday 11 September 2013

Not inhaling

I've sort of, kind of, maybe, played yesterday and today. Today I've had the chanter out. My lungs feel fit to burst. By fidgeting around with chanter in the middle of my mouth, our to the left, out to the right, blowing my cheeks out, keeping them flat, I've managed not to lose my lip too soon.

Yesterday I didn't have time to get the pipes out before the band arrived, then they decided to sit around having a long discussion about chord sequences (yawn) and I didn't like to play in case I disturbed them. So I blew very gently in the chanter, enough to hear notes, but not enough to bother the band. Almost practising, but somehow not quite.

I can still play MacIntyre and even bits of Castle Grant are coming, which is very exciting. I've been humming that all day. Like other longer (more than two parts) tunes I've worked on it is difficult to follow as a sequence, so I get various bits that repeat and repeat, but I'm not sure how they go together. I also find that the way longer tunes are laid out on the page it's harder to spot when the end of this part is identical to the end of that part and so on. I guess the answer is that I should hear those, but when variations can be quite subtle I don't yet find it easy.

I'm feeling that I'm more able to recognise quickly a a tune in my head. I can deliberately hum a tune. I can stop a tune in my head and move on to another. I really feel that I am more in control of my musical memory.

Still moving in the right direction and feeling a the moment as though I am putting on a real spurt of growth.


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