Out with the old

I didn't play yesterday and today... Well, it's a while since everything has gone quite so spectacularly badly. Nothing felt comfortable, nothing felt right. My pipes didn't sound good. I couldn't play a single tune without mucking it up. I gave up in disgust.

Roll on 2014.

The last time

Many years ago I had a friend who often used to forget my birthday. She once sent me a card that said "Don't think of this as a belated card so much as the anniversary of the last time I forgot your birthday". I thought of it because I'm currently amazing myself with my ability to repeat mistakes. I feel like a horse at a fence: "uh oh - it's this horrible one where everything goes wrong. Think I'll just stop here..."

I'm currently consistently making the same mistakes in the same places in Loch Bee, Magersfontein, the King. I'm skipping to B parts after just one play of the A part. I am trying to play the Trail or the Captain and accidentally playing the Captain or the Trail, or even the Farewell.

I am playing with A each time, and each time my right hand wont stretch, my wrist rests hard on the bellows, the straps pull my clothing awry, the drones lean heavily across my chest. My right hand thumb is uncomfortable, my hands are tense. I go round and round with the same old tunes. I've played for four days in a row and don't feel that I am getting back into the swing of things at all.

I keep playing just three tunes on the A and decided to branch out today and went for Galloway, Tree, Whaling Song, King, Farewell and Home Town. I moved to D and went back to Farewell, and took note of the different way the gracing sounds, the different way the pipes sounds, the tunes sound.

I should listen to pipe music, look at my books of dots, try new tunes, revitalise my playing. The days of the old year drift slowly away. I listen to Deadly Buzz and knit and knit.

Getting a grip

I played quite a lot yesterday. Not hugely successfully. I lacked the concentration to get tunes right: both Loch Bee and Magersfontein keep letting me down. My hands were uncomfortable on both chanters. I'm inclined to blame the cold and my marathon knitting sessions, but I suspect it's more down to an embarrassing lack of practice.

My stamina is good, though, and yesterday I just went from tune to tune, although I could probably have done with stopping at least once to get the bellows in the right position. It was one of those where my wrist rested on the bellows, neatly cutting off circulation in my fingers...

Today I've played through a number of tunes. I dredged up Teribus from somewhere in my memory. It's a bit shaky, but not in bad shape, considering. Still working on Troy. I think the speed is good, still having problems with accuracy. Currently losing the plot on the C part where I really want double high after after both the low A (correct) and the B (wrong, wrong, wrong). I also still have a tendency to play the first and the last part only of the D part. I suppose that the D, being the only non-repeated part, I've probably played only half as often as the rest of the tune...

The fan gave me two volumes of Donald MacLeod for Christmas. He was pleased to find Jack Adrift in volume 5, which he had been looking for. I was pleased to find an arrangement in the first volume of The Highland Brigade at Waterloo. In the B part, in place of the odd drop to low G then a D grace on a low A between two high A's, and the two drops to low G around a D between two high G's, there are grips. I can play grips! The other interesting thing is that I thought this was one of those tunes that was refusing to filter into my musical memory, but several times I found I was playing the remembered version (from the David Glen Collection via Ceol Sean) instead of the version in the dots before me.

January is coming. Knitting still not finished (yes, yes - it was Christmas knitting, and Christmas has been and gone) but I will play every day. And I will learn some new tunes - I've no excuse with two volumes of P M MacLeod.

Habit forming

How are habits made? Some seem forged very quickly. I find we only need to be on holiday for a day or two before we start talking about "our usual route to town" or "our usual cafe".  Some things take a little longer. Despite loving home made bread and using a lot of bread it's taken me years of intermittent baking to reach the stage where I bake every week. That's partly finding a method that has helpful timings, so it fits in easily with other things I do.

Piping, one way and another, doesn't seem to be becoming much of a habit with me. It's something I need to think about. I enjoy it very much when I do it, it doesn't take two minutes to pull the pipes out and get going, I think about music a lot, but somehow it's always an effort and there are always other things to do.

I'm not a hugely single-minded person. I like to dot about, doing a bit of this, a bit of that. I'm knitting a lot at present, but that's because I have Xmas presents to finish. Sometimes I spend a day at the weekend sitting on the sofa and reading all day. That's reasonably rare, and normally means I am very tired. It makes me peevish, the fan always says, and I always feel at the end that I've wasted a day. Even so there are times when I read very little. While I've been knitting it's taken me three weeks to read a single book.

While I might occasionally think that I haven't read much of late, or that I haven't done much knitting I never feel that ought to to do either. The mood comes and goes. I suppose the only hobby at all like music is needlepoint. I can happily have a piece on the go for two years. I like doing it, I like the finished product (although they tend to end up in the back of a cupboard), but I just do a bit here and there as the mood takes me. I don't feel any particular urge to complete the current piece. It's a very contemplative thing to do - I consider colours and the best way to fill a space, but don't normally think of the finished object.

So much as I like playing, and although I want to get better at it and need to play (a lot) more to do that, I somehow don't find the time, I haven't formed a habit of playing, and I don't know why.

O' but ye've been long a'coming

Oh - the shame - two whole weeks without posting. Worse - practically two whole weeks without piping. Mostly it's down to my continued pre-Christmas knitting frenzy. Not everything will be done in time but so far I've managed a neckwarmer, some socks, a scarf, part of a second pair of socks, and a mild case of knitter's elbow.

I've dragged the Monkey out this evening. Our upstairs neighbours are back today from foreign parts. If I had just got off a 13 hour flight I would drink a mug of tea, have a shower and get into bed. The last thing I would want to hear is someone else's music. I've played at the front of the house, away from bedrooms, but the thought of irate neighbours banging at the door made me nervous. Still, I managed a good run through of my regular repertoire, including dusting off Alick C McGregor, because listening to Seudan has reminded me how good it is. Reasonably fast, but total reliance on dots, mysteriously.

Yes, enjoying Seudan very much, and got out Seaforth Highlanders and found several of the tunes in there: Hot Punch, Tullochgorm, Fingal's Weeping, All the Blue Bonnets. Tried some on the chanter, then found MacDonald of the Isles, which sounded good. I must find new tunes.

Still putting the A chanter on the pipes when I put them away, and so play the first handful of tunes on A each time. Not surprisingly this means I'm finding it much easier to play A again, and the switch between the two is also easier.

But I really must play more. I should play every day in January. I don't feel I go backwards much when I don't play, but I certainly don't go any further forwards, and I have to keep marching on.

For Glasgow

I thought that as I'm short of new tunes to record I would re-record a few hoary old favourites, in the hopes of demonstrating how far I've come. This is the Rowan Tree, which is one of the first I learned by heart, and which is a favourite of mine for sessions. I've got it here in A and D. A bit messy as I edit between sections of the recording (a mid tune chanter-swap being beyond my capabilities!)

I'm still finding A less comfortable. I was using too much bellows action, feeling a lack of air, leaving some distinctly wavery parts,. Bellows-panic led to some poor timing and poorly placed fingers. D is better - I relaxed once I had D although my mind's not on the music tonight. I finish with D droneless, a sort of pipe equivalent of fade.... Not sure you can really hear that on the recording. I really need to play A more often. I really need to play with drones more often. I hope I sound better than this at sessions.

I'm dedicating this tune to Glasgow.


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