Friday 31 January 2014

A whole lot better

January finally drips to an end. It's my least favourite month and I swear it's a good week longer than any other in the calendar: it just drags and drags. I've managed to play every day, except the day we had people over to dinner, and the day we saw the Gloaming. Tack on the days I did at the end of December and that's a fair amount of playing.

Oddly I don't feel as though I've played much at all, and apart from getting comfortable with the A again I don't feel I've moved on at all. In fact, the evidence of my play list suggests I'm going steadily backwards.

I've been further disheartened by a fellow musician, who is, it seems to me, competent enough over what seems to be a smallish repertoire. I originally supposed he'd not been learning for long, but recently found he'd been playing over 10 years. My second theory was that he'd had time, a lot of time - a year or so here or there - during that ten when he hadn't played. Nope. My final assumption was that of course he plays, but perhaps just once week or maybe not so often. Wrong again: apparently he practices for an hour every day.

So I got to thinking that if I could find an hour a day to play for another seven and a half years I'd be as good as this person. And I know that these things aren't very measurable, but to my mind that would be quite a small bit better, rather than a whole lot better. An hour a day for seven and a half years to get a small bit better? It's not an attractive proposition. It makes me feel as though I am wasting my time, because it isn't possible to be as good as I want to be, or even to be a whole lot better.

It's the January blues: things will get better, I'm sure they will.

Tuesday 28 January 2014

Reverse gear

Back to D this evening. It's so much easier to move from A to D than to go from D to A. I played Glomach and Balmacara, both with dots, but  starting to feel the possibility of losing the dots. For a start I'm finding it easier to find and move on the next section or the second version of a repeat. This is particularly helpful as one of the tunes ends each part with a short A, and I've been drawing that note out while I search for what comes next. I can hear the tune as I play and know at once when I've made a mistake. All good signs.

In a brief half hour session I played through 10 tunes and it occurred to me that actually I have quite a list at the moment. It's a while since I last did a playlist, so here's an update. You'll note I've gone backwards: more tunes have fallen off then been added.

Tunes I'm playing at the moment

  • Bonnie Galloway
  • Captain Angus L MacDonald
  • Flett from Flotta
  • The Heights of Dargai
  • The Highland Brigade at Magersfontein
  • March of the King of Laoise
  • McIntyre's Farewell
  • My Home Town
  • Over the Cabot Trail
  • The Rowan Tree
  • The Shores of Loch Bee
  • The South Georgia Whaling Song


Tunes I'm supposedly learning/improving/working on 

  • Balmacara
  • Barren Rocks of Aden
  • Boy's Lament for his Dragon
  • Captain Grant
  • The Falls of Glomach
  • The Glasgow Gaelic Club
  • The Highland Lassie Going to the Fair
  • Murray's Welcome
  • The Portree Men
  • Troy's Wedding
Not that I can't play these - some dotless, it's just that they haven't clicked, somehow. Some I never quite get reliably dotless, some feel a little lost and aimless without being part of a set, some are perfectly nice but somehow a bit...dull.

Sunday 26 January 2014

Insert a caret

It's always easier to do something right. Unpicking knitting is harder than knitting. Sticking in extra grace notes after you've got the tune is a real uphill struggle. I need the dots again, I need to slow right down...and as soon as I move way from the dots I speed up and all those carefully inserted notes vanish.

I'm sticking with A, loving its deep resonance. I'm playing McIntyre's Farewell a lot. Some of the tunes I started the month with are coming on, some fell by the wayside.

I don't feel as though I've been playing much, oddly. All but two days this week - I think that's all but two days this month, plus about a week before January began. I ought to have recorded: I meant to try once a week. I suppose I don't feel I am making enough progress, but then how can I tell if I don't record so I can listen and compare...

Saturday 25 January 2014

Appearances can deceive

Despite the silence here I have been playing. Not quite every day. On Wednesday we entertained a second house guest so I spent the evening cooking, talking and eating. Yesterday we went, the fan and I, to see The Gloaming.

In the first place, the venue itself was enough to make the trek across to north London worthwhile. The Union Chapel towers above its neighbours, a row of four and five storied town houses with bars on the area windows. Houses and chapel alike hide modestly behind a fenced strip of grass and trees that immodestly describes itself as a gardens. Beyond this lies the road and then an endless strip of trendy shops and bars and eateries.

Inside there is much heavy wood, and stone, and staircases, and then you come out into the upper tier of a squat, octagonal room with a carved wooden ceiling from which depend four chandeliers. The low lighting, in red and blue, and the dry ice (or perhaps it was just steam from damp clothes: it was a wet night) only enhance the Victorian Gothic atmosphere. The pulpit, a monumental wodge of stone, which sits in front of three arches that look like portcullis, is huge, and it's easy to imagine a hellfire and brimstone preacher standing there, striking the fear of god into hundreds of hearts. I say hundreds because it's a big venue - I estimated perhaps 900.

Not every seat was full. And not ever seat remained full: I've never known an audience for such comings and goings.  I don't know whether they were weak-bladdered, thirsty, desperate for a cigarette, or just too excited to remain seated, but there was an awful lot of coming and going.

Despite their hypermobility the audience were appreciative. I'm used to the staid local folk club where, during the second half, once enough beer has been drunk, and if someone in the band starts it, a few people will clap along roughly in time for half a tune. This audience greeted the band as if they were Elvis Presley, the Pope, and their oldest and best friends rolled into one. They listened in silence to the songs, and became more frenzied as the music speeded up, tapping and clapping and stamping and whooping. The standing ovation at the end was inevitable. Everyone was clearly enjoying themselves immensely.

From our seats up at one of the sides we had a limited view of the stage. I could see the pianist, who was a whole floor show in himself, posturing and posing, hunching forward, stretching back, drooping, pausing, removing layers of clothing... I could see Iarla, and the amazing Mr Hayes. The others I could only see by half standing and leaning over the pew in front.

The music itself it hard to describe. Irish, certainly, and many of the songs and tunes traditional, but played in untraditional ways. I've been used to think of Mr Hayes as someone who slows music down, but some of this was played fast and furious. The hardanger was throaty, vibrant; the piano jazzy, funky. They weren't afraid to have someone sit out for most of a set. The sets started slow and quiet with a song - some very moving - and built and grew. Some of it felt classical, some of it baroque, but definitely, as I've said Irish, and beautifully so. It was absolutely fantastic.

We also very much enjoyed the small Italian restaurant we stumbled on.  Lovely people, lovely food.

Monday 20 January 2014

Flying visit

I did play yesterday - mostly Dargai over and over and over....

Dargai again today  - remembering the extra gracings at the start of the B part, but forgetting the extras for the A part. I played the King, the Farewell, Magersfontein, the Nova Scotia set...and then I played a lovely fast tune that I thought was the Bee, but which oddly wanted to repeat the A part, which the Bee doesn't do, so eventually realised I was playing Dargai, fast. I don't know why I muddle these so often!

Sticking with A. Comfortable but hard work, especially this evening when my hands were cold, but it's the bellows/bag that requires the effort: my hands are fine. I should try drones, too.

Saturday 18 January 2014

Single track mind, or the case of the missing D

I started on the usual this evening: Dargai and Gaelic Club, playing attention to gracing. Bee, paying attention etc. I wasn't having much fun and decided to just frolic, musically speaking. So I threw off the tyranny of repeated notes and phrases and played MacIntyre's Farewell, My Home Town, Bonnie Galloway and the Rowan Tree with gay abandon.

Then I decided to play Over the Cabot Trail and Capt Angus L MacDonald. I had to think a bit abut the Trail. I played the A part twice before I realised I was actually playing the Farewell at speed. Tried again and went into Bee. Got out the dots...and realised I was missing some grace notes, so started to work on those... (The Captain I decided was alright as he is.)

My tendency is to avoid complex (i.e. multi-note) graces. I will often stick in a GDE, a birl or a strike instead. But what I have noticed of late is that although I plays Gs and Es aplenty I rarely, if ever, play a D, except when I am playing GDE on a set of three As or Bs. You'd think D would be the easiest and most intuitive, being played on the index finger of your right hand. As a right-hander you'd think it would be the easiest finger to user, the most flexible. Surely that's the finger we pick when we want top point, or scratch, or gingerly touch something. It's the most hard working finger there is, and yet when it comes to piping it turns out to be an A grade shirker. I've been noticing lots of Ds where I either play G or totally ignore it and play no grace at all. There seem to be lots of tunes where if you move up from A to C you fling in a D grace. I need to work on this.

Friday 17 January 2014

Still pegging away

This evening went like this.

(1) Play Dargai over and over, determined to have it properly by heart. Just about get there and then decide to increase grace notes used. Practically have to relearn tune to do so. After 20 minutes move to next tune.

(2) Play Gaelic Club over and over, at a slow and stately pace, but with all extra selected grace notes. Manage to pick up a bit of speed and decide to move on.

(3) Murray. Play over and over, checking grace notes. (Despite everything I said yesterday I find it difficult to tell which grace notes I am playing where: I have to be fast and concentrating hard to catch myself at it. And that's just spotting whether or not I am playing a grace note at all: which grace I am playing is a whole other ball game).

(4) Fling in the Dragon just for fun.

(5) Play Dargai, again. With grace notes. Slowly.

(6) Switch to D and play Flett, Home Town and Loch Bee.

I wish I felt I was making progress. I thought I was learning tunes faster, but this batch - and I've abandoned half the tunes - it taking ages. And why am I still working on grace notes like a total beginner? At least my hands continue comfortable on the A: I'm back to being relaxed with A. Some progress,  I suppose.

I also make progress in terms of blogging: I've past my 300th blog post this week.

Thursday 16 January 2014

Takes one to know one

I've been playing Gaelic Club this evening. Well, I went over Murray, the Rocks, Dragon, and the Farewell, but mostly I just went over and over the Gaelic Club. I was working on grace notes. I don't suppose many people would notice the difference - probably only another piper. It's the same with sewing or knitting - only another knitter or sewer would ever notice the tiny extras: a waistband that has been top stitched, French seams.

It's not just the good things, but the bad. Only another such would notice a cable that twists the wrong way, or a button that doesn't quite match its siblings. A non-knitter or sewer will look hard and puzzled at the offending error. Surely, they will say, no one will ever notice, and you're so clever to have knitted/stitched that anyway. But I will spot it - the knitter or sewer or musician will spot that lack, and feel it, every time. And hopefully, when I have the Gaelic Club with a good set of well chosen grace notes I will notice every time I play it, and be pleased

(This is actually wishful thinking. In practice every time I play I will find some fault that seems to me to stick out like a sore thumb, even if no one else ever notices)

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Life is full of surprises

We had an orgy of music at our local folk club in November: Emma Sweeney, Vamm, Anna and Mairearad, Breabach. Our folk club, quite fairly, I suppose, as we're in England, favours English Folk, so it was a welcome surprise to find so many Scots and Irish bands in the line up this season.

Anna has a good line in patter. She had an anecdote that required a Swedish accent, first checking that there were, of course, no Swedes in the audience. She had less luck with the French - there was a French man sitting (as she noted in a stage whisper to Mairearad) right in the front row.

During Braebach's set Calum noted they were about to play pibroch and asked if anyone was familiar with this. I obviously didn't shout up loud enough as Calum looked rather bemused and said he wasn't sure if that was a yes or someone's dinner disagreeing with them...

In the interval I did the fan thing and told JDM that I admired his solo CD. He seemed very surprised that anyone would have heard of it, seemed to think it made sense that I would be a fellow piper (he liked smallpipes, he said), but was amazed that I am not a lone piper in the South East. We have, I said, the Essex Caledonian, CADPAD, bands in Southend and Ipswich, and host the RSPBA London and South East competition each summer.

When Vamm were playing Catriona cheerfully said they had improved on three pipe tunes by playing them on fiddles. She did ask, laughingly, if there were any pipers in the audience. She was expecting silence, of course she was, but one voice piped up....

Vamm themselves are full of surprises. Their CD has an irritating lack of information about any of the tunes, but there is one that sounds rather Baroque-ish, and one that sounds as though it might be written by  Duncan Chisholm. Nothing sounds quite as you'd expect a couple of Scots fiddles to sound, but it all sounds very good indeed.

Just the chanter today, and more work on grace notes. Surprisingly I rather enjoyed it.

Tuesday 14 January 2014

Rumpelstiltskin

Bad, bad day at work. I came home determined to play - on D, tunes I know. I sat on my little stool with my eyes closed and just payed...mostly tunes I know, but also Dargai kept popping up.

As before, I start playing, I wonder what it is, I decide it's Bee and start playing that instead...wonder if it's Magersfontein, and get very confused. After a while I realise it's Dargai and then I can play it. I need to know the name to play it, somehow: having its name gives me power over it, as in all good fairy tales. This isn't true for all tunes, mind you. I'm rather vague on the names of the tunes in the Nova Scotia set. Maybe it's enough to know the name of the set. A mystery, anyway.

But who cares about work, anyway, when you have a little velvet monkey to soothe the day away. 

Monday 13 January 2014

In my end is my beginning

Mostly Balmacara and the Falls of Glomach this evening. Starting to get some of it by heart, inasmuch as I know when I've played a wrong note... I still can't hum either tune, or be totally sure which is which. I'm also having problems with seeing where the sections begin and end for repeats. Each section ends on a short note, which, of course, I am holding as a very loooong note as I hold it and try to work out where the beginning of the section is for the repeat. Not a problem you have when you play from memory, of course!

Also played Dargai. It could do with some more grace notes, but is coming on quite nicely.

Sticking to A and finding it slightly hard work this evening, but only for the bag: bellows and fingers both fine.

Sunday 12 January 2014

Give me a break

I thought I'd take time out from new tunes and the A this evening. Picked the pipes, wasn't sure which chanter was in, put the two together and decided D was in, rested hands very comfortably on chanter, pumped, pressed down on bellows...and realised I had A.

Still, A felt comfortable, so I played the Tree, Galloway, the Farewell, Flett and the Whaling Song, which all went fine, although the triple As in the Song were a bit sticky. Then I shifted across to D, played the Barry Shears set, Bee, Magersfontein, Home Town, and the Whaling Song again. Bee and Magersfontein still both a little unpredictable, but on the whole it was all good.

Felt a little fickle, though: A was so mellow and when I switched to D it felt a little harsh, a little thin.

(I wrote this on the 10th January and thought I had posted it, but found it this evening in my drafts...)

Back to basics

My day's practice was on the chanter. I dug out the Green Book and The Piper's Helper and I worked on GDE graces and grips. I rather enjoyed it and mostly stopped because the reed kept getting to water logged I kept having to dismantle the chanter to dry things off. It's not like a recorder where you can cover the fipple and blow, or a trumpet, where you have a handy water outlet. I'm sure all good pipers keep clean handkerchiefs in their sporrans for wiping a wet reed: I use the hem of my tee shirt, because it's less bother than going in search of a tissue.

I can't remember now where it was I read that you need, or generally use, fewer grace notes with smallpipes than with GHB. I've noted that graces I can do come out perfectly (chirrups, burbles etc) on A and badly (as stumbled together notes) on D. But I have become lazy, strip out everything except strikes, thumb graces, D throws and Gs. I feel I should vary my single graces more and make use of D and E. I also have a couple of tunes (Dragon, Highland Brigade) where grips would be useful.  Some tunes are too pared back, too basic without their gracing.

I rather gave up on working on gracing when I got Morag. The Green Book is full of dull exercises and dull tunes, and I have enjoyed myself much more picking tunes I like and trying to learn them. Willy, my one time tutor, was bemused that anyone would bother with books of exercises, although I suspect he used them in his youth. Vicky definitely recommended such exercises to me. I thought I'd given up that sort of thing, but right now feels like the right time to go back.

Saturday 11 January 2014

Mistaken identity

I felt reluctant to play today: I feel neither confident not competent at present and was rather relieved that the fan didn't feel inclined to venture out to out usual session. I played in A: Murray, Rocks and the Dragon. Then I played the King, then back to Murray, Rocks, the Dragon. I must work on grace notes.

When I am playing a tune I know the bellows and bag are better: playing a new tune I find I lose pressure, and everything comes to a halt, very quickly if I pause or dither, which I do often.

I had pretty much finished for the evening - skipped to the kitchen to put the pan on for the greens - and decided to squeeze in 5 minutes more playing time. I had a tune in my head, which I began to play. I've decided I can tell if it's a tune I know because if I've played it before I can envisage playing the grace notes.

Anyway, after playing a couple of bits with great confidence, and then hitting the rocks, I decided it was The Shores of Loch Bee. So I played the bit that was clear in my head, then though about how the Bee goes, trying to picture the dots, and played that, but it didn't feel quite right. Eventually I realised that I was playing the Heights of Dargai. The two did seem to work together, though, which hopefully bodes well for them being a set.

I'm not totally sure about the Rocks/Murray/Dragon set, just because it means moving from fast(er) (Rocks) to slow(er) (Murray). I must learn them so I can record them and hear how they sound. Maybe the answer is to play Murray/Rocks/Dragon - we'll have to see.

Thursday 9 January 2014

The others

As always happens when I select a batch of new tunes I take very quickly to some and others fall by the wayside. This evening I went back to some of the fallen: Gaelic Club, Captain Grant, Highland Lassie and The Portree Men. 

I played on the chanter only as the fan isn't well and had taken himself off to bed. Didn't go too badly and I managed to play for about half an hour before my lip started going and I felt I'd bothered the fan long enough. More work needed on timing and grace notes.

Wednesday 8 January 2014

On the plus side

My playing wasn't totally awful this evening. I managed to remember quite a lot of Barren Rocks (and to be honest the version I have now is not quite the same as the one I had and a different note, or timing, or gracing, can throw me off my stride - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). When I played around with random notes my fingers were good and flexible and my control of bag and bellows good. I think that Bee and Dargai will go well together.

We'll just ignore the fact that when playing tunes on A I was twitching, hunching and grabbing a bit (although admittedly nothing like the bad old days of the pumping imp and the Quasimodo impressions). Also my inability to pay a single tune from memory, including Troy. And very tight hands and fingers: I feared for the safety of the chanter at times. Oh, and once I got going on the Rocks I was back to playing them way to fast and missing out all the gracing.

Hmm. Even this post hasn't gone to plan: I envisaged the couple of OK things followed by a loooong list of disastrous stuff, but actually the second list isn't all that long and the things on it aren't all that bad.

I also note that back in February when I played every day I tried and failed for 30 mins a day. I'm currently playing 45 minutes to an hour, and I'd do more, if it wasn't that dinner has to be cooked and eaten at some stage.

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Deja vu all over again

It happens every time I play regularly: I start well then I hit a wall. Today was bad. Nothing was comfortable. I managed to overblow and make the reed squeal several times. I couldn't remember tunes, I couldn't read music, I couldn't play gracenotes. I was on A and I stuck with it, determined to play through the pain and out the other side, but after 45 minutes it still wasn't happening and dinner was on the horizon. I switched to my practice chanter for a bit, but that wasn't much better.

But I've been here before. I know there's a way out, that it's just a matter of time.

Monday 6 January 2014

Childish things

It's funny how I felt that I had put my chanter behind me: after all, once you have pipes, who needs any substitute? Especially with my Monkey and his clever drones' key, it's easy to try out new tunes with minimum fuss. But recently I've been rediscovering my chanter and all its uses and benefits. It's quieter, it's less physical effort (once your lungs are in training: mine were fit to burst this evening), it's possible to play very slowly, to repeat more easily, to stop and think mid note without the accompanying collapse of bag and drones. I'd forgotten how useful it was to play a tune very slowly, putting in every single grace note as written, and when you speed up some of the gracing can be left in, but you can't shoe horn it in at speed when the pipes are in full flood.

So, half an hour with my chanter this evening. I listened to the Loch Alsh set: listened and played, listened and played. I went over Dargai very slowly with full gracing. And that was it: just paying plenty of attention to three tunes, to notes and grace notes and timings, polishing and perfecting the small things, in the way that you only really can with a practice chanter.

Sunday 5 January 2014

Stockpile

The fan is a bit of a hoarder, especially when it comes to food. Nothing pleases him more than a well-stocked larder with one, two, or even three spare jars, packets, bags, boxes or tins of everything. I, on the other hand, find that too much food makes me feel panicky. What? Must I eat all of this stuff? Our fridge is currently stuffed with the pickles that are needed for a perfect Boxing Day lunch. That was great on Boxing Day, but now it has been and gone I am starting to feel more than  little depressed by the sheer weight of food. I have visions of myself still eating cheese and piccalilli sandwiches in October.

I'm feeling a little similar about my new stockpile of new tunes: gorged and overfed, until I really don't fancy the look of any of them. I've been focussing on a few, and some of the others have been pushed to the back of the musical larder.

Having said that I very nearly got an extra tune yesterday when I discovered that the McGillivray who wrote the Duncan McGillivray tune (for his father), is the man who runs the Pipe Tunes website, and he makes the tune available there. I've been aware of this site for a while. It looks expensive (but mostly because a Canadian dollar is worth barely 50p) and I'm not sure how many of the tunes I would actually want.

For some reason this got me thinking about the Heights of Dargai, which I've tried before. A google led me to a discussion about the Dargai/Dashai confusion and then I tried again to find the dots, and they turned up on the website of the Kilbarchan band. Having got them and compared them with the version I had before (from The Session) I can't see why neither the fan nor I could work the tune out from those dots. Anyway, it's a great tune and I played it a lot on the chanter yesterday.

Despite the chanter practice my fingers struggled to sit on the A today, and it took 15 minutes or so to settle in, but then bag and bellows and everything came together and the fan noted how mellow the A was sounding. I stuck with the Club, Murray, Rocks, Dragon and Dargai and then switched to D and played the Glomach/Balmacara set. I didn't even look at the other tunes and left them to moulder, other than a quick canter through Troy, just because one of these days I am going to be able to play that blasted tune and I don't want it getting lost at the back of the larder behind all the new stuff.

Saturday 4 January 2014

Don't I know you?

I woke up this morning with bits of a tune going round in my head. I couldn't identify it, but I could "hear" it well enough to be able to hum it, so I wondered whether I might be able to pick it out on the chanter. I started and felt I got reasonably close, then I remembered what I thought might be an earlier part of the same tune, and felt more confident that I had got that. I was feeling slightly smug, when I remembered that the tune was The Glasgow Gaelic Club and as I've been playing it for three days I ought to be able to pick it out. When I got the dots out I discovered I had the shape about right, but hadn't quite got the right notes.

I was so pleased that I spent some time listening to the Club and other tunes on Tryst and then playing them over on the chanter, stopping to fiddle with timing or accuracy, trying out grace notes (and heavens, but I'm rusty with gracing).

The upshot is that on top of yesterday's excitement of getting Murray so quickly I've now got the whole of the Club by heart! To be fair, they are both very short tunes. I played Murray with the Rocks and they sound good together. The Club, rather like the Dragon, is a nice tune, but definitely feels as though it needs to sit with something else. It goes perfectly with the tune I began with this morning - Duncan McGillivray, Chief Steward - but sadly I don't have the dots for that.

Friday 3 January 2014

Beep Beep!

Day three - more humming of Murray and with a little bit of trial and error I got the A part by heart! I made a concerted effort with the B part, but it's not there yet. This must be my fastest learning of a tune so far and bodes well for me learning new repertoire at a better rate than heretofore.

I began with A again and again felt it a struggle - a bit of neck strain, bit of tension in my hands. I moved on to D and had one of those days where I felt I had too much chest (it's a girl thing) and couldn't get comfortable. Still, it was uncomfortable but somehow not annoying so I carried on.

I've listed to the Loch Alsh tunes over and over and they are improving - I'm getting the timing better (although the grace notes, which come out on the bouzouki more like extra notes, make it difficult to follow the tune as I hear it.) There is also a note in one of them that sound like the wrong note, and I don't know whether that's to do with the different type of scale the pipes have and the different relative values between this note and whatever becomes before or after compared with the bouzouki... (I realise this would make rather more sense if  could remember which tune, which note and how it sounds odd....)

I've also stopped feeling that they would be nice to learn because of the geographical association and started feeling they are good tunes to learn in their own right.

I did some work on the Gaelic Club on those pesky DFA's. For some reason I find them tricky, although - note to self - the D to F is a darn sight easier if you bring you bottom hand down on the chanter after D, like the book says, instead of leaving it flapping in the air in a state of indecision. The same three notes appear in Balmacara, so it was doubly useful to work on them.

A couple of times with Murray I accidentally went in to the Dragon instead. They go well together and I must go back to improving the Dragon. I also mucked around trying to play Barren Rocks, because it's such a similar tune, and got lost in bits of it. I wonder if the three would go together? I should mention that I am only playing the first 2 (of 4) parts of Murray, as per Mr McInnes.

(Re - title of this blog post, I bow to the superior knowledge of Wikipedia, because I always thought that what the Road Runner said as he sped past was Meep Meep.)

Thursday 2 January 2014

Odds on favourite

I've been humming Murray's Welcome half the day. Naturally, that's the half where I was at work and not able to play. The other half started just about the moment I stepped back through my front door. Still, I have been humming it, so hopefully this means it will be the first of my new tunes to hit dotlessness.

I played for around an hour this evening. Both chanters - starting with A. I went round and round on Murray, because he felt so close (and I am as near as dammit there with the A part) then some of the others, and threw in an "old" tune (Galloway) as well. The A is tiring though: I'm having to sit down to play and I'm finding I'm tensing my neck, which isn't good...

I predict that The Falls of Glomach and Balmacara will come in last. This is because I recognise them, but cannot hum them (I must listen more), they are long (four parters) so I am inclined to play them once only each, and I am playing them together, so it feels like one endlessly long tune.

I've also thought of several other tunes I might like to learn, and have been reminded on the way home (listening to Canterach) how good The Snuff Wife is. But I don't want to bite off more than I can chew, so the wee wifie will have to wait.

Wednesday 1 January 2014

New

New year, new post, new tunes.

Yesterday evening I sat on the sofa, going over books of tunes and listening to some of the same tunes on various CDs. I got out my chanter and tried a handful, and they all sounded OK - recognisable. I feel the need for a whole stack of new tunes: I feel as though I've been playing the same thing for 18 months or more, and in fact, where many of the tunes are concerned, I have been doing exactly that. So I've picked a wodge and no doubt some will quickly become the same old same old, others will fizzle and fall by the wayside, and others I will do intermittent battle with, but somehow never manage to get the upper hand.

I played for 90 minutes or so. I started with A and played my way through each tune at least once, except Captain Grant, which refused to sound like any tune I had ever heard, so I abandoned it. A bit of hard work: a struggle to hold the pipes comfortably, to get the air pressure right, and my bottom hand a mess.

Then I moved to D and played the whole lot again, and even Captain Grant behaved himself this time round, after a fashion. The pipes tucked nicely under my arm and the pressure was right, and apart from occasionally overshooting the low G with my little finger it was fine.

I played mainly without gracing. Listening to these tunes a drop down to G adds a real richness, and other than a barely birl, where I clip my little finger against low G, I don't really bother with low grace notes. The tourluaths and such like I was learning with Willie, before I got my pipes, before he died, and I've not had much to do with them since. So I'm finding it a struggle, even to hit a good clean low G between some higher notes. I need to practice on the chanter. I need to practice my grips, especially when going into the grip on one note and coming out on to another.

My new tunes are:

Balmacara and The Falls of Glomach
The fan and I have stayed at Balmacara a few times and have fond memories. It's where someone in a pub in Plockton loaned him a mandolin and he joined in a session, one of his first, and it's also where I sat on the loch side and played my chanter.
I heard these tunes on Springwell and have them in Book 5 of Donald MacLeod.

The Highland Brigade at Waterloo
Not quite new, although this setting is not what I've had before. I know this tune from Tryst and it's in Book 1 of Donald MacLeod.

The Portree Men
The Highland Lassie Going to the Fair
Murray's Welcome
The Glasgow Gaelic Club
Captain Grant
These are all in Standard Settings of Pipe Music of the Seaforth Highlanders and all known to me from Tryst. Murray reminds me of the Barren Rocks and is rather lively. I'm pretty sure I've tried the Portree Men in the past, without much joy.

Delvinside
Not sure about this one. I didn't play it today. I've tried in the past, struggled to find dots that seem to match the version I know (Sealbh). I've got it on volume 1 of P-M W. Ross's Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music, which I think I bought in a music shop in Portree.

I recorded three tunes, all on A, so apart from the fiddling about on the chanter yesterday this was pretty much a first play through, so they are rather raw, but set down a marker. They are The Portree Men, The Highland Lassie Going to the Fair and Murray's Welcome. 


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