Fast and furious

A bit of multi-tasking this evening, piping and recording in the gaps between getting some washing done and dinner cooked. Have I ever mentioned that I don't have enough hours in the day?

I've been feeling bad about not recording. It was the whole point of having a blog and foisting myself on the internet, otherwise I could have bought myself a nice notebook to scribble away in. I whipped out the recorder this evening, and immediately hit a hitch: the plug was missing. Again. The fan kindly searched while I played with an eye on the clock. Then I had to set up the machine, then I played, suffering from red-button-itis (i.e. badly), then I hit the wrong button when mastering the track down just as the oven timer started beeping at me...

The fan managed to retrieve the error, and I sat down to blog and then my sister rang with an urgent query about the correct wording for a wedding invitation, and now the evening's almost over and I need to get this typed before I run out of time. Have I ever mentioned my problem about the number of hours in a day....

The (mangled), droneless tunes are Troy's Wedding and the Atholl Highlanders. I can, and do, play both better than this, but I was in a hurry. Lots of mistakes and hesitations in both. Lots of my fingers running away with the tune and getting confused. I had dots to hand as I see no reason to stress myself out with being dotless and recording now that I have nothing to prove in that area.

Utterly no gracing in either other than what is utterly necessary to divide two notes the same. This is partly due to having non-piping versions of the dots, and partly just the speed. Speed is one thing they do have, I think.

For comparison, there is an older version of the Highlanders (on my previous blog, which does seem to have been reinstated), which I describe as "reasonably fast" and now seems laughably slow. That's from August 2012. A more recent recording of Troy - September last year.

One good thing I did notice, not today so much, but this week: fingers going like the clappers, elbows and mind calm and relaxed in the background. That has to be a good sign.

PS - wrote this on Monday and had problems uploading the tune. Thursday today - more cooking, washing and piping - same tunes, no recording, so played much better, of course...!


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