I'm blowing hot and cold at the moment (which sounds as though it ought to be a pun, but isn't). I'm working on getting back to drones, playing a few tunes with them each time I practise. It's easier, of course, with D, and I am playing a lot of D at present - initially just because it was easier: I didn't feel musically keen on D. I started to wonder if I'd made the right decision to have D. Too high, to light, to thin, just too D.
But now, at the moment, I love D. D is the best. D is all I want to play.
I've also moved from thinking that I know no tunes at all to feeling that actually I have quite a repertoire. I can play for over an hour at a time. That will partly be stuff I'm still working with dots for, but also a goodly wodge of tunes I know. It makes it easier to play for longer, knowing that I am never having to stop and wonder what I could play next. Some days I stop playing, because I'm tired or there are other things that need to be done, and then think of a whole heap of tunes I wish I had played and didn't have time for.
Yesterday I got out the Seaforth Highlanders and played through The Glasgow Gaelic Club, Fingal's Weeping, All the Blue Bonnets, Murray's Welcome, The Highland Lassie Going to the Fair, The Portree Men, Captain Grant and The Barren Rocks of Aden. Oh, and then Dargai and the new tunes I've been given.
After that I moved on to tunes I know. But I like the tunes in the book. I need to improve them, get them by heart, find suitable pairings. I still struggle with creating sets. I'm waiting for the fan to comment on the Whaling/Flett/Bee combo, and actually feeling that the Bee isn't right on the end there.
Today another of the new tunes, tunes I know, all with drones (except when I lost the plot with Whaling again), all in D, just loosening up ready for the session later on.
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