Saturday 30 August 2014

Buses

You don't get any tunes for ages... I recorded three yesterday while the fan was out.

Still listening a lot to the Horsburgh Castle set. The first half is good, slow and measured. The second half is definitely a session set - the moment it kicks off I think "aha!", break into a smile start tapping my feet. I always said I only play for myself: performance has never been an aim. I pick tunes that I like to hear, that I like to play (not always the same thing). But since I play in sessions and enjoy people playing along with me, it behoves me to find tunes that folk will want to play along with.

Anyway, the first step is always to find dots. The Session listing was useful as it gave dots for three of the six. I didn't print Braes of Mar (although I did listen to the version on Portland where it is listed as Some Say the Devil is Dead) because none of the versions leapt as out being in a useful key.

I found Horsburgh Castle by searching for the composer, Ian Hardie. He, or rather, his estate, since he died in 2012, kindly makes freely available many of his early tunes, and Horsburgh is included in that.

Glenlyon and Dalnahasaig I failed to find, but I got The Blackberry Bush twice as it is on the Session and in Donald MacLeod Book1 (I used the Session version - it looked simpler).

So here are Horsburgh Castle, The Blackberry Bush and Miss Girdle. A bit rough and ready. I played through the Castle a few times before I thought of recording. Girdle I'd done a couple of times. It went OK but I got slowly worse each time I played... The Blackberry timing very poor - triple A's really throw me, timing wise, often because I play them faster than other note combinations, and sometimes I play double A's as triples out of sheer habit.

No drones, under-graced, but a start. Not sure that they make a set themselves, and not sure that the Castle is session material. Still, I've various under-employed and lonely tunes in my repertoire looking for musical love. I shall have to start matchmaking.


Check this out on Chirbit

Check this out on Chirbit

Check this out on Chirbit

Friday 29 August 2014

I can hear clearly now

One of the things I am definitely learning  to do on my piping journey is to listen better and to understand more what it is I am hearing. I notice this when I go back to CDs I’ve not heard in a while.

Listening to Seudan I think in the beginning the 4th track, which is a long and fast set of 6 tunes, sounded like one enormous splurge of noise. After a while it resolved into some music with a few familiar repeating phrases in it. It also sounded too fast to play. 

Listening now, and bearing in mind I am only doing the distracted listening in the car, I can easily identify 6 different tracks, many of which sound playable. 

This morning I switched to The Royal Scottish Piper's Recital. On this I can hear tunes that sound rather complex, but I can also hear that the complexity comes from the complex grace notes, so I know the basic tune might well be playable. 

I can hear tunes which (and this was car listening so I need to check it out) I think are four parters, and I think that the fourth and maybe the third, parts might be beyond me, but the first two should be doable and should stand as an item on their own.

Also on the CD I can hear tunes I play  - Flett and Loch Bee.  It feels rather odd, and somehow rather exciting, to hear my tunes being played. It makes me feel like a proper piper!

(Bringing the CD box in from the car to get the title I also realise that one of the pipers is Gary West, whose book Voicing Scotland, I've recently read and may review here. All part of my knowledge of the genre that I am slowly building up, things I am discovering, links I am making.)

Thursday 28 August 2014

Wise to it

When I got home today the fan had something to show me. He had been flicking through tune books and had stumbled across The Rock and the Wee Pickle Tow. Predictably it isn't quite like either version I have. More importantly the book (it's Traditional Scottish Fiddle Playing compiled by C Martin) gives a little bit of info about the tune which clears up the mystery of the title. It says: "The 'rock' means the spinning wheel and the 'wee pickle' a small piece of prepared flax". Apparently there were "rocking meets" when spinners gathered to spin - like a sewing bee or a knit and natter.

I like knowing what the title means. It's also always especially nice to find two of my interests intersecting. I've never (successfully) done any spinning, but I potentially have an opportunity to learn, albeit on a spindle, in the next couple of weeks.

I also like it when one small piece of information proves the key to finding more. Once I knew a rock was a spinning wheel it was only a moment or two before I found a Robert Burns poem about spinning that uses the word "rock" in this context.

Then I've immediately found two more sources that identify the rock as a distaff - still for spinning, but definitely not a wheel.

Wednesday 27 August 2014

The corner of my ear

I'm a radio fan. More specifically, I am a BBC Radio 4 fan. I've been listening to it certainly since I was a student, and before that I used to listen along with my grandfather when I was small and we were both early risers.

In recent years I've fallen out of love with it somewhat.   I flirted with digital radio, but apart from some extra Archers it mostly seemed to be "comedy" or sci-fi. I enjoyed the reading of Lady In To Fox and I enjoyed The Day of the Triffids. The first time round. 4 Extra seems to be on a permanent short loop of repeats.

My radio salvation was the podcast, so now I only listen to the programmes I want and GQT is always on when I do the ironing, whenever I do the ironing.

I still listen to live radio in the mornings. It's force of habit and a gentle and constant reminder of timing. Weather forecast indicates breakfast time, when the news bulletin ends I need to be in the bathroom, by the time the business news is done I should be grabbing my bag, when I turn the car ignition I should be into the sports news, the review of the papers means turning off the main road, the repeat of the weather forecast as I park means I am running late. On the way home it's either one of the better afternoon programmes, or PM, which I loathe. But it's there as background, and I only catch it out of the corner of my ear, as it were, as the levels of concentration I need for driving ebb and flow through my journey.

It occurs to me that I really wouldn't miss the radio if I just listened to CDs as I drive. I sometimes listen on the way home, when Eddie Mair is particularly trite, sensationalist or intrusive, but I will grit my teeth all the way through John Humphrys being patronising, dismissive and self-important in the morning and never switch off.

I do want to learn more tunes, and in lieu of hearing Scottish tunes at sessions I need to listen to CDs. I'm in search of new ones - but that's probably for another blog post. The problem with CDs in the car is whether I listen closely enough. The road takes my attention, and the drive is that liminal space between the worlds of work and home, a sort of decompression chamber where I think ahead to the world I am about to enter in order to shrug off the world I have just left. When I am not concentrating 100% on driving other things occupy my mind. Music becomes background that I sometimes catch out of the corner of my ear...

I'm hoping that tunes will filter through even though I am not actively listening. I've been replaying tracks 4 and 5 on the Seudan CD. I replay mostly because I keep getting distracted and realising I've not heard half the track, but also because I like the tunes and hope to get them into my brain. This evening have one of the tunes in my head. No idea which tune, or which of those tracks. Nor can I hum it. It's at that delicate stage when it's in my mind's ear, but whenever I try to look (as it were) directly at it, to really hear it, or to vocalise it, it melts into thin air. Still, hopefully it means that background listening will settle some deposits in my brain, and at east help me identify tunes that are resonating with me, so I can bring the CD in from the car and really listen with all my ears.

Monday 25 August 2014

Fudging it

So, yesterday we went to a session - probably the first we'd been to since May. It's a small session, mainly the fan's band and others, mainly Irish.

I've been playing regularly and yesterday I played an hour before we went - although not right before we went because I didn't want to arrive tired. Still getting back into A. Taking a while and it's still bellows control that's the struggle - stretching my hands out is fine. But then I switched to D and ran through some tunes I felt I was likely to want to play, plus the Dragon, Pickle and Cudgel as they are all knocking around inside my head a lot. (I also thought in passing of Balmacara and its partner - name forgotten - which I played and played, but never got into my head, haven't played for a while, and couldn't hum now to save my life).

At the session we were a small group: the band, minus the fiddle player, another fiddle player who joins us from time to time, and a Scottish fiddle player - Scottish in as much as he comes from Scotland, and he also plays Scottish fiddle. I accordingly opened with My Home Town, having been assured by my pipe maker that if you can play it you can play in any session in Scotland. The ways of Dumfries are clearly not those of Angus as he didn't join it: perhaps he just despises it as too well known a tune. I felt nervous, I suppose because I hadn't played in a session for a while, hadn't used drones since who knows when, and because I knew he would listen differently as a Scottish player. My chanter wasn't set straight and that didn't help. But I managed to get through without the nerves causing problems other than over use of the bellows: a minor felony that bothers no one but me.

Later I went mad and played Dargai (which he seemed to know) and Loch Bee, which I made a bit of a mess of and fudged my way through. More nerves, not helped by someone I know from work popping in for a drink. Maybe I played it to badly for him to join in, maybe he didn't know it. Rowan Tree went well, although I am throwing people at the start of the B part where the fan says my timing is out. Later the fan persuaded me to lay King Of Laiose, which I managed to get through in one piece. I meant to end with the Whaling Song, but having said I'd play it if I didn't accidentally go into Troy the fan played a few bars of Troy, which left me unable to call the Song to mind at all, so I plunged into Flett and played that at speed.

The fan said I did well. He didn't notice the nerves or the fudging. The more I play, and the more tunes I know, the more I notice other people fudging. The trick is to keep going. I used to stop when I made a mistake - sometimes making sounds of frustration and irritation with it. As Jonny once said to me when I crashed out of a tune with a growl "that was good - apart from the roaring". I think I'm over the roaring now - I've learnt to fudge.


Friday 22 August 2014

I don't mind

It's a refrain in The Big Music: I don't mind. It's been in my head a lot of late - I should reread the book. I don't mind.

This evening I picked up my pipes. A was as before: a little struggle to get my fingers in place. Bag too big, pipes too heavy, everything too loud, bellows just in the way. And I thought - I don't mind, and I carried on for a bit then I switched to D.

D was not right. The bag was uncomfortable on my chest, the strap was in the wrong place, I couldn't get the chanter so that my fingers fell straight on it. But I didn't mind and I played on. After a while I tightened the strap, which made things a little better, although the bellows were uncomfortable on my wrist. But I didn't mind.

I played Highland Cathedral, The Willows, Atholl Highlanders, Braemar, The Lads of Alnwick (we were there last week), Flett, Troy, My Fair Lad, Loch Bee, Dargai, Battle's O'er, Green Hills...not everything went well, but I didn't mind. I just played and played and played until I got too tired to play any more.

This ought to have been the almightiest whinge (seems like I don't whinge much these days) but it isn't because I love my pipes and I loving playing them and if things don't go so well I'm still playing, because I don't mind.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

One finger, one thumb

The fan sent me a link. It's nice enough, but, well...it's not smallpipes. These are, however. I think what struck me about this clip is that Gary is much bigger than his pipes. They look quite small. Maybe even more so in this clip. My pipes always feel rather large. I am 5'3" and long legged, so the difference between wearing the strap as high up my chest as it will go and wearing it around my waist is a matter of perhaps 3 inches. I feel I peer round my pipes. I clutch them to me. They take up my whole lap when I sit down.

I also notice that Gary looks as though he's playing a tiny chanter. I am assuming he's playing in A (the fan - who is out at a session - will no doubt enlighten me). D feels about right for my hands whereas A feels big...

Which reminded me that I haven't played A since who knows when. So I did the switch and for the first two seconds I couldn't find the bottom two holes on the chanter and it sounded odd, and then it was all OK and I thought how lovely and mellow and rich A sounds. But although the chanter felt reasonably comfortable the pipes felt huge, the bag felt really full and stiff and seemed to need a lot of effort to keep it going. I stuck to it for a while then flipped to D and immediately everything felt different.

I seem to be struggling to remember tunes at the moment, perhaps because I've got a lot on at work and my head is buzzing with rubbish. Every time I try to play Flett Bonnie Galloway comes out instead. While fiddling about I got half a bar of of a Vicki and Jonny tune (maybe The Willows). I did manage Magersfontein, Amazing Grace, Loch Bee, My Home Town, Cabot Trail, McIntyre's Farewell and The Irishman's Cudgel. Fingers too tense, but I'm tired (see having a lot on at work, qv, ad nauseam).

I thought about playing every day through September, but it's going to be a pig of a month at work. October is no good as we hope to be away for a week of it. The fan suggested I go for 4 weeks instead of a calendar month and cover the end of September and start of October. Not sure that work will let up enough, although I suppose trips to the plot will have dwindled right back by then. Either way I need to play A. And I need more new tunes!!

Monday 18 August 2014

Propinquity

How does one decide, when compiling a book of tunes, what order to put them in? They generally don't seem to be alphabetical by title or composer. They are often grouped into types of tunes (marches, reels, retreats) but within each group it's difficult to spot any pattern. Maybe it comes down to length of tune and space on the page...

This intrigues me partly, I suppose, because my profession is one in which ordering of items is quite important. But I am also wondering if tunes are grouped together on the page because that it how they are played. Or do they perhaps end up being played in those groups because that's how someone found them on a page? Kevin Macleod, for instance, puts together Oh, But Will You Come to Town, The Battle of the Somme and The Grinder, which appear together on p45 of the Seaforth Highlanders. As he calls the set Seaforth's 9/8 pipe retreat marches it's reasonable to suppose he found them there.

I've been playing The Rock and a Wee Pickle Tow with The Irishman's Cudgel. Sheer luck that I had been looking for both tunes and that they happen to be, in the Thomas Glen collection, on the same page, but it did make me think that perhaps they would sit together as a set. My - now disbanded - Nova Scotia set was two tunes on a page, and now I am looking at putting Magersfontein with either Now the Battle's O'er or The Green Hills of Tyrol, just on the grounds that they are printed together in the Seaforth book. Printed together because they are played together, possibly: going to be played together because they were printed together, definitely. After all, nothing propinks like propinquity.

BTW - played a good hour today. Reasonably relaxed and tried loosening the bellows strap, which feels a little odd and I think will mean my wrist resting on the bellows and the bellows rubbing on my hip bones, but I'll see how it goes. I had to rack my brain for tunes, but they came in the end and I only stopped because my hands were too cold. Am contemplating a pair of fingerless mitts to keep them warm.

MOT

Well, we've been up to Scotland, and mostly avoided midges, and visited the Monkey's maker. He showed me how to add hemp, remove hemp, start from scratch when hemp falls off or pushes too far up the joint. He also showed me several alarming things to do with reeds which involved pliers and made me feel pretty much the same way I feel about steeking: very nervous and slightly sick.

I played a little while I was there so that Ian could judge that everything was working right. The fan noted that I looked nervous. I certainly was. It's not often I play for another piper, someone who can see and hear every fluffed, missed or mangled grace. I feel more worthy than I did of my Monkey, and Ian is such a nice man I am sure nothing like this ever crosses his mind, but I feel that if I was an instrument maker I might feel a little peeved about having my beautiful instrument in the hands of one who doesn't quite deserve it.

The Monkey's joints are all now really air tight, and I felt a difference when I played yesterday. I also loosened off the bellows strap as Ian says if I wear it lower down I'll stop pushing the bellows askew, but that felt very odd indeed, as if the bellows were about to slip off me entirely. I also thought too much about bellows and bag as Ian noted, as the fan has done, that I tend to snatch the bellows a bit and not use their full extent. So all in all it was a bit like getting the car back from an MOT or service. On the plus side everything is clean and shiny and tight and responsive, but then the seat will have been pushed back, the mirrors adjusted and the radio tuned to something awful. It's great to know that everything is in full working order, but it takes a while to get everything feeling familiar again.

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Change of fortunes

I am still here....

The pipes one day, plot the next plans went belly-up almost at once. Initially it was in the favour of the pipes, which I played every day for a bit. It was too hot for the plot. Then it got too hot for pipes. And too humid: slightly damp fingers and chanter make it difficult to break the seal when you make the very tiny movements needed for grace notes.

When the Battle is O'er was one I tried forever ago. My teacher, as bored as I was with the Green Book tunes, suggested The Green Hills of Tyrol. I didn't know it. I didn't know A Scottish Soldier. I'd never heard of Andy Stewart. At some stage I discovered that the Hills were often played with the Battle, and I heard them together, on pipes, in Berwick on Tweed. Those were chanter days, long gone.

Recently I've come across this pair played with Magersfontein, and actually they are all one after the other in  my Seaforth Highlanders book. I'm skipping the Hills, but the Battle makes a nice intro for Magersfontein so I am thinking of reinstating it in my repertoire. I've discovered, as I play, that the low G graces on the low A's are really important. They give the tune...oh, depth, or gravitas, or something - just that momentary flipping through the lowest note, the note of gathering (according to The Big Music).

Off to Scotland soon, with my Monkey, and hope to play there, even if only to myself.