Notes from the tune clinic

This is the current list of tunes being nurtured. The goal for each of them is that they are fit to be seen out at a session. Their problems are varied.

Horsburgh Castle. Diagnosis: unclear. I did wonder if actually I just don't like it, but I hum it often, and when I play it...yes, I do like it. Maybe it would sound better in A. Almost committed to memory, but regular lapses. Perhaps it's just waiting for its set-mate, Miss G.

Miss Girdle. Now she has got over her identity crisis she's recovering well. Suffering from a lack of grace notes. Slow in her movements, but gradually getting faster.

Troy's Wedding. Long term patient. A part fine and dandy. B part OK if I get the gracing right - a slightly sticky finger prolonging a grace throws me into confusion. C part either goes very well or goes too fast and goes wrong. Fingers often too tense at this point. D part - intermittent memory loss.

South Georgia Whaling Song. Tendency to go to fast and for snaps to either not appear at all or go so fast they are almost invisible. Despite ongoing attachment issues with the Cabot Trail has tendency for B part to morph into the Trail (which itself is suffering form a lack of speed control and a lack of grace notes.) It's annoying because this is a total relapse: I first played it at a session just weeks after starting to learn it.

Alick M McGregor. Much better now that I have moved from Session dots to proper dots. My problem is that whoever transcribed for the session clearly heard doublings as two notes, and wrote them as such, and I've been trying to add more grace notes, and this proliferation of notes has severely affected speed. Improving well.

The Irishman's Cudgel. Tendency to get stuck in a loop of B part, unable to recall how to get back to the A part. Those drops down to G don't always work very cleanly. Lack of grace notes. Generally improving.

The Braemar Gatheirng. Unhealthy attachment to dots, some stiffening of fingers, especially in the C part where I am having problems with D graces on the move from A to C.

Compliments to Roy A Chisholm. New patient, progressing well. Actually found myself humming the tune this morning for the first time and some of the repeating bars I already have by heart. A few more grace notes and a tad more speed wouldn't go amiss.