Preliminaries

Something of a trial run for September today. Problems feeling that the bag lacked air, and difficulty in getting my bellows elbow or wrist comfortable. My fingers were a little tense, too, perhaps because I don't feel very warm today. I notice that these days hitches like this don't put me off or spoil my enjoyment of playing at all, perhaps because I know they are only passing fads.

I looked at the handwritten dots that the fan had found in a pile and quickly discovered that it wasn't the Ocean. Had in mind a bouncing finger on F, tried that...and there it was: part A of the Ocean. The fan heard it, asked if I'd found the dots. In a way I had - albeit the tune rather than the dots, and that was in my head all along. I think I'll need the fan to walk me through the B part again, and probably write that down.

Othe tunes played were The Sound of Sleat, Atholl Highlanders, Troy's Wedding, Braemar Gathering, Horsburgh Castle, Heroes of Vittoria and Teribus.

Drops of Brandy is having problems where I keep forgetting that the final triplet in each part drops to G, and I am playing A instead. Oddly this is one where I find the B easier than the A, or at least the transition from A to B is easier than that from B to A. Then the Dragon. Still doesn't feel right, but I still can't put my finger on what exactly is wrong with it. Maybe a recording is needed so I can listen. It seems to have a good amount of gracing, the speed is good, I like it as a tune to play. Maybe it's that it doesn't feel very complete by itself.

Still, a good start, I think.

Summer's lease

Summer is about over, it seems. It's cool, grey and damp today, and on Tuesday the fan's long summer break ends. But I don't mind: I have plans. I am going to play every day. I'm going to play the old favourites and work on any that have got a bit worn and faded. I'm also intending to move some new tunes and some that have been kicking round for way too long onto the "session ready" pile.

The new(ish) tunes are The Heroes of Vittoria, The Sound of Sleat and On the Ocean. 

The tunes that have been on the learning pile for too long are:
Atholl Highlanders
Braemar Gathering
Troy's Wedding
Drops of Brandy
Miss Girdle 

It's not that I don't know the tunes, just that I've not yet got that balance of speed and accuracy that I am looking for. I could add Father John to those. He's generally in good shape, but stubbornly missing the 4th part.

I'd also quite like to work on some tunes that I've given up on but keep finding myself playing by accident, often taking a bar or two before I remember what they are, that I can't really play  them, don't much care for them. This list will include The Dragon, Teribus, Barren Rocks.

And the tunes I can play? Well, the goalposts are still all over the place on this one and my current definition of a tune I can play is a tune I can play comfortably at a session, reasonably sure that I can easily fudge as needed.

My best side

From time to time I see adverts for diets. These normally involve two photos: a before and after shot with the after featuring the dieter either looking slim (or at least, slimmer) in a flattering outfit or wearing an item from their pre-diet wardrobe, holding out the waist band to demonstrate the difference. The before shot often seems to feature the dieter wearing their skimpiest, most ill-fitting outfit, maybe a bikini… I assume that these are the photos that finally made the dieter realise that the days of blaming puppy fat or describing themselves as having big bones had to end. I am sure the after photo is a matter of pride, but personally I feel I’d not want to look at my before photo, ever, unless to remind myself (having recovered a lost pound or two) exactly what the end of the slippery slope looks like. It’s embarrassing, surely, to be reminded of past failures, lapses, youthful idiocies and indiscretions: we like to move on.

I think this is one reason why I’ve been so bad at making the recordings that were the intended purpose of this blog, the reason for it being web-based instead of another in my pile of paper notebooks. Firstly I always want to have the best possible recording: not necessarily wanting the equivalent of a photo that makes me look half a stone lighter and three years younger, but at least not wanting the equivalent of a photo of me caught  the hop, squinting at something, my hair unbrushed, spinach on my teeth…

Secondly, once I have got that snapshot of my playing, which I am always disappointed in from the outset, I find looking back at those embarrassing. Can that be me? Fluffing that phrase there, mangling that grace note, playing so very slowly? Even at the time I find the recordings hard to listen to and to listen to them after a period of time is just too much. So I don’t listen to them.

The third reason has always been that recording is reasonably time consuming and setting up the recorder, recording, mastering tracks, transferring them to Chirbit, linking them back to a blog post – which has too be written  – all take up good piping time. It also takes some of my concentrations, breaks the flow of playing, of moving from one tune to another.

I think I should try though, just to remind me, if I have a day where I fluff a note or a grace note I’m happy with, how far I’ve come.

Mulling it over

I‘ve been thinking for a while now that I should try again to play every day for a month. I seem to be very patchy with my playing at present. That’s partly down to the usual distractions and partly just feeling less need to play at the moment, maybe because there is less music around to inspire me now that the band has gone. When I do play daily it’s never as hard to fit it in as I think, the more I play the more I feel I want to play, and each time I’ve played daily for a month I’ve made real strides forward. Now I’m a more established player I expect that those strides will be smaller or less obvious, but even if it only means learning a new tune or two and getting my piping mojo back it will be worthwhile.  

In some ways it isn’t a bad thing to have a break. I find I can pick up my pipes up again without feeling that I’ve gone backwards at all. Some of my tunes need a moment’s thought or a pause for adjustment, but in terms of speed some tunes seem to be faster after a break.

I recently read a discussion on The Session about coming back to tunes after a break, which suggested playing through tunes each day, leaving the ones that are still working, carrying the ones that need fixing on to the next day. This feels a bit restrictive to me: sometimes I am just not in the mood for a tune, although now that my repertoire is expanding it would be useful to brush up on the tunes that I don’t play often. Some tunes I play from time to time but never feel I’m playing as well as I’d want to, so that they are fit to be played at a session. I’d like to brush those up.

I’d also like to try some new tunes and I know from bitter experience that I never learn them as fast as I want to, and some never click for me, either because I never really learn them well, or because I somehow don’t enjoy playing them.

I don’t want to restrict myself with a specific plan.  I never seem to follow plans, and I’ve never wanted my playing to feel like a chore, a set of things to do. I prefer to go with the flow, working on what I feel comfortable with and interested in at that time, having the space to be inspired, to experiment, to go with the flow.  So I think I’ll keep it vague: I’ll play every day, I will aim to play everything in my repertoire at least once, I will have a fiddle with some new tunes.  I’ll try to do some recording. Oh, and the chosen month is September.