Sound of silence

I spent June learning one or two new tunes, but generally polishing existing tunes. I had intended to make recordings, to demonstrate progress, to spur me on. Somehow I didn't get round to it.

Today promised bright and has turned grey and damp, so rather than go to the plot for more harvesting and weedicide I got my pipes out. I think this recent flurry of activity is in part due to the knowledge that tomorrow is a session, the first since July, and I'm afraid of sounding rusty.

So, pipes - and recorder (as in, recording machine, not the instrument). I intended perhaps to do Flanders/Perth and Flanders/Valery in the hope I could decide which is the better pairing. I played this and that by way of warm up, including a reasonably tidy effort on Women/Sleat, which I didn't record because I wasn't expecting it to work. My right hand has a tendency to tense during Sleat, and my bellows tend to slip, which suggests to me that I am not yet comfortable with the tune and am hunching myself up, which, of course, makes things worse.

I had a dry run on Flanders, which I was pleased with, then hit the red button and messed the tune up three times, and several more times after that, even when I'd given up in recording. In the end, thinking I'd have nothing to show for my efforts, I recorded Magersfontein/Vittoria forgetting that it's not five minutes since I last recorded them.

I still feel that my repertoire seems to have hit some sort of steady state whereby new tunes edge out older ones. I've been humming Athol Highlanders, stumbled on the dots for Troy, which I think I had forgotten I ever knew, hardly think to play Braemar (which still needs work), actually had to check the dots before I could play Rowan Tree or Galloway.


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