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.
Ramblings of an easily distracted learner piper
Showing posts with label concentration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concentration. Show all posts
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Concentrate
Trying to record today. Recording going well, in that I'm not suffering from red-button-itis as much as I did - the level of mistakes and idiocy is about the same whether I hit record or not. This is surely good.
Technically things aren't going too badly. No particular problems with drones or bellows or fingers. More accuracy would be nice, my drones aren't 100% properly tuned, and, as with most things I play, I could do with throwing in some nice gracing. Pace is OK, and I think I've got the rolling gait that the tune aims at. I'm also improving on the tidiness of my starting and stopping, although sticking my hand out to flick the recorder never helps. As I think I've mentioned previously I'm getting better at readjusting, passing the mistake and moving on, instead of stopping in a heap.
My problem today has been with concentration. As often happens I'd got the recorder plugged into my laptop for power, so in between playing I was checking the news headlines, blogs I read, my email, ordering some contact lens solution, thinking about this blog...and those things and a sudden heavy squall of rain hitting the windows kept distracting me. The upshot is that I didn't capture a single perfect run through.
An aside on drones - the fan is meanly saying that he will only adjust my drones if I tell him what the problem is. My feeling is that I can't because I can't hear them individually, only en masse. However, in between looking at the size of the gaps, and guesswork, I seem to be having a reasonable guess most times, and I can always tell when the adjustment works and everything sounds good. Still having days when the drones sound awful but the fan assures me they are pretty much in tune.
Check this out on Chirbit
Technically things aren't going too badly. No particular problems with drones or bellows or fingers. More accuracy would be nice, my drones aren't 100% properly tuned, and, as with most things I play, I could do with throwing in some nice gracing. Pace is OK, and I think I've got the rolling gait that the tune aims at. I'm also improving on the tidiness of my starting and stopping, although sticking my hand out to flick the recorder never helps. As I think I've mentioned previously I'm getting better at readjusting, passing the mistake and moving on, instead of stopping in a heap.
My problem today has been with concentration. As often happens I'd got the recorder plugged into my laptop for power, so in between playing I was checking the news headlines, blogs I read, my email, ordering some contact lens solution, thinking about this blog...and those things and a sudden heavy squall of rain hitting the windows kept distracting me. The upshot is that I didn't capture a single perfect run through.
An aside on drones - the fan is meanly saying that he will only adjust my drones if I tell him what the problem is. My feeling is that I can't because I can't hear them individually, only en masse. However, in between looking at the size of the gaps, and guesswork, I seem to be having a reasonable guess most times, and I can always tell when the adjustment works and everything sounds good. Still having days when the drones sound awful but the fan assures me they are pretty much in tune.
Check this out on Chirbit
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Concentrate
I've been thinking about concentration and wondering, perhaps rather flippantly, whether this is a gender issue. Perhaps if you're prehistoric man out hunting you need to concentrate on your prey and nothing else. Whereas prehistoric woman needs to have her eyes and ears on many things: do those chickens sounds as though they can see a predator, is the fire still burning, is that pot boiling, is the baby crying, is my mother calling for me to give her a hand, is the meal I am pounding ready yet...?
The fan, who has a tendency towards fatalism, and likes to believe we are "hard-wired" by personal and shared history and our genetic inheritance considers this theory of mine to be self-evident. But I'm not convinced. Surely if I'm hunting I need to keep my eye on the gazelle - I don't want it running off before I've bagged it. On the other hand surely I need to be aware also of the snake I'm about to step on, the marauding neighbours coming over the ridge at me, not to mention the tiger over there to the left who may also have his eye on my gazelle, but may also be wondering how nice a dinner I'd make. Surely total concentration on that gazelle could as easily result in my death as that of the animal?
Whatever the reason, I've struggled today with tunes, nothing other than the Rowan Tree being totally reliable, day in and day out. I'm also finding that I've misremembered tunes, and then learned the mis-remembering, so now need to go back to the dots and readjust. I can still play the King, but it's a struggle - each note is hard fought. And the new tunes go nowhere, don't feel like tunes, don't speak to me, somehow.
The fan, who has a tendency towards fatalism, and likes to believe we are "hard-wired" by personal and shared history and our genetic inheritance considers this theory of mine to be self-evident. But I'm not convinced. Surely if I'm hunting I need to keep my eye on the gazelle - I don't want it running off before I've bagged it. On the other hand surely I need to be aware also of the snake I'm about to step on, the marauding neighbours coming over the ridge at me, not to mention the tiger over there to the left who may also have his eye on my gazelle, but may also be wondering how nice a dinner I'd make. Surely total concentration on that gazelle could as easily result in my death as that of the animal?
Whatever the reason, I've struggled today with tunes, nothing other than the Rowan Tree being totally reliable, day in and day out. I'm also finding that I've misremembered tunes, and then learned the mis-remembering, so now need to go back to the dots and readjust. I can still play the King, but it's a struggle - each note is hard fought. And the new tunes go nowhere, don't feel like tunes, don't speak to me, somehow.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
The King is Dead...
I *did* play yesterday: very briefly. I'd been in the kitchen again, and then after that there was prosecco and malbec with dinner (the fan and I were celebrating), so I was tired, but I gave it a go, and I managed to get through the King of Laoise! I think that having decided to abandon the King for a while I lost the tune, so the day before I listened to it about three times, and the following day found myself humming it at work.
It's still not perfect - far from it - fluffed notes and poor timing - but I managed to play it over and over. I can't explain why, but as well as being very satisfying to listen to it's also satisfying to play - there are some combinations of finger movements that just feel very good indeed: the strike between the two Es for example, and the CEA that precedes it. While I was playing I noticed that the doubling on high A is improved, simple because somewhere along the line I've stopped tapping my thumb on the hole and now just stroke it down. When I noticed that I also noticed how very loose my fingers were on the chanter, and this seems to help with gracing, too.
On the other hand I am occasionally doing odd things. In the A part, third bar, when I play E my right hand has the middle fingers up as if to play C. I know it's wrong - I can feel the spare fingers sticking up when they should be lying flat, and I think that sometimes confuses me about which note comes next, or which note I am actually trying to play there. I don't seem to be able to shake the habit, and it only happens in this tune at that point.
Bellows still not great...air flow to the drones not even enough, often not strong enough.
Between endless rounds of the King I managed the Rowan Tree twice through, followed by the A part of the Rocks twice through, and then descended into chaos and couldn't recall a single note sequence for the B part. I did the same yesterday evening and today I can't even blame the demon drink. Still - closer than I was.
Concentration is still a problem. I played in the bedroom this afternoon and at different points lost the plot on what I was playing because I was distracted by an apparently mouldy patch behind the central heating pipes, a small ginger bear that sits by the bed, and a bird flying past the window. The recorder being out of batteries again I had it plugged into the laptop for power, and that, of course, makes me start thinking about my blog post, and blogs I read, and wondering what the news is or whether I have any emails. But I'm getting there - I really think I'm getting there.
Check this out on Chirbit
It's still not perfect - far from it - fluffed notes and poor timing - but I managed to play it over and over. I can't explain why, but as well as being very satisfying to listen to it's also satisfying to play - there are some combinations of finger movements that just feel very good indeed: the strike between the two Es for example, and the CEA that precedes it. While I was playing I noticed that the doubling on high A is improved, simple because somewhere along the line I've stopped tapping my thumb on the hole and now just stroke it down. When I noticed that I also noticed how very loose my fingers were on the chanter, and this seems to help with gracing, too.
On the other hand I am occasionally doing odd things. In the A part, third bar, when I play E my right hand has the middle fingers up as if to play C. I know it's wrong - I can feel the spare fingers sticking up when they should be lying flat, and I think that sometimes confuses me about which note comes next, or which note I am actually trying to play there. I don't seem to be able to shake the habit, and it only happens in this tune at that point.
Bellows still not great...air flow to the drones not even enough, often not strong enough.
Between endless rounds of the King I managed the Rowan Tree twice through, followed by the A part of the Rocks twice through, and then descended into chaos and couldn't recall a single note sequence for the B part. I did the same yesterday evening and today I can't even blame the demon drink. Still - closer than I was.
Concentration is still a problem. I played in the bedroom this afternoon and at different points lost the plot on what I was playing because I was distracted by an apparently mouldy patch behind the central heating pipes, a small ginger bear that sits by the bed, and a bird flying past the window. The recorder being out of batteries again I had it plugged into the laptop for power, and that, of course, makes me start thinking about my blog post, and blogs I read, and wondering what the news is or whether I have any emails. But I'm getting there - I really think I'm getting there.
Check this out on Chirbit
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