The Djokovic moment

I meant to play yesterday but somehow didn't find the time. I played today before we went out, Dargai, Flett, Flanders, Perth (which is going through a tendency to muddle the opening of the A and B parts), St Valery.

I got to the session and was asked about the pipes, so explained, failed twice to get past the second bar of Dargai and played a messy version of Flett. Then I sat down and failed to get past the A part of Flanders, cravenly citing concerns with my drones...and this was before anyone else turned up.

I couldn't think of any tunes, the fan offered The King, but I lost track of it, twice, and crashed out. I kept thinking how badly I'd been playing, which made me bad-tempered. Later I tried Home Town, but my bellows weren't right, and I was pumping too much, which bothered me. I felt a little better having got to the end. I suppose it's like being two sets down and suddenly taking a set: a chance to focus on the set you took, the things you can do. But the things I apparently couldn't do niggled away.

Later on - it wasn't easy to get in between the two fiddle players - I played Father Macmillan and Whaling Song, which was too fast, mostly because I felt as thought my bellows were slipping down and wanted to get to the end before I lost them. Then another abortive attempt at Flanders, which I blamed on the fan's backing distracting me. The crosser I got with myself the worse I played, the worse I played the crosser I got.

My other Djokovic moment was wondering whether a month needs to be a calendar month. I've been trying to catch up at the plot this weekend and wonder whether June just isn't the right time to focus on something else. On the other hand knitting and some domestic issues have also taken up my time since early May. May itself would be no good as we are sometimes away at half term, April can be complicated by Easter, we often take holiday at the end of July...

I just need more days in the week...

Kiss and make up

Sunday was our regular session. After last month's surge in numbers we dwindled back down to four. Four would be fine, although I only count as a half, if that, as I never play along with other peoples's tunes. The problem is not the lack of numbers so much as lack of shared repertoire. The fan and the Irish piper seem to have forgotten the repertoire they shared in the days of the band. The fiddler seems to have a pile of new tunes each month, but none of them are ever anything the others play or even know, and somehow no one seems much inclined to  learn his tunes either.

In some ways I'm the one creating shared repertoire and everyone is happy to pitch in for The Heights of Dargai, The March of the King of Laoise, My Home Town or Bonnie Galloway. It may be that they are catchy tunes, and it may be that my limited repertoire means I play most tunes most months. So despite the fact that I didn't much feel in the mood to go out yesterday evening I was all geared up to play lots of tunes.

And then disaster struck. The fan had terrible problems tuning drones. I think the problem is that, rather shamefully, I've not used drones since I last gave the monkey a polish. I'd forgotten that, so didn't ask the fan to do a pre-sesson tuning. The drones were difficult to tune, and wouldn't stay in tune. As I played the pressure was uneven, adding to the general awfulness of drones. I scraped through Flett, John Macmillan's boat trip, Dargai, and Home Town, but it wasn' t right, and it just got worse, with the chanter sounding sharp and the tube kinking and cutting off air a couple of times. By the time I accepted the Irish piper's suggestion to play without drones I was so cross and unhappy that I failed to be able to play either Woman or Galloway and I am afraid I gave up in a huff. By the time we got home I had pretty much decided that I was clearly in need of a break from piping....

But...I have tunes to play, other tunes I want to learn. And I didn't want to let the sun go down on an argument, to get the monkey out in a month for the next session thinking about how I'd been let down, how we had fallen out. So this evening I played my pipes. The fan got the drones about right. I played a tune with drones then flipped them off and ran through my current playlist and it all went well and I loved it. I think the monkey has forgiven me for doubting him: I got the buzz tonight.

Shall we dance?

I've been dancing around this evening with bellows, bag, chanter, drones. Yes, drones! They have taken to slumping across my chest and resting on the bellows. The more I fiddle with strap up, strap down, bellows forward, bellows back, bag up, down, left, right, the worse everything gets. Maybe I'm just expecting too much. At sessions I play a bit, stop a bit, go to the bar, come back again. In the past I'd play and stop and play and stop during practice sessions. Now I expect to play and play, back to back sets, tunes, bits of tunes, with no break. I might sit down or stand up and take a turn or two about the room, but I'm still playing. I suppose even with a good driving positon in a comfortable car you're going to end a long distance journey with joints that need easing, muscles that need stretching.

I've also been dancing with Skippinish, having out it in the car. It's definitely an album of music for dancing to, and I imagine a Shetland tea (and yes, I do know that Shetland isn't known for piping) situation, with old and young gathered together, a dram and a wee cup of tea, something to eat, some tunes and lots of dancing.

What I can't work out is why it's dance music. In general it's the same pipe tunes I come across elsewhere, so it's not a matter of repertoire. The tunes aren't even played that fast, although the have a good, solid rhythm behind them. Perhaps it's the box. It sounds rather bouncy, somehow, with little chirps and coughs, which I assume are grace notes of some kind, and bring to mind someone calling out "woo!", "yay!", or "whup!" during some dancing. Anyway, it's good stuff, and I am enjoying it.

Whether anyone would want to dance to this recording I don't know. Recorded on the same day as the last one, and as with the last I haven't actually listened to it. As I play I feel that I need to steady the tempo of Women: it's uneven, with bits I gabble because I am unsure of them. That's the start of the B part, both sections, and the two bars in each that are variations because I'm a bit tense about getting the "wrong" variation in. The grip is...messy. The tune is missing the lilt, the smoothness, that Kevin Macleod gives it. I like it with Sleat, and the main problems with Sleat are a general tendency to be unreliable, I think I speed up through the tune as I get into my stride, and I am still not sure if I'm playing the closing bars to the B and D parts properly. I may just be repeating one (they are subtly different), or I may have then the wrong way round. I suppose if I could bear to listen to the recording I might find out.



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Comparing apples and pears

I put my tablet on a higher surface this evening, which means I've got a better view of myself playing, but it makes it harder, of course, to compare with yesterday's footage.

I felt today as though the drones were sitting too low. The bellows strap was loose so my bellows kept working their way around my waist. The strap was cutting into my arm above my elbow. I also had some problems with my wrist resting on the bellows uncomfortably. The chanter was somehow in the wrong place so my fingers kept missing: it's a bit like typing with the keyboard off to one side, nothing is quite where you are expecting it to be.

On the plus side my left arm ached, and I think the reason is that I've been working the bag more than the bellows, which is good. I suppose it's also good that despite everything I managed to play tunes, shoving the bellows around, angling the chanter, hoisting bits up and pushing other bits down while I played.

I need to play like this more, try videoing myself a few more times, probably look at footage of other pipers to see where everything is sitting in relation to everything else.

I've labelled this with the now little-used label whinge, but despite the list of things that aren't right I am quite happy, and sure I'll find the perfect tube length soon.

Getting the measure of things

Still playing, although not so often as I was, but not blogging much.

A few days ago I received a 10" piece of piping from Ian Kinnear. I calculated that 10" would be the absolute maximum required to allow me to wear the bellows low so that they sit under my elbow, so that I don't push the outer side of the bellows down, giving me enough leverage to gently, evenly and fully open and compress the bellows, but not forcing me to rest wrist or upper forearm on the bellows, cutting off circulation and feeling. At the same time I want the bag tucked high under my left arm, again to give control over airflow, but also to make  it comfortable for me to reach and hold the chanter. Being female, and with a generous helping of bust, I also want to ensure that nothing is getting squashed in the middle.

Removing the existing tubing wasn't easy (I'm keen not to cut it in case it turns out to have been the ideal length all along). Brute force was the answer in the end, and getting the new tubing on was greatly aided by the tiniest smear of washing up liquid at the fan's suggestion.

I found I could play at once with bellows low, bag high, and 10" in between. I suspect that it's like driving. Once you can drive it's most comfortable to drive one's own car set up in a particular way, but if push comes to shove it's perfectly possible to drive a different car, or one's own car with the seat further back than usual or the steering wheel higher than usual, or an extra 3 adults in the car...

I felt as though it would be useful to see how I looked, but we only have small mirrors set at a height for checking hair in the mornings. So I went hi-tech and videoed myself on my tablet. Looking at the resulting footage I can see:

1. I look a lot like my sister;
2. When I play I look like I'm about to cry (the fan says he doesn't think this is normally the case);
3. My fingers move mysteriously on the chanter and it's often hard to tell which fingers are moving. This seems to me to be a good thing;
4. I can't be totally comfortable with the tubing as when I press the bellows I execute a sort of Mexican wave of hunching first the bellows shoulder then the bag shoulder;
5. I may be kinking the tube a little;
6. It looks as though I am not pushing down the outer side of the bellows at all;
7. My hands looks relaxed on the chanter.

I think now I need to persevere, play like this a few times, and then if I feel it's not quite right and can't get rid of the Mexican wave, then I need to shave off half an inch and go through the whole process again...

Mostly playing The Women - seems I'm a tad obsessed. The fan says it's stuck in his head, too.

It was all going so well

I've been having a good day. It's not a working day, which is always a bonus. The weather has been much better than was being forecast earlier in the week. I went shopping for a pair of wool trousers for work and actually managed to find some I liked. I did some tidying at the allotment and managed to rig up some proper protection for my cavolo nero plants.

Then I decided to play and record... The lead for the recorder was tied into electrical spaghetti. I'd forgotten the faff of having to "create a song" before you even start. The first three-tune set I recorded and then wasted 6 minutes mastering it only to find when I tried to export it that there was allegedly no track to export... The fan salvaged the situation, and the recording, but only after I'd got cross. Add to that the collapsing bellows, a sore elbow, and a general inability to play and the whole thing is a mess.

Recording here is Father John's Boat Trip. The repeat of the 2nd part still isn't quite right. Gracing not very clean, fingers not cleanly enough down on the  chanter. I mised various repeats, which I put down to red-button-itis. Various times I found myself thinking that *this* would be the place where I'd be likely to fluff it...and duly fluffed.

No drones. I recorded a rather poor version of Braemar in which I garbled notes, merged notes, went too slow and then too fast. I will post tomorrow. I couldn't face recording it again and I am not sure how soon I'll be able to bring myself to record again. Is it any wonder that it's over 7 months since I recorded last? There has to be an easier way.

(On the positive side, Andy won a match.)
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Relative velocity

I had a few tunes with the fan earlier in the week. It was the second time in the space of about a week, which meant I was slightly less unused to drones. I really have to use drones every time I play, even if it is for just the first or last tune or set.

Some tunes he tells me I start slowly and then speed up. When I was a child, if I thought I was short of paper for the piece I was writing I would write faster, as if somehow hoping I’d reach the end of my piece before the paper ran out. It’s the same urge that leads me to read faster when coming to the end of a book that I don’t want to finish: as if perhaps if I can reach the end sooner there will be more book to read. I realise this makes no sense at all, but it’s what I do. I have a tendency to do the same with tunes. If I feel as though I am not playing well, my hands aren't quite right on the chanter, or I’m not 100% confident in my musical memory of the tune at hand then I tend to speed up in the hope of getting to the end of the tune before the mistakes arrive….

On another tune I speeded up because I felt I was going rather slowly and the fan seemed to be going much faster. He pointed out that he was simply playing more notes to the bar than me, so the second time around I tried to ignore it and just carry on at my own pace.

I've fiddled about with some faster tunes: Atholl Highlanders, Miss Girdle. I’m still stuck between slow but accurate or fast but messy. I think the messy is moving from wholesale chaos to general untidiness. And the fast must be improving as the fan notes that there were points when he felt it was a push to keep up with me.

House session the sequel

Is it a house session when you play at home with your other half? While there is a lull in band practice the fan and I thought we'd play a few tunes together. We slung together Magersfontein with Flett. The fan is keen to have the Irishman's Cudgel to end, but it's really not in a fit state to be seen out. Work needed. Then Dargai and Bee, which I already play together, but could I not play faster, he asked. Possibly. Work needed.

The fan insisted I play with drones. I should do this more: I am out of practice (let's not even think about the A chanter at this point). Between drones and the fan pulling out his amp I had half an ear in case our occasional neighbour should hoof it don the stairs to complain about the noise.

The ostensible purpose of this is to allow the fan to work up some basic accompaniment for session, but he keeps thinking about opening bits he could play, then I could follow in. In a session, says I, sceptical.  He mentions friends we might play to. Of course. But I rather think the fan is planning a wildly optimistic future where a less incompetent smallpiper, shorn of all vestiges of stage fright, tours the smallest folk venues in the country... Watch this space!!

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.

Busking it

I didn't do too badly today. Perhaps it was the practice before hand. Perhaps it was the session being small (the band, the fiddle player's Americana partner, a friend, plus 2). Maybe it was having my back to the wall or space around me (it can be very cramped some times). I am wary of picking one of these, fetishising it as a must-have, an "I can't play unless..."

Still, not too badly, as I said. I just let my fingers play what tune they would. We started with Bonnie Galloway. I got a little distracted because I could here the band's (Irish) piper playing a whistle and the notes caught my attention. Managed to pull my chanter adrift (still haven't been brave enough to have a go at hemping and I really must). Slightly distracted, too, by not-quite-in-tune drones.

I played Flett and that went well, but I couldn't bring Bee to mind and judged it safer to stop with Flett. Later on I gave Magersfontein its first outing. On one repeat I lost the plot totally and ended up making up notes until I got back to firm ground.

As we began to pack up I played Home Town. As I started my drones sounded ragged, the pipes thin, and I had a moment of wondering what on earth I was doing, then the fiddler pitched in and suddenly I could hear real smallpipes - just like on CD! - and just played happily.

Much more relaxed today, definitely. No mad pumping, no shaking hands or weak knees, no pounding heart. I just sat, played, listened, as I do when I'm playing alone at home. Someone said to the drummer that he looked to be in a trance when he was playing: the drummer calls it Zen. Whether you call it Zen or the zone or even a state of flow I was almost there, today, almost in that space.

Fast and furious

A bit of multi-tasking this evening, piping and recording in the gaps between getting some washing done and dinner cooked. Have I ever mentioned that I don't have enough hours in the day?

I've been feeling bad about not recording. It was the whole point of having a blog and foisting myself on the internet, otherwise I could have bought myself a nice notebook to scribble away in. I whipped out the recorder this evening, and immediately hit a hitch: the plug was missing. Again. The fan kindly searched while I played with an eye on the clock. Then I had to set up the machine, then I played, suffering from red-button-itis (i.e. badly), then I hit the wrong button when mastering the track down just as the oven timer started beeping at me...

The fan managed to retrieve the error, and I sat down to blog and then my sister rang with an urgent query about the correct wording for a wedding invitation, and now the evening's almost over and I need to get this typed before I run out of time. Have I ever mentioned my problem about the number of hours in a day....

The (mangled), droneless tunes are Troy's Wedding and the Atholl Highlanders. I can, and do, play both better than this, but I was in a hurry. Lots of mistakes and hesitations in both. Lots of my fingers running away with the tune and getting confused. I had dots to hand as I see no reason to stress myself out with being dotless and recording now that I have nothing to prove in that area.

Utterly no gracing in either other than what is utterly necessary to divide two notes the same. This is partly due to having non-piping versions of the dots, and partly just the speed. Speed is one thing they do have, I think.

For comparison, there is an older version of the Highlanders (on my previous blog, which does seem to have been reinstated), which I describe as "reasonably fast" and now seems laughably slow. That's from August 2012. A more recent recording of Troy - September last year.

One good thing I did notice, not today so much, but this week: fingers going like the clappers, elbows and mind calm and relaxed in the background. That has to be a good sign.

PS - wrote this on Monday and had problems uploading the tune. Thursday today - more cooking, washing and piping - same tunes, no recording, so played much better, of course...!


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Blur

I'm trying to play at least one tune with drones to keep my hand in, get back to my comfort zone. Fiddling round with tunes, but one keeps blurring into the next. The Whaling Song keeps blurring in to Cabot Trail. Troy's Wedding morphed in to the Atholl Highlanders. Neither Balmacara nor Braemar Gathering would come to mind, or fingers, at all. Trying to play a set of three: Whaling, Flett and Bee, if I'm on D, or Galloway, Flett and Bee if I'm on A. Going to sound OK, I think.

Worst dreams

Sometimes when I dream I dream of every day things, of my life, but everything is just a little bit worse in dreamland. So in my dream I will be at my allotment worrying about weeds. So far, so much like the waking world. Except that in my dream the plot is two, three, four times the size of its daytime equivalent and the small scattering of weeds becomes a jungle.

I've been worrying about piping in much the same way, daydreaming. On the plus side I've been thinking music, humming tunes, mainly McIntyre's Farewell, and that's good. But I imagine myself playing and I criticise that playing, and come up with a plan. I must stop flapping and twitching and hunching around my bellows. I must play notes cleanly. I must relax my hands on my chanter. I mustn't race. I mustn't let the chanter slip when I take my thumb off to play a high A.

I come home and I pick up my pipes and I notice that I don't twitch, notes are clean, fingers are soft and relaxed, I play at an even pace, the chanter doesn't slip. I wasn't comfortable with bellows at the weekend and one drone seems inconsistent - kicks out - which I think may be a loose joint (I've got beeswax on order from our local hardware shop to go with my hemp), and may be lack of use. I played with drones on Monday and felt panicked, as though I couldn't do it, had slipped back and lost all my learning. But actually, today, flipping them on and off for one tune or another, it was fine, it was good.

I may not yet be a dream piper, but it's far from the nightmare I sometimes envisage.

The goat and monkey

We went out on the spur of the moment to a local acoustic session, the fan and I. It was lively, and mixed in terms of styles, abilities etc. Alarmingly it was organised in a taking turns round the table sort of way, which meant I had to get organised. I was a little worried about stage fright and a little worried because my drones have been sadly neglected.

Luckily the drones weren't too much of an issue, and the stage fright didn't get past making my hands stiff and shaky. I managed to scrape through the Tree, Home Town, McIntyre's Farewell and Flett. Slight mishap during Flett due to the connector coming out - my own fault entirely for sitting badly. McIntyre I think I missed out an A part, but otherwise not bad for a first outing.

I was supported by the fan and the fiddle player from the band on the first two, but was pretty much on my own for the others. The fan says we must play together so he can work on accompaniments.

New tunes for old

I recorded this on Sunday - My Home Town. This is now a regular on my play list so there should be improvement since last I recorded this tune.

Sound quality is poor, not helped by lack of drones. I really must get back to drones.

I think the throw on D is cleaner than it was. Still room for improvement. Some of the difference is between D and A. Heavens, the drones are wavery on that earlier recording: really bad. Some phrases are rushed, some are garbled. The whole thing feels a bit rushed.

This new version is more sedate, more relaxed. Some nice gracing in there. Am I playing the B faster than the A? Do I speed up generally as the tune goes on? I think so. Slight change of tone in the last set of repeats. Not sure if the chanter was coming lose at that point. Nice clean finish. Start (not edited at all) not too tatty. It's OK, actually. Not bad for a beginner!



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Flying visit

I did play yesterday - mostly Dargai over and over and over....

Dargai again today  - remembering the extra gracings at the start of the B part, but forgetting the extras for the A part. I played the King, the Farewell, Magersfontein, the Nova Scotia set...and then I played a lovely fast tune that I thought was the Bee, but which oddly wanted to repeat the A part, which the Bee doesn't do, so eventually realised I was playing Dargai, fast. I don't know why I muddle these so often!

Sticking with A. Comfortable but hard work, especially this evening when my hands were cold, but it's the bellows/bag that requires the effort: my hands are fine. I should try drones, too.

For Glasgow

I thought that as I'm short of new tunes to record I would re-record a few hoary old favourites, in the hopes of demonstrating how far I've come. This is the Rowan Tree, which is one of the first I learned by heart, and which is a favourite of mine for sessions. I've got it here in A and D. A bit messy as I edit between sections of the recording (a mid tune chanter-swap being beyond my capabilities!)

I'm still finding A less comfortable. I was using too much bellows action, feeling a lack of air, leaving some distinctly wavery parts,. Bellows-panic led to some poor timing and poorly placed fingers. D is better - I relaxed once I had D although my mind's not on the music tonight. I finish with D droneless, a sort of pipe equivalent of fade.... Not sure you can really hear that on the recording. I really need to play A more often. I really need to play with drones more often. I hope I sound better than this at sessions.

I'm dedicating this tune to Glasgow.


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Mixing it up

I played in A this evening, with and without drones and with some or all drones. It's surely not that long since I last played A, but drones took some getting used to again. I actually made the finger adjustment quickly, and I think it would have been quicker only I was fresh form the allotment (as it were) and my hands were cold and damp.

I played the Farewell, mostly, then swapped to D, with drones, for the Farewell, without drones to work through Magersfontein which I love but which is unreliable, to say the least. Then Troy. A, B and C reasonably - A and B at a good speed. C still proving much harder and then I fiddled about and managed the second half of the D part. The last four bars are the same as the last four of the repeat of the B, and the rest I had got by dint of repeating two bars over and over yesterday. The remaining two are one of the repeated endings. There really are only four bars left to get, which I have been repeating over and over, mostly on my chanter. I'm enjoying having my chanter back.

I also tried to pick up The New House in St Peter's, without a huge amount of success - I perhaps got the first few bars. The fan suggests putting the CD in the car and setting it on repeat as I travel to work and back.

Moving on

Yesterday I did another pre-session warm up. Monkey in A with drones. Not going well. All the usual complaints. The session went sedately round with each taking their turn, and I skipped my first turn. Second time round I played Flett - in D. It was OK. Some nerves: I've played in the venue before, and I knew some of the people. I guess having another piper there makes me more nervous: she's going to spot every last mistake. But I played on through my mistakes, fudged over them, finished in one piece.

A bit later on I tried the Whaling Song. I did it because I was asked to play - Vicki had not long played a corker of a set including Troy's Wedding and I was feeling musically humbled (not to say depressed). It went down well, though, and I reduced my fluff rate, other than spectacularly missing out an entire B part repeat...

I was going to call it quits then, because it was late, but as people started to drift away I thought I'd have one last go with the Rowan Tree, quietly, on my own, with no one noticing. The fan joined in on bouzouki, as he always does, but I also had some percussion, a nyckelharpa, a flute, a fiddle and piano accordion pitching in. And it was great! Everything went well, I could hear the music clearly, I was able to look around at people, I kept my nerve, it sounded good, and I really enjoyed it.

Glitch over, I think. Let's move on.

Droning on

I decided to have a bit of a play before the session today, mostly to help me acclimatise to drones. I stuck with D, to make life easier. It felt strange, the drones sounded so loud and I struggled to play any tune without errors. I kept wanting just to flip them off so I could concentrate on getting the tunes right. I persevered, but I didn't have any of that comfort and confidence that I've had before. I'm not sure how or when or why I lost that. Was it because I stopped playing so much over July and August, or is it because I've not given myself a break from it for a while?

The session was very small today, and I felt a bit exposed, perhaps, and a bit out of of practice at playing in public. I also worried that I wouldn't feel comfortable with my drones, and I know I ended up relying too much on the bellows. I also worried that my tunes would let me down, and even resorted to dots, as several other had, there were very few people there, and  I really wanted to play my Nova Scotia set.

As it happened I played, I felt a little nervous, and then I heard my drones, and it was like the moment at an uncomfortable party when you spot a friendly face in the crowd and suddenly realise it's going to be OK. I was comforted by their presence.

I didn't play my best. I wasn't fluent enough. My timing wasn't consistent. I was very thin on gracing. My fingers weren't light enough on the chanter. The fan says I really need sets - a single tune ends with an anticlimax. But I'm still not finding tunes that work together and at a session I'm afraid of fluffing and the more tunes I play the greater the scope for fouling things up. Nor do I want to outstay my welcome, musically speaking. The fan will play three tunes in a set, but he plays a lot faster than me. I don't want to feel I'm putting people through 6 or 7 minutes of musical purgatory.

I must get back to those previous levels of comfort. I must become more consistent. I need to know my tunes even better: I need to know that they won't let me down, that I will always get every last note right. I need sets. I need to get better at moving between A and D.

Most of all I think I have to relax and stop fretting. I just need to play and enjoy.