Slow down, you move too fast

After what feels like a piping lifetime of trying to play ever faster, I am starting to appreciate the slow. I've been hearing tunes that are played more slowly than "my" version (Shores of Loch Bee, South Georgia Whaling Song, Flett  from Flotta). I've been playing tunes that I feel need to be taken slowly (Flanders Fields). I've also been going back to tunes I feel I am, not exactly struggling with, but failing to get comfortable with (Troy's Wedding, Braemar Gathering, Sound of Sleat), despite the fact that I've been playing them, off and on, for quite some time now. 

It's possible that I may speed them up again when I'm ready, but at the moment I feel that a slower pace gives me more control. It stops me tensing fingers, rushing through bits I'm not confident on, messing up the timing. It allows me to concentrate more - or perhaps I just have to concentrate more in order to bring the speed down, and that's why the problems slip away. I'm not sure that this is going to fix things, but these are three tunes I would very much like to have settled into my session repertoire.

I do wonder to what extent my "slow" is actually faster than the "fast" I used to play. Speed is relative. 30mph seems reasonable from a standing stop, a little odd if you're slowing from 70mph as you come off a dual carriage way and, if you are actually travelling along that dual carriage way with traffic tearing by at 70mph, 80mph or more, positively suicidal.

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.


Check this out on Chirbit

They all rolled over

I  need a memory upgrade. I realise that I am, reasonably succesfully, playing my new tunes: Valery, Perth, Flanders. If I rack my brains I also play Magersfontein, although now that it's definitely a set with Vittoria it almost counts as a new tune.

Then there is Flett, maybe Father John and Whaling Song. After that I, have to think, to check my note book, to see that there is also Bee, King, Dargai, Bonnie Galloway, McIntyre's Farewell, Rowan Tree, My Home Town... Even the recent pairing of Women and Sleat gets forgotten. And that's without thinking about the eternally unfinished Miss Girdle, Braemar, Wedding or any of the other tunes that I can play, or at least used to be able to play.

My musical brain is clearly less like Spotify and more like a juke box or old fashioned CD changer with room only for a fixed, and rather small, number of tunes. It's reasonably easy to slot a new one in, but in order to do so I have to take another one out.

Hello stranger

I've gone for morning playing again today. I'm slightly wary because I don't want playing to be one of the chores I have to get out of the way before I start on things I'd really like to do. The weather being a Bank Holiday special - grey, dull and cool - I've got nothing much planned other than more knitting and snuggling up with an Angela Thirkell.

I started off with a sudden urge to play in A, so dusted off the long neglected chanter. From the very first note I loved it: it's such a rich sound. The chanter felt huge, and it took an amount of adjusting hand position and stretching to achieve a half decent low G. I played through Perth, Women and Sleat. The wobbly G meant that the third part of Sleat was a mess, but otherwise it went surprisingly well. It did feel as though I needed a lot more effort on the bellows, and as if the whole instrument had doubled in size, so I gave up after those three but must go back to it again, maybe returning to my old plan of starting with A then switching after a couple of tunes.

After that I dug out music books and discovered that tunes I thought I had forgotten (Battle of the Somme, Green Hills of Tyrol, Over the Cabot, Trail Captn Angus L MacDonald, Compliments to Roy A Chisholm, Donald Dhu) are all actually still in the back of my mind somewhere.

I discovered Jacky Latin in one of the Willie Ross books. I also found that I do actually know several tunes that I had abandoned, feeling I'd never learn them. I found different versions of them (Return to India in Barry Shear's book and The Rejected Suitor in the Ross) and struggled to play them because the versions I already know kept trying to push their way in. Right at the end I played Dargai and Bee suddenly appeared, minus its new grace notes...

I gave up after over an hour, feeling like my arms might fall off. For my playing next month I might try to resurrect some of the pile of tunes that fell by the way (Farewell to the Creeks, Blue Bonnets I also played today). I'm half inclined to buy one of the music books on my list. The one thing that is still certainly a stranger to my play list is the strathspey: not a single one can I play. I feel that's a serious omission.

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.

One more time

Or 27 more times. I've been quite single-minded this challenge in sticking to the tunes I particularly want to learn or improve. Once or twice I've thrown in Flett, King or Home Town but mostly my playlist looks like this:

Arthur Bignold
Troy's Wedding
Miss Girdle
Shores of Loch Bee
Women of the Glen
Sound of Sleat
The Braemar Gathering

Recently I've been throwing in Farewell to the Creeks and Kilbowie Cottage, which seems to have drifted into my head again. I'm wondering whether the Cottage and Arthur might suit each other.

I like all of these tunes, I enjoy playing them, and there is enough of them to give variety over half an hour or so of playing, so it's been no hardship just playing these.

Despite ongoing problems with holding the pipes I feel I am making decent progress. Arthur, as with all 4 parters, is taking while to commit to memory. I think Creeks might get there first. I'm shaking off the tenseness in my fingers that was throwing the run up in the third part of Troy, random bars in Braemar and the not-quite-repeats in the third and fourth of Women. Bee is becoming more reliable, and everything is getting faster and I'm managing to improve the balance between increasing speed and lack of accuracy, although some thumb graces in Troy just vanish when I hit a certain speed.

It's been a long month and I am looking forward to having a break at the end, but, as ever, it has been worth the effort.

Bonus track (got a little list)

Our house guest left earlier than I had expected today, and after getting keys cut, buying a new purse, visiting our brand new local supermarket and getting some washing done I had a spare half hour and spent it playing my pipes.

I've also finally made a little list of tunes I can play to help me at sessions when  I can't actually remember what tunes I can play. I've erred on the side of caution and haven't added Heroes (mostly because it needs a set partner), Troy  or Braemar, although Braemar is probably doable on a good day.

The first part of the list is singleton tunes  which don't have set partners and don't seem to feel too lost or half-finished on their own. When the fan was thinking of putting performance sets together we did try Galloway with Braemar, so I may consider that at some point.

• McIntyre's Farewell (which I do tend to forget that I know)
• Bonnie Galloway
• My Home Town
• The Rowan Tree
• March of the King of Laoise

Part two of the list is the smug marrieds, aka sets. (Yes! Real sets for playing in public!)

• John Macmillan of Barra/South Georgia Whaling Song/Captn Angus MaDonald
• Heights of Dargai/Shores of Loch Bee
• Women of the Glen/Sound of Sleat
• The Highland Brigade at Magersfontein/Flett from Flotta

I feel that Flett and Magersfontein get on well enough but haven't quite found their true soulmates. The others I am happy with. Captn Angus is easy going and doesn't mind making up a three as needed, but John and Whaling sound fine without him, too.

I'm still working on Miss G, still hoping that one day the Dragon will really fly. Still considering Kilbowie Cottage as a potential new tune.

Hearing things

I've had the Women of the Glen going round my head, day and night, it seems. It's somehow tiring to keep hearing a tune, and it's not far in the background of my brain, it's at the front all the time, just, but not quite, at the point where I find myself humming a tune. The only respite was while cleaning my teeth when it was suddenly, inexplicably, but temporarily, replaced with Joy to the World.

Of course, when I decide to print it (yesterday I played it straight from my tablet), it slipped away, and by the time I had my pipes out it was a bit of a struggle to remember how it went at all...

Apart from the Women,  and a brief and inelegant appearance by Miss G,  I stuck to the old tunes: Magersfontein, Dargai, Loch Bee, King of Laoise, My Home Town, Rowan Tree, Bonnie Galloway, Amazing Grace, McIntyre's Farewell. I skipped Whaling Song because it gets played with the new tune, and I forgot all about Flett. I definitely need to make that list of tunes I know...

Sunday session

We were a bit thin on the ground, but still managed to muster three pipers. We were also badly placed, hemmed in between the gents, the ladies and the door and endless trails of smokers and the weak-bladdered. Still, it was a decent enough evening.

My playing was patchy. I blame hunger as the anticipated large lunch turned out to be a toasted sandwich. I struggled to remember which tunes I play: I must make myself a little list.

The opener - Heights of Dargai
The old favourite - My Home Town (everyone joined in)
The long shot - Father Johns's Boat Trip (well-received and everyone joined in with the second tune)
The odd one - Magersfontein/Flett - people join in with Flett, but Magersfontein continues to throw them
The old faithful  The Rowan Tree (which some joined in for and which I mucked up quite badly!)

Oh, go on then

I played through pretty much everything today, with the exception of the poor, defunct Dragon and Miss G. I just forgot about her, somehow. I threw in Flett, just for a change.

Battling away with Brandy. No idea why I find it so complicated. Played a little bit of Troy. It has totally failed to bubble back up into my musical memory, but a glance at the opening bar of the fourth part had me racing off, then I had hideous problems with the interface between arm and bellows, and the fan made a throwaway remark that disheartened me, so I abandoned for the day.

I was trying to think of the month (so far) in terms of tunes learned. I think I'd be happy enough to play Father Macmillan's Boat Trip to Nova Scotia at a session, but only one of those is new, and I have played Father John at a session once before.

Heroes is good to go, but I am not sure about pairing it with the Highlanders, unless it was a small session with no audience on an afternoon where my playing had been going very well. Should be fine with Dargai, and presumably therefore with Bee as well. You wait forever for a three tune set and then two come along at once...

Braemar does finally feel as though it is ready to go public, but probably not as part of a set (with Magersfontein  or anything else) just yet. Ocean would be fine if I could ever get the fan to work out the second part for me again. Brandy and Miss G still need a lot of work. Sleat is close, I think, and as for Troy, I'll reinstate it on my playlist tomorrow and see how it goes...

As good as a rest

I thought I'd give myself a break from new tunes today and just play whatever came to mind or fingers. Oddly enough the first tune in my head was Father John, so I played his Boat Trip to Nova Scotia.

After that the play list looked like this:

The Rowan Tree
Magersfontein, Flett, Dargai, Bee (too many for a set, but that's how they came out)
Bonnie Galloway
My Home Town
King of Laoise
Amazing Grace

I've been considering making a list of all the half-learned, or learned and abandoned tunes I have left behind, but I feel it would be a very long list and perhaps rather depressing.

I do also need to record. Maybe at the weekend.

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.

Painfully slow

Still working on the Horsburgh set. Horsbugh Castle itself is OK, and I've been humming it. It's distinctive, but somehow I'm not sure that it's really doing anything for me, somehow. One day I will go through this blog and itemise all the tunes that haven fallen by the wayside...

Dalnahasaig I've still not found, although I've not looked since Friday. It must be out there somewhere. Braes of Mar I need to check for a version in a useful key still. I've found Glenlyon, but I don't recognise it as I play. It's very short. I need to listen to the CD again now I know what I am listening for, but at the moment it's not taking my fancy at all.

Miss Girdle is more complicated than she looks: it's those runs that are slightly different each time. She also needs to be fast. The Blackberry Bush, in the plain or the MacLeod version, just isn't coming together. I need to listen to the CD again: I can't hum it so I suppose it's no surprise I can't play it.

But I missed Glenlyon among other sets of dots. I have too many and need to tidy. Too many that have fallen by the wayside. I went through the dots an set aside the tunes I can play: Flett, Loch Bee, Dargai, Magersfontein, Galloway, King, Whaling Song, Rowan Tree.  Just eight. Eight poxy tunes after nearly four years. How are the mighty fallen...

And then I thought, actually, apart from Whaling Song which insists on turning in to Troy at the moment, these aren't just tunes I can play. These are tunes I can hum to order, play without thinking about, play when I am too tired to think, play at a session without qualms. These are my rock solid, old reliable tunes. Eight of them.

The other thing that is painfully slow is my netbook. It's driving me up the wall.

Music by numbers

Playing went well today, although I seem to run out of tunes very quickly: my play list seems to get ever shorter, although increasing speed makes a difference. And I really do seem to be speeding up: Over the Cabot Trail, which used to be a gentle wander, has become something of a 100m dash.

My initial thinking on sets was that variety was nice, that I could stick a fast tune on to the end of a slow tune. But, of course, for sessions it seems to work better if the tunes are all alike in a way. So I wondered whether the answer was to group by time signatures.

Including tunes I mean to get one day (ha ha), and tunes I can still just about play, in with my regular playlist, I get something that looks like this.

2/4 marches (or possibly quicksteps)
The 72nd Highlanders' Farewell to Aberdeen
Captain Grant
Murray's Welcome
Teribus

3/4 marches
Highland Brigade at Magersfontein
My Home Town

4/4 marches
Bonnie Galloway
Flett from Flotta
The Rowan Tree
The Shores of Loch Bee

6/8 marches (although some are described as jigs, especially where gleaned from The Session)
Over the Cabot Trail
Captn Angus L MacDonald
MacIntyre's Farewell
The Atholl Highlanders
The Braemar Gathering
A Rock and a Wee Pickle Tow
The Glasgow Gaelic Club
Balmacara
The Falls of Glomach
Troy's Wedding
South Georgia Whaling Song
March of the King of Laoise
All the Blue Bonnets Are over the Border

Hmm. I think all this does is prove that a time signature may be one characteristic of a tune, but it's far from defining a tune. Two of the 4/4s I play slowly, two a bit faster. The 3/4s I play slow, although I also like Magersfontein with a bit more speed. Blamacara and Glomach are lilting and lyrical, Bonnets is a romp, King suits various speeds... As it happens I do play Flett and Bee together, although I'm not totally convinced that works, and plenty of 6/8 tunes in that lists just wouldn't sit together. So, back to the drawing board on sets.

I guess all this list does show is that I seem to have a predilection for tunes in 6/8 time...and that I struggle with them.

Reverse gear

Back to D this evening. It's so much easier to move from A to D than to go from D to A. I played Glomach and Balmacara, both with dots, but  starting to feel the possibility of losing the dots. For a start I'm finding it easier to find and move on the next section or the second version of a repeat. This is particularly helpful as one of the tunes ends each part with a short A, and I've been drawing that note out while I search for what comes next. I can hear the tune as I play and know at once when I've made a mistake. All good signs.

In a brief half hour session I played through 10 tunes and it occurred to me that actually I have quite a list at the moment. It's a while since I last did a playlist, so here's an update. You'll note I've gone backwards: more tunes have fallen off then been added.

Tunes I'm playing at the moment

• Bonnie Galloway
• Captain Angus L MacDonald
• Flett from Flotta
• The Heights of Dargai
• The Highland Brigade at Magersfontein
• March of the King of Laoise
• McIntyre's Farewell
• My Home Town
• Over the Cabot Trail
• The Rowan Tree
• The Shores of Loch Bee
• The South Georgia Whaling Song

Tunes I'm supposedly learning/improving/working on 

• Balmacara
• Barren Rocks of Aden
• Boy's Lament for his Dragon
• Captain Grant
• The Falls of Glomach
• The Glasgow Gaelic Club
• The Highland Lassie Going to the Fair
• Murray's Welcome
• The Portree Men
• Troy's Wedding

Not that I can't play these - some dotless, it's just that they haven't clicked, somehow. Some I never quite get reliably dotless, some feel a little lost and aimless without being part of a set, some are perfectly nice but somehow a bit...dull.

Play list update for August

Finally I feel it's time to add some titles to my play list. I'm a little worried because several tunes seem to be falling off the bottom. I'm not sure if that's because actually I didn't really like them as much as I like the new tunes, or whether it's just what I happen to feel like playing at the moment - Bonnie Galloway, for instance has usurped The Rowan Tree as my go to tune for when I have no brain or just want to feel totally relaxed when playing. My worry is that I will only ever be able to remember a dozen tunes and the more I cram in one end the more they will fall out the other...

Tunes I can play without dots

• The Atholl Highlanders (rare) 
• Banks of Allen (very rare)
• Battle of the Somme
• Battle of Waterloo (rare)
• Bonnie Galloway (my current go to tune)
• The Boy's Lament for His Dragon (with a tendency to go to fast and garble it)
• The Barren Rocks of Aden (same problem as the Dragon)
• Castle Dangerous
• Eagle's Whistle (very rare)
• Flett from Flotta (I play this a lot)
• The Highland Brigade at Magersfontein
• The March of the King of Laoise (Still lets me down from time to time...)
• My Home Town
• The Rowan Tree
• South Georgia Whaling Song
• Teribus (the mice currently love this)

Tunes almost there

• Capt Angus L MacDonald
• Leaving Barra (ha, ha, ha)
• Lochanside (remember this? It seems to go well with the Highland Brigade...)
• Over the Cabot Trail
• Troy's Wedding (A and B I have, C is nearly there, D part needs some work)

Tunes I am actively learning

• Alick C McGregor
• The Shetland Fiddler

I'm surprised to see that, checking over the tunes I've recorded, the only tunes on my play list  haven't done are Atholl (which I recorded about a million times on the previous blog and lost), Castle Dangerous. Shetland Fiddler and Leaving Barra (which is odd - I could have sworn I had done that one).

I feel I need some more new tunes to learn....

Raising the bar

Back from our holiday. I spent the whole time humming Magersfontein, and thought a lot about my pipes. I was worried that I would have forgotten how to play, but I slipped right back into it, all my tunes and everything. Yesterday I played for an hour and 40 minutes, broken into three sessions so I didn't tire my arms, but actually it was all very comfortable.

It occurs to me that I'm being harsh on myself in not updating my play list. There was a time where if I could rush through a tune, A and B parts once only, without having to check the dots, even if I had to adjust mistakes or have big pauses to think in, then I considered it learnt and added it to the list. Now I feel I must be able to play the entire tune through three times over without hesitation, deviation or repetition every single time I try to play it, before I consider it learnt. I suppose the better you get at something the higher your expectations are.

I'm enjoying reading the Barry Shears book and learning lots about Scotland, Canada, emigration, piping families and so on. Am slightly frustrated that he doesn't pick up on the pictures. There are lots of them and they show pipers (nearly all men) holding pipes in so many different ways. Bag under the left arm  or the right arm; left or right hand uppermost  on the chanter; chanter way off to the side, slap in front, held very high or very low. Presumably it was the formality of piping bands that called for everyone to hold pipes the same way. I wonder if different ways of holding affected the sound.

There is also just one very short section on female pipers, mostly briefly biographies of two particular women, but no indication of what the men, or indeed, other women thought about this. Was it accepted or frowned upon? Were there many women pipers? Were there many women musicians? Lots of unanswered questions.

Hopefully back soon with more recordings. I've got several long weekends coming up, so plenty of time to play, record and blog!

Playlist June 2013

Three months on since the last one. Not a massive amount of difference in the two lists, perhaps, but more tunes waiting in the wings now. I see the Dragon has been kicking about since January.

I think I'm picking tunes up faster. Either I'm just getting better at learning them, or I am getting better at persevering and playing them over and over instead of once or twice each time I play.

I do need sets. I don't seem to be very good at identifying tunes that will work together. I hear sets I like, but there will be one or two tunes I can't find dots for, or can't play. I'm also not sure if it's OK just to pinch other people's ideas for sets.

Tunes I can play without dots

• The Atholl Highlanders (I don't play this often and never get  it played to my satisfaction, despite not needing dots)
• Banks of Allen (but I play this rarely...)
• Battle of Waterloo (near as dammit)
• Bonnie Galloway
• The Barren Rocks of Aden (accuracy still not great)
• Castle Dangerous
• Eagle's Whistle (I keep forgetting that I know this one)
• Flett from Flotta
• The March of the King of Laoise
• My Home Town
• The Rowan Tree
• South Georgia Whaling Song
• Teribus

Tunes languishing and never quite making it to the list above

• Battle of Waterloo
• Leaving Barra

Tunes I am actively learning

• Alick C McGregor
• The Battle of the Somme
• The Boy's Lament for his Dragon
• The Highland Brigade at Magersfontein
• The Shetland Fiddler
• Troy's Wedding

Captain's log

OK - so here we are in June, which means I need to find time every day, the allotment season has started in earnest and I have Christmas glittens to finish. Obviously something needs to give, and I think it has to be blogging. So my plan is to stick to the basics, as follows.

Day one
Time played: one hour, followed by time on the chanter and then fiddling around with Irish tunes on the whistle.
Tunes played: everything on my play list (bar Banks, Highlanders and Whistle), with dots, just to remind myself.
Notes: odd how I never have problems with bellows etc at sessions - presumably just that I have to concentrate on the tune it takes my mind of everything else. Trying to tap my foot with tunes.

Day two
Time played: 45 minutes
Tunes played: Tree, Town, Galloway, Castle, Teribus, King, Flett, Rocks - all dotless, just to prove I can. Barra, because I ought to nail this. Alick C McGregor, A part over and over until I started to get bits by heart, and the B a couple of times.
Notes: I seem to be pushing the bellows down on the outside, so wore them lower round my waist. Droneless, because my arms were tired from hoeing and raking at the plot. Everything works better when I stand up to play. A little foot tapping.

PS - also intending to record a lot, but without it taking too much piping time. Am asking the fan to write instructions for the big recording kit that plugs in to the mains - less hassle all round.