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.

You don't know until you try

There was a time when part of what I was keen to learn, and to demonstrate I had learned, was the ability to play tunes from memory. I now know that, given time, I can indeed play (a handful) of tunes from memory. So these days when I set out to learn a tune I am not setting out to play it through without dots, so much as play it evenly, with the correct timings, appropriate gracing, decent speed and so on. I don't know that this has necessarily turned into a dependence on dots, but it has certainly led to a feeling that it's taking me an awful lot longer to learn tunes by heart.

Today, rather by accident, I discovered that I know the first two parts (all I am currently playing, partly because I'm not 100% sure of the timing in the other parts, and partly because two parts are easier to learn than four) of John Macmillan. I hadn't tried because I really thought I hadn't got it in my head at all, but there it wss.

This may be down to having put Synergy in the CD player in the car, where my feeling is that I play the track over and over and generally only notice the point at which the next tune in the set kicks off and I realise that I have missed John, again. Clearly it has sunk in, from listening, and from playing, and I have not lost my ability to grasp the basics of a tune within a week or two. I'm pleased that a reasonable amount of grace notes have been sucked into my playing memory with the main dots. I now need to improve what I have learned, especially the timing in the second part of the B part, and then consider learning the next two parts, and finding it a set partner.

The other thing I want to learn is the origin of the word "Father" in the title as listed on the CD. I have it on dots from the session, where perhaps it was picked up from Synergy. But why is it there on the CD? They have pipers, they must know Donald Macleod, which is where I have dots from (book 1). It's not a trad tune, with origins lost and titles confused over the years: Macleod attributes it clearly to Norman Macdonald, Glasgow. A bit of research required...

Still having problems with cold/numb right hand, positioning of bellows, and still sticking with D, having not played A at all since who knows when.

I know where I'm going

Sometimes on gloomy winter evenings, the fan will look about him and ask "what is it all for?" It's a good question, in a way, except that it is likely to drive you nuts if you think about it too much. We're born and sometime later we die, and we tend to want to find ways of filling the gaps in between. Some climb mountains or make money or sail around the world or become famous. Others of us go to work and back, and potter about with various hobbies and distractions.

Some of those distractions seem to have a direct point or purpose: baking provides us with bread, cake and biscuits, knitting provides socks, jumpers and various accessories. But what is piping for? If I were younger, or perhaps playing a different sort of instrument, or just a different sort of person, I might be considering taking exams or joining a band. If I were better at it (when I am better at it) I could use it to entertain others, but generally I enjoy it as a thing in itself. I enjoy the process of learning, and improving, and I enjoy just sitting down and playing.

The change of year has set me thinking about change, goals, things to do. I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but sometimes it's a useful point for taking stock. I've been wondering if I can describe what it is I want to do with my piping, where I want to get to on my journey. I think I have an end point (or possibly just a staging post) in sight, although I don't have any idea how long it is going to take me to get there.

I'd like to make more use of grace notes. I do insert grace notes when dots have none, and not just the bare minimum, but not a lot more. I'd like to get to a point where I am adding more grace notes without having to think it through.

I'd like to be able to learn tunes faster. Actually, I think as I've mentioned before, that I do pick up tunes faster, it's just my definition of what it means to "know" or "have learned" a tune has changed from "managed to play it once through without mistakes and only a few pauses" to "can play it at a session and even if I am very tired I can play it without thinking about it with no mistakes".

I'd like to be able to play a greater variety of tunes. I think this is actually about timing. I can generally do marches, reels are harder, strathspeys totally beyond me. I'd like to be able to pick up dots for Mrs McLeod of Raasay or The Mason's Apron, or the Caber Feidh  (all of which I have) and be able to play those tunes, but somehow I can't get speed or timing and they don't sound even half right. It's not that I can't sight read - I'm not too bad at that - but just pulling together timing and gracing and speed seems to be beyond me.

I'd like to be able to pick up tunes by ear. This is a reasonably big ask, I suppose. It's something I can do to some extent. In the old days fiddling about on a keyboard of recorder I'd expect to be able to pick out bits of tunes. Apart from the Halsway Schottische, which I got in parts before someone gave me the dots, I've not managed it on pipes, despite the lure of several tunes that I love and can't find the dots for (The New House in St Peters, for example, or The Hills of Perth).

I'd like to be better at creating sets. Piping has a tradition, for bands playing GHB, of putting together marches, reels and strathspeys. For playing in sessions three of the same helps others with playing along. The tunes I've abandoned along the way seem to be the ones that I can't find partners for. The fan says that to some extent any tune can go with another: there is no magic formula. I quite like tunes that have similar sounding phrases in them, but that can cause problems with one tune morphing in to the other. Perhaps I just need to know more tunes or to listen to more sets for inspiration, or learn to play a greater variety of tunes (see above) so that I can play sets I hear on CDs. Often I find I can play one or two of the tunes, but then another I won't be able to find dots for, and another I just won't be able to play.

I'd like to be able to switch easily and comfortably between D and A. I've been neglecting A a lot, and I can only think of one time at a session when I've used both chanters. The chanters aren't the issue so much as bellows and bag, which feel very different.

So, there we have it: I just want to use more grace notes, learn faster, play a wider variety of tunes, pick up tunes by ear, be able to put sets together more easily and switch comfortably between chanters. That should keep me occupied and ward off existential angst for a while.

Back in your arms again

This week I've started to hear music in my head again. It's not there all the time, and it's mostly a song, but it's there, and I feel as though I must be defrosting, decompressing, becoming myself again. I was starting to feel like a person who used to play pipes, so it was a relief to be able to muster the energy and find the time tonight.

I began with A: I'm using the old trick of always putting the A chanter on before I put the pipes away. I fell straight into the Rowan Tree without even thinking, then Amazing Grace and  Galloway. Too much bellows action, snatched action at that, but it was OK, it was good.

Back to D I rambled about, my fingers feeling stiff and unpracticed, but the tunes came. Magersfontein, Flett, Dargai, Bee, Home Town, Drops of Brandy. The Dragon still floating about, wanting to be slow and lyrical, I think. The Cabot Trail kept crashing out in the B part. The Whaling Song was OK. Teribus popped up out of nowhere. Braemar stalled on the B part. Not even sure what I else I can play, could play - back in the day, back when I was a piper.

Oh  - but some foot tapping, out of nowhere. Good solid tapping that keeps time. But it only works when I'm sitting down. I can't tap and walk, obviously, but I can't tap and stand either, it seems.

I'll be glad when this rough patch at work is over and I can get back to doing the stuff I love and being myself.

Fifteen minutes with you

I seem to often read on the session folk saying that they fit music into their lives by playing five minutes a day. They seem to value frequency above length of time spent. I'm never clear whether they are saying they would only do 5 minutes even if they had a spare hour, or that 5 minutes a day keeps the momentum, or that they actually believe you can learn something, improve in 5 minutes.

I'm not clear, either, whether that's an actual or rhetorical 5 minutes. I've given it a go a couple of times. My main problem is that I can't stop after 5 minutes and have gone on for 20 or 30 instead, mostly because time flies, but also because I always just want to go through that tune one more time, or I think of another tune I really want to play, and another one...

 Five minutes are enough to realise that I can still find my fingers for A, that the bag feels huge with A and needs lots of air, that I only can play parts of Horsburgh by heart, that those parts aren't necessarily the same on A as they are on D, that Horsburgh sounds better on A.

I'm also wondering whether hanging on to dots because it's a long tune, or a fast tune is holding me back from getting tunes by heart: Braemar, Troy, Shetland Fiddler all come to mind here.

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.

I don't mind

It's a refrain in The Big Music: I don't mind. It's been in my head a lot of late - I should reread the book. I don't mind.

This evening I picked up my pipes. A was as before: a little struggle to get my fingers in place. Bag too big, pipes too heavy, everything too loud, bellows just in the way. And I thought - I don't mind, and I carried on for a bit then I switched to D.

D was not right. The bag was uncomfortable on my chest, the strap was in the wrong place, I couldn't get the chanter so that my fingers fell straight on it. But I didn't mind and I played on. After a while I tightened the strap, which made things a little better, although the bellows were uncomfortable on my wrist. But I didn't mind.

I played Highland Cathedral, The Willows, Atholl Highlanders, Braemar, The Lads of Alnwick (we were there last week), Flett, Troy, My Fair Lad, Loch Bee, Dargai, Battle's O'er, Green Hills...not everything went well, but I didn't mind. I just played and played and played until I got too tired to play any more.

This ought to have been the almightiest whinge (seems like I don't whinge much these days) but it isn't because I love my pipes and I loving playing them and if things don't go so well I'm still playing, because I don't mind.

One finger, one thumb

The fan sent me a link. It's nice enough, but, well...it's not smallpipes. These are, however. I think what struck me about this clip is that Gary is much bigger than his pipes. They look quite small. Maybe even more so in this clip. My pipes always feel rather large. I am 5'3" and long legged, so the difference between wearing the strap as high up my chest as it will go and wearing it around my waist is a matter of perhaps 3 inches. I feel I peer round my pipes. I clutch them to me. They take up my whole lap when I sit down.

I also notice that Gary looks as though he's playing a tiny chanter. I am assuming he's playing in A (the fan - who is out at a session - will no doubt enlighten me). D feels about right for my hands whereas A feels big...

Which reminded me that I haven't played A since who knows when. So I did the switch and for the first two seconds I couldn't find the bottom two holes on the chanter and it sounded odd, and then it was all OK and I thought how lovely and mellow and rich A sounds. But although the chanter felt reasonably comfortable the pipes felt huge, the bag felt really full and stiff and seemed to need a lot of effort to keep it going. I stuck to it for a while then flipped to D and immediately everything felt different.

I seem to be struggling to remember tunes at the moment, perhaps because I've got a lot on at work and my head is buzzing with rubbish. Every time I try to play Flett Bonnie Galloway comes out instead. While fiddling about I got half a bar of of a Vicki and Jonny tune (maybe The Willows). I did manage Magersfontein, Amazing Grace, Loch Bee, My Home Town, Cabot Trail, McIntyre's Farewell and The Irishman's Cudgel. Fingers too tense, but I'm tired (see having a lot on at work, qv, ad nauseam).

I thought about playing every day through September, but it's going to be a pig of a month at work. October is no good as we hope to be away for a week of it. The fan suggested I go for 4 weeks instead of a calendar month and cover the end of September and start of October. Not sure that work will let up enough, although I suppose trips to the plot will have dwindled right back by then. Either way I need to play A. And I need more new tunes!!

Small beginnings

Some while ago now I read Kirsty Gunn's beautiful novel The Big Music and I remember being just a tad depressed by the Piping Grading Table that appears in the appendices. There are 6 levels, and by the fourth level you've still only managed to become a novice.

I was reminded of this recently while listening to the Food Programme (the 1 June 2014 episode). The programme was about knives and knife makers. There was an alarming clip of Sheila Dillon apparently closeted in a kitchen with a man with an unhealthy interest in knives who muttered "chop, chop, chop" and "Sever! Sever!" as he whipped the knives about. You could hear them cutting through the air as he wielded them and I worried for Sheila's safety.

But the point of interest was that in Japan where there are apparently some very fine knife makers, a man (apparently they are always men: no women were mentioned) may work with a master craftsman for 10 (yes: ten) years before he is allowed to become a student. After a further 14 years he moves on to become an apprentice. A far cry from the days when a boy was apprenticed at 14 to learn a trade in seven years.

It made me think how far I have come. I can play a tune on my pipes. I can play a reasonably fastish tune. I can play several tunes from memory. I can play a number of tunes one after the other without stopping to wonder what tunes I know or how they go, or having a little lie down to rest aching arms. I can play in front of other people without it being a major ordeal. I can switch between A and D chanter with reasonable ease. None of these things could I do when I collected Morag back in November 2011. In fact, some of those things I still couldn't do when I collected the Monkey just over a year ago.

I still want to use more grace notes, play better grace notes, increase my speed (while maintaining accuracy), learn more tunes and become more comfortable with playing with or for other people. I need to improve my timing. I want to be a better piper.

I'm a believer

More miracles. I switch to A for the first time in over a week, at least, and I have no problems at all. I go straight into tunes. The pressure in the bag is higher, but that's just A. My little finger had to stretch, but it did, and there wasn't a problem.

I played some slow and sedate A tunes, then tried for the Captain, missed, and hit the Cabot Trail at speed. It has become a myth that I can only play D at speed. Myth is precisely what it is: not true at all.

I switched briefly to D and had a go at Pickle and Cudgel (how does The Pickled Cudgel sound as a set name? I'm bagging that for the first album...!) I had to start 3 bars in with the Pickle, but managed it in the end. The Cudgel is going to need more work, but is nearly ready.

The Age of Miracles

Yesterday I sat down and played. The A chanter was already in place, so that’s what I began with. I was slightly worried that I’d have the usual switching issues as it’s been well over a week – probably longer – since I last played in A. Amazingly, my hands adjusted at once and I had no problem at all with positioning fingers. I had a tad too much pressure in the bag, and a slight tendency to whack the bellows to keep that pressure up, but nothing that worried me too much. After half an hour or so I switched across to D….and again, no problems at all. My fingers found where they were meant to be, the pressure as easier, and off we went.

I had more of a problem with tunes. I hadn’t got any dots out so I played through the usual suspects. I then tried to play some of those tunes I’ve been playing from dots on an off for a while. Murray’s Farewell was a bit sticky at the end of the first section of the A part and the B was hit and miss. Listening to Tryst recently I don’t think I’ve got the timing quite right and I need to check it over.

I managed two bars of Gaelic Club but couldn’t bring to mind a single note of Portree, Captain Grant, Highland Lassie, Balmacara, Falls, or Dargai. I managed one part (but which?) of Pibroch of Donal Dhu, which I play from time to time but never with any serious intent to add it to my repertoire. I managed to dredge up Terebus although I think I missed a variant on the B part. No joy at all with Castle Dangerous and only intermittent luck with the Dragon. I did manage Captain. Now I’m not playing it with the Cabot Trail I haven’t played it in a while, but it was still there, in one piece.

I didn’t try particularly hard with any of these. I thought of the name of a tune, I tried to play. If I got half a phrase I had another run at it, but quickly moved on if I got stuck. Even so, some of these are tunes I definitely “knew” at one stage.  I seem to have unlearned them very quickly.

I think I need to pick one tune and work on it to bring it up to scratch, abandoning the others for now, then move on to the next. Or maybe work on Grant, Murray and Dragon as a set (as played on Tryst).  I think the other option would be just to abandon the whole lot and find some others to work on, but I’ll start with Plan A and see how it goes.

I've not yet noted that it's a year since I collected my little velvet Monkey, fell in love. and, I think, became a better piper.

When you change with every new day

I'm blowing hot and cold at the moment (which sounds as though it ought to be a pun, but isn't). I'm working on getting back to drones, playing a few tunes with them each time I practise. It's easier, of course, with D, and I am playing a lot of D at present - initially just because it was easier: I didn't feel musically keen on D. I started to wonder if I'd made the right decision to have D. Too high, to light, to thin, just too D.

But now, at the moment, I love D. D is the best. D is all I want to play.

I've also moved from thinking that I know no tunes at all to feeling that actually I have quite a repertoire. I can play for over an hour at a time. That will partly be stuff I'm still working with dots for, but also a goodly wodge of tunes I know. It makes it easier to play for longer, knowing that I am never having to stop and wonder what I could play next. Some days I stop playing, because I'm tired or there are other things that need to be done,  and then think of a whole heap of tunes I wish I had played and didn't have time for.

Yesterday I got out the Seaforth Highlanders and played through The Glasgow Gaelic Club,  Fingal's Weeping, All the Blue Bonnets, Murray's Welcome, The Highland Lassie Going to the Fair, The Portree Men, Captain Grant and The Barren Rocks of Aden. Oh, and then Dargai and the new tunes I've been given. 

After that I moved on to tunes I know. But I like the tunes in the book. I need to improve them, get them by heart, find suitable pairings. I still struggle with creating sets. I'm waiting for the fan to comment on the Whaling/Flett/Bee combo, and actually feeling that the Bee isn't right on the end there.

Today another of the new tunes, tunes I know, all with drones (except when I lost the plot with Whaling again), all in D, just loosening up ready for the session later on.

Give me a break

I thought I'd take time out from new tunes and the A this evening. Picked the pipes, wasn't sure which chanter was in, put the two together and decided D was in, rested hands very comfortably on chanter, pumped, pressed down on bellows...and realised I had A.

Still, A felt comfortable, so I played the Tree, Galloway, the Farewell, Flett and the Whaling Song, which all went fine, although the triple As in the Song were a bit sticky. Then I shifted across to D, played the Barry Shears set, Bee, Magersfontein, Home Town, and the Whaling Song again. Bee and Magersfontein still both a little unpredictable, but on the whole it was all good.

Felt a little fickle, though: A was so mellow and when I switched to D it felt a little harsh, a little thin.

(I wrote this on the 10th January and thought I had posted it, but found it this evening in my drafts...)

Stockpile

The fan is a bit of a hoarder, especially when it comes to food. Nothing pleases him more than a well-stocked larder with one, two, or even three spare jars, packets, bags, boxes or tins of everything. I, on the other hand, find that too much food makes me feel panicky. What? Must I eat all of this stuff? Our fridge is currently stuffed with the pickles that are needed for a perfect Boxing Day lunch. That was great on Boxing Day, but now it has been and gone I am starting to feel more than  little depressed by the sheer weight of food. I have visions of myself still eating cheese and piccalilli sandwiches in October.

I'm feeling a little similar about my new stockpile of new tunes: gorged and overfed, until I really don't fancy the look of any of them. I've been focussing on a few, and some of the others have been pushed to the back of the musical larder.

Having said that I very nearly got an extra tune yesterday when I discovered that the McGillivray who wrote the Duncan McGillivray tune (for his father), is the man who runs the Pipe Tunes website, and he makes the tune available there. I've been aware of this site for a while. It looks expensive (but mostly because a Canadian dollar is worth barely 50p) and I'm not sure how many of the tunes I would actually want.

For some reason this got me thinking about the Heights of Dargai, which I've tried before. A google led me to a discussion about the Dargai/Dashai confusion and then I tried again to find the dots, and they turned up on the website of the Kilbarchan band. Having got them and compared them with the version I had before (from The Session) I can't see why neither the fan nor I could work the tune out from those dots. Anyway, it's a great tune and I played it a lot on the chanter yesterday.

Despite the chanter practice my fingers struggled to sit on the A today, and it took 15 minutes or so to settle in, but then bag and bellows and everything came together and the fan noted how mellow the A was sounding. I stuck with the Club, Murray, Rocks, Dragon and Dargai and then switched to D and played the Glomach/Balmacara set. I didn't even look at the other tunes and left them to moulder, other than a quick canter through Troy, just because one of these days I am going to be able to play that blasted tune and I don't want it getting lost at the back of the larder behind all the new stuff.

O' but ye've been long a'coming

Oh - the shame - two whole weeks without posting. Worse - practically two whole weeks without piping. Mostly it's down to my continued pre-Christmas knitting frenzy. Not everything will be done in time but so far I've managed a neckwarmer, some socks, a scarf, part of a second pair of socks, and a mild case of knitter's elbow.

I've dragged the Monkey out this evening. Our upstairs neighbours are back today from foreign parts. If I had just got off a 13 hour flight I would drink a mug of tea, have a shower and get into bed. The last thing I would want to hear is someone else's music. I've played at the front of the house, away from bedrooms, but the thought of irate neighbours banging at the door made me nervous. Still, I managed a good run through of my regular repertoire, including dusting off Alick C McGregor, because listening to Seudan has reminded me how good it is. Reasonably fast, but total reliance on dots, mysteriously.

Yes, enjoying Seudan very much, and got out Seaforth Highlanders and found several of the tunes in there: Hot Punch, Tullochgorm, Fingal's Weeping, All the Blue Bonnets. Tried some on the chanter, then found MacDonald of the Isles, which sounded good. I must find new tunes.

Still putting the A chanter on the pipes when I put them away, and so play the first handful of tunes on A each time. Not surprisingly this means I'm finding it much easier to play A again, and the switch between the two is also easier.

But I really must play more. I should play every day in January. I don't feel I go backwards much when I don't play, but I certainly don't go any further forwards, and I have to keep marching on.

Take your partners

I have a few sets potentially coming together. I feel a bit like a marriage bureau. You pick a couple and you feel they have much in common. Sometimes it's love at first sight. Sometimes it starts well and ends in a nightmare of recrimination and violence. Sometime it starts bad and ends up just perfect. Sometimes it just doesn't work at all.

I'm wondering if the Rowan Tree might get along well with Magersfontein. I'm in too minds about tempo changes in sets - it can spoil the mood somehow. But they start on the same group of notes so the segue from one to the other seems to work.

The Nova Scotia tunes (Captain and Cabot Trail), well, they both come from Novia Scotia, so surely that's a good starting point for a relationship. The main problem is that the pair of them insist on flirting with the Whaling Song and while no one can agree to a menage a trois neither can any pair bring themselves to commit. The Whaling Song is getting overly attached and I find that the A of Whaling keeps running into the B of Captain.

I'm also thinking about introducing Flett to Bee. There's a geographical link again, with both of them hailing from Scottish Islands (Flotta is Orcadian, Loch Bee is on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides)

Meanwhile, I'm flirting with the King again. Our early passion drifted into quarrels, but we're working on patching things up.

Noting today my stamina - just under an hour and many tunes back to back, breaks few and short. I played D and A. A was for the King and Farewell. I made the mistake of playing D first and struggled to adjust, with the bag, drones, bellows all feeling different the moment I switched chanters. Everything felt heavier, more hard work, less comfortable.

Two of a kind

I lay in bed this morning, feeling lazy in the sunshine, and I thought about a house I used to know in Italy, about my allotment and plans for an asparagus bed, and then about music. I started wondering whether the Dragon might not be a good companion for Brose and Butter.

I didn't get to try my plan out until the evening. I was earlier distracted by breakfast, our weekly trip to the farm shop, a visit to a garden centre, a chat with a neighbour, some gardening, and then a hunt for a good recipe for mincemeat....

In a way the two tunes are similar inasmuch as I can play neither. The Dragon doesn't like to be too slow, but if I play very fast the mice win out over the woodpecker and get confused and over excited and it doesn't turn out quite right. The dots are hopeless and only confuse me, because I keep stopping to wonder what note that is there, and what note did I just play, and oh, I'm not actually on that bar, am I.

Brose is just as bad. Although I've only played it for a few days I'm already past the stage where dots are useful. I think that Brose will come in after the Dragon, but I couldn't get a decent enough run at them to record and see.

I played various other tunes. The playing was comfortable, but somehow my accuracy in remembering tunes was rather poor. In the end I switched from D to A and decided to give Castle Grant a go. I feel that slow tunes sit better on the lower chanter.

Having just switched from D to A the pressure was an issue, as was hitting all the notes, especially low G, cleanly. I am playing slowly - more slowly than Mr McVarish - but that's because that's how I think I'm going to get that dreamy lilting that I feel I hear. I've stripped out almost all of the gracing to the same end: I don't want anything to disturb the flow of the tune.

There are plenty of...pauses while I check what I am doing next. A lot of these are down to me checking the dots against what I think I am playing: that odd no man's land between needing the dots and being able to move on from them. I'm being thrown by reaching that point so much sooner than before.

No drones, and just the once through. The parts are longish and occasionally I'm having to scan the page to find where my repeats start. some straightforward fluffs where I just play the wrong note.

As I've mentioned, I have no idea at all how this sounds compared to the standard pipe version, but as a tune inspired by a fiddle tune it's not bad, it's sort of approaching what I was hoping for. It needs work, but it's going in the right direction.


Check this out on Chirbit

Size matters

I sat on the sofa the other evening working on my latest knitting project which calls for me to switch back and forth between needle sizes. It's not a huge jump, only 2mm difference, but each time it takes me a moment or two and maybe a few stitches to get the tension sorted and get back into my rhythm.

Yes, that's right, after well over 30 years of knitting it still takes me a moment or two to adjust between needle sizes. This is pattern is unusual in switching between needles. Normally you might start with a smaller set and move on to a slightly larger set. More often I'll move between say, the cardigan I have stuck in my work bag (4.5mm needles) and a pair of socks (2.75mm) and when I make the switch it always feels odd, as if my hands are the wrong size, but after a moment or two everything feels comfortable again.

Which is all by way of saying that really it's not surprising that it takes me, after less than 6 months of having combination pipes, a tune or two to adjust to a change of chanter size. Today I moved up to A. The Rowan Tree went well. I got stuck on the King, and after going round a bit moved on to Galloway and the Farewell, both of which were fine, so I think in the end it was the King that was more of a problem than the actual chanter.

Today's play means that, apart from the day when I was in Glasgow, I have played every day this month, plus a bit, as I played for 8 out of 9 days running up to the month. And I do feel as though I've improved again, and I don't much feel like I need a break from it.

I've been humming the Somme recently (I've been listening to Mr MacLeod) and I should try to revive that. I was having problems with the transition from the B part back to the A, so haven't played it much. I am working on Brose and Butter. Troy's Wedding is close. I've been listening to The Big Spree and Tryst lately, and both feature The Snuff Wife. I rather fancy giving that one a try.

Little and large

I decided this morning to cut loose from the dots with the Trail and the Captn. I'd been idly thinking that I didn't really know those tunes, but then managed to call them into mind so that they went round in my head. I didn't do too badly - bits and bobs, with bits missing and bits misplaced.

This afternoon I've played Trail over and over. Often I find in a tune that there is one note, a repeating note, that I get wrong every time, and I just need to name that note, and then I can remember it. It's a B in the Dragon, a D in Galloway, and a C in the Trail.

But I'm still not comfortable with A. As I've mentioned before it feels like a different instrument, bigger, more robust. I need more air in the bag, more bellows action. I struggle to hold the chanter in a comfortable spot. And this afternoon I just seemed to have too much chest, and it all seemed to be in the way. Still, I persevered. I will be as comfortable with A as I am with D. It's just going to take time.

I wish I knew, though, how people flip between similar instruments of different size; different sized whistles, say, or mandolin and bouzouki, as the fan does. Maybe having a different repertoire for each helps split them in your mind.

I need to think what the call this switching and adjustment; I need a blog label for it, because this isn't the first time I've written about it and it certainly won't be the last.