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.

Pick 'n' Mix

We've got a wintry version of April showers today, with glorious sun following dark clouds and snow on what feels like a minute by minute basis. I'm feeling much the same about my playing.

Yesterday we had an invitation to go and play some tunes. It's always fun to do something spur of the moment and it was a small group of people we mostly know so I didn't mind getting Morag out. The Tree was fine, Home Town I fluffed the same bar in the B part over and over. Eagle's Whistle, the King, Galloway and Teribus just totally fell apart.

The Whistle and the King were on my mind because Peter Puma Hedlund himself was there! I managed not to do embarrassing gushy fan stuff at him, but it was very exciting. He's a fantastic musician, as well as being a very nice chap. I think having him there caused the nerves that meant I couldn't play those tunes. The last two tunes I fluffed because it was after midnight and my brain had gone to sleep some time before: I am not a late night person. Whatever the reason I rather felt that I had disgraced myself and that the people I was playing with probably thought I hadn't improved one jot since the last time I played with them.

On the plus side I realised when I was playing that my hands weren't shaking. Whether this was to do with being in a smaller crowd, or whether my stage fright is starting to go away I don't know. I also managed to tumble headlong out of the zone during the third playing of Home: I accidentally caught someone's eye and at that moment realised I had no idea at all what I was doing; it really was like being suddenly woken and having that "where am I?" moment.

I've played through all my tunes, with dots, today, keen to get them back into my head. The fan has been trying to help my timing with a metronome app, but the tick, tick, tick makes me feel anxious: it's like skipping and standing endlessly by that blasted rope as it turns, knowing that you have to jump in at just the right moment, and only ever managing to spot the moment at which you've just missed your chance. I worked more on foot tapping and the fan said it was noticeable. But mostly I am feeling as though I've made negligible progress over the 18 months since I've had my pipes.

Digging the dots out I discovered that on one set I had added up how many days it would be from ordering my pipes at the end of August to collection. At the time it was 215. I've now got a date to collect my monkey - just 12 days away.

And there's more

I suppose I could have had a break from piping today, but I didn't want to. I even braved the blasted recorder and out of another batch of ten got an amount of growling, but no rude words. I just played round with a few tunes. I'm realising I have enough in my repertoire to play regularly for reasonable amounts of time and still have tunes that I haven't played for an age so I can ring the changes if I ever do get bored. Still working on timing for the Heights, reasonably pleased with it. None of it seems to be seeping in to my brain:  totally tied to dots.

Actually I salvaged four reasonable recordings today and I'm going for the Heights. It needs a lot of work but I have to keep remembering this blog is about me improving, which means posting the bad as well as the good. I was pretty sure I had posted it once before, but apparently not. In fact, looking over the blog for previous recordings I realised how rarely I've recorded and how many times I've recorded the same old tunes.

Over dinner the fan and I discussed, among other things, forms of meditation. I mentioned the feeling I get at the plot of being totally relaxed and engaged and the fan asked if I didn't feel that when when I played my pipes. Actually I don't because playing is still quite hard work and there's lots to think abut. But with the Whistle and the King I can see how it might be - I shut my eyes and just imagine the music and play the music and listen to the music and I'm almost in that space...


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Never match my sweet imagination

Often during the day I will think of a concise,witty and informative blog post. By the time I get home either I have forgotten it entirely, or I start adding to it and spoiling its simplicity. This blog is rather like a conversation (albeit talking to myself...) and once I get started there's no stopping me!

Today I meant to post about tune titles and how knowing a tune title is not the same as knowing a tune. This is one of those lightbulb moments when I discover the blindingly obvious. It comes back to an earlier comment I made about knowing in a sort of general theoretical way and knowing through experience.

Anyway, I'm not doing that post, because the fan offered to cook tonight, so I got Morag out. Like the posts, my playing is never quite as elegant, measured, musical as I imagine when I think about it during the day. I managed to play a fair few tunes dotless - I need to update my playlist. I discovered that if I stare intently into the middle distance in a not-quite-focussed way that helps me get into the zone. I think this means that when I'm playing in front of people I will look totally brainless, but it can't be helped.

Unfortunately, whether I stare into the middle distance or not, the King will not come. I'm tripping over my fingers (as it were), playing non-existent notes, fluffing the few bits that I do know. It's a mess, even with dots  it's a mess. With chanter or full pipes it's a mess. With or without drones it's a mess. On the positive side pressure and pumping seem to be returning to normal. And one day, surely, the King will come...

I wish I could fly

Two days before I finished work my back rebelled against my not very comfortable office chair and I'm suffering from stiffness and horrible twinges in my lower back. When I lifted my pipes this evening they seemed to weigh a tonne. I strapped them on, but they're not quite right. The strap makes my ribs ache, the bellowing makes my back ache, and the bellows are putting pressure on my hip bone and the bellows strap is at an odd angle, cutting off blood supply and making my fingers number.

Despite all this I haven't done too badly. I'm still fighting the barren rocks. Sometimes I get them off pat, especially the first part, and at a real lick. Sometimes my fingers go too fast and fall over themselves. Often the B part gets mucked up. Struggling to get Teribus at all today. Bonnie Galloway comes and goes.

Still wanting to play a tune twice over, followed by another tune twice over. I got half way there with the Rowan Tree and the Barren Rocks of Aden. The Rowan Tree, twice through, no problems at all, but I fell flat on my face (metaphorically speaking) about three notes in to the Rocks. I think what had happened was that I'd got into the zone with the tree, and could have gone round and round forever, but the change of tempo pulled me out of the zone and left me feeling disorientated.

The fan says I'm like a fledgling that is flapping its wings and looking as though any moment now it's going to be able to fly. Personally, I'm starting to feel like Orville: I wish I could fly, but I can't. Appropriately for all these ornithological comments, the tune is The Rowan Tree, twice through, with the same error repeated throughout...


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In The Zone

Post written 02 December 2012

I played a very little yesterday, just to show off Morag to friends. I managed to play half of several tunes - somehow my memory wouldn't produce whole tunes.

I think I've mentioned before about the odd level of attention that is necessary to recall tunes. If my mind wanders the tune vanishes entirely, but if I concentrate too hard I also lose it. There is a perfect midpoint - the zone - in which tunes just come. Now I understand this I understand the fan better. I've always found it rather irritating when I've gone to him while he was playing,  sometimes just to say hello because I'd been out, or to ask something, and all I've got is a rather vague look and perhaps a nod. It makes me feel rather cut off, ignored, unimportant. Now I see that it's not to do with me at all, or even with the fan - it's just that he's in that zone, and once you're properly settled in you're not easily shaken out.

The zone is a private space and it feels uncomfortable slipping into it while people are watching. It also seems a little impolite, perhaps, stepping aside into a private space when you're with others. It's also almost a little embarrassing - exposing yourself to others while you're in such a private place. I think that's why playing in public is so scary. (I'm also aware that the fan pulls the most appalling faces when he's in the zone, and I don't know what I do and don't want to do anything that makes me look an idiot!)

Slipping into that space is still new to me, and hopefully eventually I will be able to go there at will, and immerse myself in it, regardless of who else is with me. I think I only just get inside the zone, not far enough in not to be aware of my audience, whereas I think the fan slips deep into the zone where having one's wife return from the shops, or offer you a cup of tea, or ask what you want for dinner is meaningless noise around the edges, shadows and glimmers of another life.