My day's practice was on the chanter. I dug out the Green Book and The Piper's Helper and I worked on GDE graces and grips. I rather enjoyed it and mostly stopped because the reed kept getting to water logged I kept having to dismantle the chanter to dry things off. It's not like a recorder where you can cover the fipple and blow, or a trumpet, where you have a handy water outlet. I'm sure all good pipers keep clean handkerchiefs in their sporrans for wiping a wet reed: I use the hem of my tee shirt, because it's less bother than going in search of a tissue.
I can't remember now where it was I read that you need, or generally use, fewer grace notes with smallpipes than with GHB. I've noted that graces I can do come out perfectly (chirrups, burbles etc) on A and badly (as stumbled together notes) on D. But I have become lazy, strip out everything except strikes, thumb graces, D throws and Gs. I feel I should vary my single graces more and make use of D and E. I also have a couple of tunes (Dragon, Highland Brigade) where grips would be useful. Some tunes are too pared back, too basic without their gracing.
I rather gave up on working on gracing when I got Morag. The Green Book is full of dull exercises and dull tunes, and I have enjoyed myself much more picking tunes I like and trying to learn them. Willy, my one time tutor, was bemused that anyone would bother with books of exercises, although I suspect he used them in his youth. Vicky definitely recommended such exercises to me. I thought I'd given up that sort of thing, but right now feels like the right time to go back.
Ramblings of an easily distracted learner piper
Showing posts with label trumpet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trumpet. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Monday, 9 September 2013
Having such a good time
I started off with the usual drill this evening. Tired, headachey, disinclined to do much. After dinner I thought I might mess about with my newly invigorated chanter for a bit. That was fun, except I very quickly lost my lip. This is the trumpet name for it: I don't know what you call it on a practice chanter. It's not exactly lip, more the muscles along the lower jaw, but once they're gone that's the fun over for the evening, like it or not.
I thought I'd drag out my pipes, just for five minutes, because I felt I was very close to playing MacIntyre's Farewell by heart and I wanted to try it.
The pipes felt a little odd as I strapped myself in. I did have a close look at the bellows trying to pinpoint what what was odd, but I couldn't see anything. It wasn't until I was ready to go with my hands on the chanter that I realised I had Morag instead of the Monkey. She felt like an old friend and, apart from her usual bad habits (needing ridiculous amounts of air, flipping out the connector tubes at inconvenient moments), we got on well. She has a softer, less vibrant sound than the Monkey, a little quieter too, I think.
And I did it! I played Farewell by heart, not just once, but round and round. There are perhaps three places where I sometimes have to backtrack to get the right note, or pause to find it, but find it I do, every time. Admittedly it's just two parts, and on closer inspection only has seven unique bars, but nevertheless, I have learned it from a total standing start (because it's not even one I'd ever heard before) in seven days. Serious progress: a real milestone.
Happy? You betcha!
I thought I'd drag out my pipes, just for five minutes, because I felt I was very close to playing MacIntyre's Farewell by heart and I wanted to try it.
The pipes felt a little odd as I strapped myself in. I did have a close look at the bellows trying to pinpoint what what was odd, but I couldn't see anything. It wasn't until I was ready to go with my hands on the chanter that I realised I had Morag instead of the Monkey. She felt like an old friend and, apart from her usual bad habits (needing ridiculous amounts of air, flipping out the connector tubes at inconvenient moments), we got on well. She has a softer, less vibrant sound than the Monkey, a little quieter too, I think.
And I did it! I played Farewell by heart, not just once, but round and round. There are perhaps three places where I sometimes have to backtrack to get the right note, or pause to find it, but find it I do, every time. Admittedly it's just two parts, and on closer inspection only has seven unique bars, but nevertheless, I have learned it from a total standing start (because it's not even one I'd ever heard before) in seven days. Serious progress: a real milestone.
Happy? You betcha!
Sunday, 1 September 2013
Thunderbolt City
The fan said today that I am doing better than he expected. It's not that he thought I wasn't capable, just that he doubted my ability to stick at it, given how many other instruments I've tried.
There are people who marry the first person they meet, and are happy 50, 60 or 70 years later. Many of us are less lucky and have to hunt around, which might entail everything from one night stands and disastrous dates to moving in, to give it a go... As I've mentioned before I played recorder at school - I think many people of my generation did. Before that, at my first primary school, I remember playing triangle for Away in a Manger and I have a tiny scrap of a memory that involves a concertina, but I can't have been older than four at the time. There was the violin, played to please my father. There was the trumpet, which was hopefully close enough to the baritone my sister played to be equally fun without being close enough to annoy her. That went well, and in the end it was a maths O level that came between us because I couldn't do both, and maths seemed more pressing at the time.
There was a guitar - Stairway to Heaven - taught by someone else's boyfriend... There were penny whistles, because Dad thought they'd be fun; there were ocarinas because they came in pretty colours. There was even a mouth organ, but I have no idea where it came from, and we never really worked out how to play it properly. The mandolin, of course, the mandola and bouzouki (too big).
Even when I started with my pipes they were a poor substitute. I'd fallen in love with those big, hunky GHB. I had romantic visions of me on a loch side with my pipes and the music. I wasn't prepared for the harsh reality of marching bands, uniforms, and kissing goodbye to my weekends.
And then, after a while, I stopped pining for those big, chunky, hunky GHB and fell in love with my little Monkey. Why would we not be together forever?
I'm pondering whether or not I feel I want to play every day in September. I've played today, just in case, but also because its the last of my 9 days of holiday. To mark the occasion I've also recorded! This is Cabot and Captain, again, this time with the Whaling Song. I start way too slow, partly because if I am too fast I go into Captain instead of the trail. I then fumble because I realise I have the dots, and worry they will distract me. I speed up. I make a few fluffs. I go through each tune twice. I fluff in Whaling where there are what the fan calls snaps - at least, if they aren't there Id like them to be, but somehow they make me forget the next note. Whaling is too fast - you cold never sing at this speed. Tempo is something I must get fixed. No drones - and how thin the pipes sound without them. A bit lost. Which makes sense really, because pipes and drones belong together.
Check this out on Chirbit
There are people who marry the first person they meet, and are happy 50, 60 or 70 years later. Many of us are less lucky and have to hunt around, which might entail everything from one night stands and disastrous dates to moving in, to give it a go... As I've mentioned before I played recorder at school - I think many people of my generation did. Before that, at my first primary school, I remember playing triangle for Away in a Manger and I have a tiny scrap of a memory that involves a concertina, but I can't have been older than four at the time. There was the violin, played to please my father. There was the trumpet, which was hopefully close enough to the baritone my sister played to be equally fun without being close enough to annoy her. That went well, and in the end it was a maths O level that came between us because I couldn't do both, and maths seemed more pressing at the time.
There was a guitar - Stairway to Heaven - taught by someone else's boyfriend... There were penny whistles, because Dad thought they'd be fun; there were ocarinas because they came in pretty colours. There was even a mouth organ, but I have no idea where it came from, and we never really worked out how to play it properly. The mandolin, of course, the mandola and bouzouki (too big).
Even when I started with my pipes they were a poor substitute. I'd fallen in love with those big, hunky GHB. I had romantic visions of me on a loch side with my pipes and the music. I wasn't prepared for the harsh reality of marching bands, uniforms, and kissing goodbye to my weekends.
And then, after a while, I stopped pining for those big, chunky, hunky GHB and fell in love with my little Monkey. Why would we not be together forever?
I'm pondering whether or not I feel I want to play every day in September. I've played today, just in case, but also because its the last of my 9 days of holiday. To mark the occasion I've also recorded! This is Cabot and Captain, again, this time with the Whaling Song. I start way too slow, partly because if I am too fast I go into Captain instead of the trail. I then fumble because I realise I have the dots, and worry they will distract me. I speed up. I make a few fluffs. I go through each tune twice. I fluff in Whaling where there are what the fan calls snaps - at least, if they aren't there Id like them to be, but somehow they make me forget the next note. Whaling is too fast - you cold never sing at this speed. Tempo is something I must get fixed. No drones - and how thin the pipes sound without them. A bit lost. Which makes sense really, because pipes and drones belong together.
Check this out on Chirbit
Friday, 30 November 2012
Swings and Roundabouts
First posted Mar 12th, 2012 by newpiper
Yesterday I went to my first session on my own. I've been to a few with my fan, but only to tag along with him and listen to other people play. We went to the Scandi session back in November when I had literally only had my pipes for about a week. We didn't do much Scandi stuff, and I didn't really play.
There is a clear learning aspect to the Scandi session, so not knowing the tunes, and being new to an instrument (mostly nyckelharpas) is fine. Use of dots (as I've learned to call sheet music) is not frowned upon. So far so good. I did play a small number of tunes. It was really exciting and uplifting. Me! Playing real tunes! With other people! Especially the bit that was me, playing a tune, with Vicki and Jonny!! I was really pleased that I was able to play along, and even to pick myself up and carry on where I fluffed bits.
The downside is that even with Vicki sitting next to me I really struggled to hear her or anyone else over my pipes. I was also very aware that it’s not like sitting back with a fiddle and just touching the strings so that the sound is only audible to the player: everyone in the room heard loud and clear every single time I hit a wrong note, tripped over the timing or otherwise did something idiotic.
I'm aware that I'm not good at picking up tunes as other people play them. Pipes simply don’t help with this because they drown up the person you’re supposed to be listening to. I was offered whistles and recorders, but although I've been playing both on and off since I was about six I'm very rusty and not ready to do so in front of others. Apart from a spell when I learned trumpet and was in a brass band I haven’t played with other people since I was at primary school learning the recorder, which we did in groups.
So after the elation I had a bit of a slump. I only play one instrument, I don’t play it very well, I can’t pick up tunes just by listening to them, I rely too much on dots, I can’t play very fast…so much I can’t do. And then I thought what a fool I was to take pipes in A (for awkward) to a Scandi session, where A is not the order of the day. I could buy Swedish pipes, but I think I really need to learn to play smallpipes first.
Swings and roundabouts, then. On the whole I think I'm pleased I went, if only because it made my fan so pleased, to think I am taking music seriously and branching out without him and forging my own musical identity.
I wrote the above earlier in the day, and then I got my pipes out and...played Dusty Pipes with no dots!! Yes, there's a fluff in the middle (as naturally the one perfect run through was the one where I'd not hit record) but I'm really playing a whole tune without recourse to the music. Just like that, as they say. I had problems with pressure (too high), drones (too loud), connector popping out, bellows rubbing the crook of my elbow raw - but I played a tune with no dots. After my post-session come down I suddenly feel this might really happen - I might really become a piper.
Recording - Dusty Pipes. Lost.
Yesterday I went to my first session on my own. I've been to a few with my fan, but only to tag along with him and listen to other people play. We went to the Scandi session back in November when I had literally only had my pipes for about a week. We didn't do much Scandi stuff, and I didn't really play.
There is a clear learning aspect to the Scandi session, so not knowing the tunes, and being new to an instrument (mostly nyckelharpas) is fine. Use of dots (as I've learned to call sheet music) is not frowned upon. So far so good. I did play a small number of tunes. It was really exciting and uplifting. Me! Playing real tunes! With other people! Especially the bit that was me, playing a tune, with Vicki and Jonny!! I was really pleased that I was able to play along, and even to pick myself up and carry on where I fluffed bits.
The downside is that even with Vicki sitting next to me I really struggled to hear her or anyone else over my pipes. I was also very aware that it’s not like sitting back with a fiddle and just touching the strings so that the sound is only audible to the player: everyone in the room heard loud and clear every single time I hit a wrong note, tripped over the timing or otherwise did something idiotic.
I'm aware that I'm not good at picking up tunes as other people play them. Pipes simply don’t help with this because they drown up the person you’re supposed to be listening to. I was offered whistles and recorders, but although I've been playing both on and off since I was about six I'm very rusty and not ready to do so in front of others. Apart from a spell when I learned trumpet and was in a brass band I haven’t played with other people since I was at primary school learning the recorder, which we did in groups.
So after the elation I had a bit of a slump. I only play one instrument, I don’t play it very well, I can’t pick up tunes just by listening to them, I rely too much on dots, I can’t play very fast…so much I can’t do. And then I thought what a fool I was to take pipes in A (for awkward) to a Scandi session, where A is not the order of the day. I could buy Swedish pipes, but I think I really need to learn to play smallpipes first.
Swings and roundabouts, then. On the whole I think I'm pleased I went, if only because it made my fan so pleased, to think I am taking music seriously and branching out without him and forging my own musical identity.
I wrote the above earlier in the day, and then I got my pipes out and...played Dusty Pipes with no dots!! Yes, there's a fluff in the middle (as naturally the one perfect run through was the one where I'd not hit record) but I'm really playing a whole tune without recourse to the music. Just like that, as they say. I had problems with pressure (too high), drones (too loud), connector popping out, bellows rubbing the crook of my elbow raw - but I played a tune with no dots. After my post-session come down I suddenly feel this might really happen - I might really become a piper.
Recording - Dusty Pipes. Lost.
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