The Djokovic moment

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

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

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

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

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

I just need more days in the week...

Frustrations

A bigger gap than I had intended.... I've played a little, but not much. I've been thinking a bit about classical music, which I've not listened to for years.

Today I've seen (in The Living Tradition) a review of a Scottish fiddle CD involving pipes and pipe tunes. I'd have ordered a copy only AllCeltic don't stock it, and I can't remember my Coda password. While I was at it I was going to buy Polbain to Oranmore, but it seems to be out of print and the only copy I can find is in a shop new to me, which sneakily swapped my request for standard (free) postage and then Paypal crashed out on me. So I've come away empty handed.

It's a bit of a theme today. I had to trudge round three separate garden centres before being able to track down asparagus crowns and seed potatoes, and even there I had to settle for Juliettes as there were no Charlottes.

(Mr Macleod himself sells Polbain,  but Paypal isn't playing ball there either...)

Clueless

I've been videoing myself playing on different days in the hope that I will look at some of the footage and see what is going wrong. I prop my tablet up, hit record, and slowly rotate as I play so that I can see the problem from all angles. In addition  to the things I learned the first time I did this I have also gleaned the following useful facts. (That sentence, if you are reading it your head, requires tones of deep sarcasm)

1. These trousers I wear at home are truly awful: saggy, too big, and generally unflattering;
2. I actually also look quite a bit like my mother;
3. The lighting in the bedroom is not good enough for videoing in;
4. I am pushing the outer half of the bellows down a good few inches below the inner half;
5. I tend to hold my chanter at an angle;
6. The drones do indeed sometimes point up towards my right shoulder and at others they point down to my right elbow, and that's when they rest on the bellows. I can't see that I hold the bag or wear the bellows any differently. Which brings me to...
7. When you hold dark pipes against dark clothing in a badly lit room everything is low on detail;
8. I need to rethink my fringe.

So there you have it. Sometimes things go badly - today that included squealing and sudden total loss of air coming through, which didn't seem to be a kink in the tube - and I can see no reason at all for it.

Of lions and unicorns

I need a new hobby. Of course I need a new hobby, when you think how much time I have to spare. I'm not sure how compatible my new hobby will be with anything else...I've managed to stab my fingers and draw about a pint of blood, and earlier in the day, until I had the technique sorted, I managed to make my bellows elbow quite sore. Anyway, I managed to make a small lion, and I am quite pleased with him.

I am a lot less pleased with my pipes at present and cut an inch off the tubing. It still doesn't feel comfortable, but again I will stick with it for a while. I' m finding that the bellows slide about and I need to lean over and press the bellows down on my pelvis to fill them. Not good.

New tunes are good. Skyeman's Jig the worst of the bunch, not sounding like much at all at present, Peter Mackinnon will maybe be a challenge, Arthur Bignold (who gets a mention in one of my Christmas books) and Hills of Perth both shaping up nicely, at least across the first couple of parts.

Also shaping up nicely is Skippinish. It's not the fan's sort of thing, but I enjoy the simplicity - mainly just pipes (smallpipes at that, in the main!) and box, with a smattering of fiddle; no fancy arrangements to listen to, just good tunes, some new, others familiar (Loch Bee, Flett), played in unfamiliar ways.

Comparing apples and pears

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

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

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

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

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

It was all going so well

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

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

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

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

(On the positive side, Andy won a match.)
Check this out on Chirbit

Lost and found

I'm afraid I lost my rag a little this evening. I squeezed in playing around cooking so had to keep interrupting myself to put various pans on and off the hob. I had my list of tunes, and from the outset I really struggled. The pipes seemed to be slipping out of my arms, I seemed to lack pressure, the bellows felt worse than useless. I was compensating for a lack of grip on the pipes with tension in my fingers, and I thought of all the things (outside piping, and generally rather trivial) that are bugging me right now, and that distracted me from the tunes, and when I failed to get through Troy  in one piece I gave a great roar of frustration...

Somehow, as I roared I knocked the drones switch, snarled at the drones and tunred them off again. I wonder if the drones switch had been partially engaged as flicking the switch seemed to improve the pressure, which enabled me to concentrate and get Troy  licked, although the 4th part took a couple of attempts. I fiddled about with various items on the hob, came back and calmly played Troy again.

I played everything except Father John and the Highlanders. Only bits of Sleat as I couldn't remember all of it.

At the end of playing I sat down with the pipes feeling just right , played around with some phrases, slow and steady and stately; things that just fell out of my fingers. Then Dargai and Amazing Grace, and I went back to the hob.

"That sounded nice," said the fan. "What did?" I asked. "That first piece at the end there. The slow air."  I had to admit that it was just improvisation, but surely it says something about how I am learning the musical idiom, the patterns and sounds, that I can fool the fan into thinking I'm playing a real tune when all I am doing is having a quiet moment with the Monkey, reassuring ourselves that we are friends, that everything is all right between us.

Same old

Are bad things less bad when they are familiar? Every time I play a lot I quickly hit a point where everything goes pear-shaped. (I wonder why the shape of a pear should be used to express problems...)

At least when things do go pear-shaped it's not as bad as it used to be. I don't seem to overblow, lose all grace notes, lose my ability to read music, forget all my tunes, tense my thumbs. Touch wood.

It's just this ongoing issue of not being able to hold my pipes comfortably. If it was just my elbow I'd be assuming that the pipes were exacerbating a bit of work-induced RSI, but it's my right wrist, and my little finger.

It will be fine. We'll come through this. We always do. (And in looking for previous times I've played a lot I've realised that I haven't played daily since January 2014. Oh, the shame.) Scrap that - it was June 2014. I was misled by the lack of blog posts. But still - a whole year!

Limited tunes today due in part to problems and in part because I've been working at bits that need polish, not using dots, playing until something works, not just doing a three times through.

Ocean, Atholl Highlanders, Heroes, Brandy.

Are we downhearted?

I notice a trend now, that when things go wrong, or just not to plan, I'm less likely to be bothered and to give up or whinge. At one stage  I had a lot of whinge posts in proportion to the total. As I write this (my 410th post) only 53 others are tagged as whinges!

The thing is, I know that there are days when nothing fits, the bellows make my wrist hurt and my fingers numb. I know that there will be days when a tune - or several tunes - won't come, when my fingers don't seem to be attached to my brain or my brain seems only to remember A parts. I know there will be days when one tune just crashes out or won't come at all.

Experience now tells me that all these things will pass. Tomorrow, or the next day everything will have sorted itself as mysteriously as it fouled things up. Sometimes a break is the best form of practice. Sometimes that means literally not playing. Sometimes it means just playing tunes I know as they come to me, or playing tunes I used to know from dots, or playing tunes from dots that I don't know, or working over and over at one tune, bits of tunes.

And even when things go badly I can still enjoy the other bits, I can enjoy looking forward to better piping another day. And I can listen to some great music - I'm really enjoying Whistlebinkies, Jock Tamson's Bairns and Kenneth and Angus Mackenzie at the moment.

Trough of disillusionment

I am managing to play four days a week. I am managing to play in A each time, and that's fine, but I am always more comfortable, more at home, in D.

Progress with learning new tunes is painfully slow. I seem to have had the same sets of dots on my music stand for months. Maybe it is just that I expect a higher standard from myself these days before I am happy to shift a tune from the learning pile to the learned pile. Maybe I'm not picking tunes that really inspire me. Maybe I don't play enough. Maybe this is just as good as it can get and I've learned all the tunes I can. No. Scrap that. I don't believe that: I have a prodigious memory for trivia. I must be able to collect tunes too, and I certainly hum a lot of tunes.

I need to learn more tunes. I need to work on playing with drones. I need to work at timings and tempo of tunes. I need to play more evenly. I've got too many tunes where I speed up and slow down depending on how well I know bits, or how easy they are to play. I do feel as though I am making little progress, perhaps slipping back. I hope it's just like climbing a long shallow slope after you've clambered up a steep hill: the slope seems easy and flat by comparison, but when you look back you realise that over a distance you've actually made quite a climb.

It occurred to me that although I've been listening to a lot of really good Scottish folk of late I haven't listened to much in the way of pipes, so I've Tryst on the CD player. I'd forgotten how good it is, how much I love the tunes. and the arrangements There are pieces with no pipes, just fiddle perhaps, and other pieces that are just pipes. And I do love pipes.

Once and future...

A couple of Christmases ago someone gave me a nice mug. A mug for pipers! Let's not quibble about the fact that it has been drawn by some one who has clearly never seen a piper - note the bag apparently perching on the shoulder, and the missing drone.  It's my special piper's mug, for pipers (i.e. me).

Sometimes the sight of this mug in the cupboard is a rebuke. "Ha! Call yourself a piper? When did you last have your pipes out?!" Sometimes it's a joyful reminder "I am a piper!". Of late, things being as they have been for far too long at work, it's been a sad reminder of past glories, the good old days, when I was a piper.

Just to add insult to injury I've been sick this past fortnight. I don't think I've ever been so sick in my life. I've had to resort to the doctor, and submit to the taking of pills. I've thought vaguely about music, about blog posts, and I've unravelled a bit of knitting, but mostly I've read light novels and stared into space.

I've only listened to a very little music, mostly restful things: Duncan Chisholm and so on. Yesterday I listened to Doubling, forgetting (!) that there were any pipes on it, and when the pipes came they took me by surprise and made me cry. I'm too exhausted to play, and I can't even pick up my chanter, thanks to the laryngitis. It all seems so sad: this is my month of milestones, of my birthday and Morag's, of my beginnings as a piper. I've not played for so long

So now I am looking anew at my piper's mug. "One day", it seems to say, "you will be a piper again". Let's hope.

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.

Gone girl

I am still here. Just. A big project at work means I'm getting home late a lot with my mind on other things. Weekends away mean I spend my evenings doing the chores I had no time for at the weekend. I think I'm a tad stressed: all the music has been washed out of my head. I have no tunes. I have no time or energy for piping. I dragged the pipes out this evening. Began on A, moved to D. Remembering bits of Horsbrugh, which is good. Took a while to feel settled in , and by the time I did my arms were tired. Like I say, I'm still here. Just.

Introductions

Possibly, I thought, Horsburgh Castle and the Dragon might go well together, Castle first. Dungeons and Dragons (well, all good castles have dungeons) would make a great set name. Both tunes apparently simple, both humable, neither of which can I ever play to my own satisfaction.

I also wondered about whether Miss Girdle might be interested in spending some time with the Glasgow Gaelic Club. See comments above re apparently simple tunes. Set name...oh, how about, Miss Girdle Goes Clubbing!

Sill playing Troy, Braemar and the Highlanders, but again, never to a standard I am happy with. Mostly by heart, but I'm not relaxed with them, not confident, not fast enough and not even enough.

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.

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.

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.

Taking stock

A few days off work. I do a bit of this, a bit of that, not much of anything: unwinding, mostly. From time to time the fan mentions that I haven't played for while. I hum music, I have it in my head, I listen to music, I think about playing, but he's right: I don't actually play much. I worry that this means despite everything I am not really a musician, a music-lover, a piper: I'm just someone who happens to play pipes once in a while.

But there are other things I love and don't do all the time. I've only managed one trip to the allotment. I've finished knitting a lovely shawl but have done nothing at all about blocking it. I've just pulled out my needle point project to work on after this. I've literally not touched it since before Christmas. I don't feel these gaps make me any less of a gardener, a knitter or a needlewoman, so why should I play every day to consider myself a piper?

I suppose I am still feeling at a bit of an impasse. It has been a mistake to take on such a large number of new tunes. Many have fallen by the wayside, others I peg away at but don't seem to improve on. Tunes I knew have got muddled with others. I suppose I've learned one or two: Bee is the most successful. Some I've consolidated. Both Magersfontein and the King more reliable than they were.

Demonstrating the Monkey to family at the weekend I thought I'd be clever, pick my tunes ahead of time, hum them, remember them. I was going for the Galloway/Flett/Bee set but struggled to remember how Galloway began, thought I moved on to Flett and realised I was only playing Galloway again, only faster. Couldn't remember how Bee went at all. Stage fright again, I suppose.

I keep meaning not to fling right into tunes, but to play a run up and down first to make sure everything is comfortable. I thought that mentally running through tunes ahead of time would help, but the fan says this is the Wrong Thing to Do. In the end I ended up with the Rowan Tree, which I don't seem to play much at present.

Anyway, I played this afternoon, in D. I played McIntyre's Farewell, Cabot Trail, Home Town, King, Glomach, Balmacara, Braemar, Dargai, Magersfontein. It went OK. If this is a plateau it's a pleasant one. I'd be happy to rest here awhile.

Worst dreams

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

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

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

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

Give me a break

A whole week since I lasted posted, since I last played. It's not a bad thing: I think a break from time to time helps my mind mull over what it has learned, helps keep me fresh. Partly I've lacked time this week, partly I've continued to feel a bit bruised from my...well, I was going to say beating or humiliation, but I guess those are too strong..disappointment, let's say, of last week.

It began badly today, felt a little rusty, I suppose. I persevered, switched to D, got some dots out, started to enjoy myself. But definitely feeling, at present, that progress is painfully slow, that I am probably going backwards, that I have little to show for all these hours of play. Wish I could get back to feeling the love. I think I need to go easy on myself.