On the plus side

My playing wasn't totally awful this evening. I managed to remember quite a lot of Barren Rocks (and to be honest the version I have now is not quite the same as the one I had and a different note, or timing, or gracing, can throw me off my stride - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). When I played around with random notes my fingers were good and flexible and my control of bag and bellows good. I think that Bee and Dargai will go well together.

We'll just ignore the fact that when playing tunes on A I was twitching, hunching and grabbing a bit (although admittedly nothing like the bad old days of the pumping imp and the Quasimodo impressions). Also my inability to pay a single tune from memory, including Troy. And very tight hands and fingers: I feared for the safety of the chanter at times. Oh, and once I got going on the Rocks I was back to playing them way to fast and missing out all the gracing.

Hmm. Even this post hasn't gone to plan: I envisaged the couple of OK things followed by a loooong list of disastrous stuff, but actually the second list isn't all that long and the things on it aren't all that bad.

I also note that back in February when I played every day I tried and failed for 30 mins a day. I'm currently playing 45 minutes to an hour, and I'd do more, if it wasn't that dinner has to be cooked and eaten at some stage.

Deja vu all over again

It happens every time I play regularly: I start well then I hit a wall. Today was bad. Nothing was comfortable. I managed to overblow and make the reed squeal several times. I couldn't remember tunes, I couldn't read music, I couldn't play gracenotes. I was on A and I stuck with it, determined to play through the pain and out the other side, but after 45 minutes it still wasn't happening and dinner was on the horizon. I switched to my practice chanter for a bit, but that wasn't much better.

But I've been here before. I know there's a way out, that it's just a matter of time.

Childish things

It's funny how I felt that I had put my chanter behind me: after all, once you have pipes, who needs any substitute? Especially with my Monkey and his clever drones' key, it's easy to try out new tunes with minimum fuss. But recently I've been rediscovering my chanter and all its uses and benefits. It's quieter, it's less physical effort (once your lungs are in training: mine were fit to burst this evening), it's possible to play very slowly, to repeat more easily, to stop and think mid note without the accompanying collapse of bag and drones. I'd forgotten how useful it was to play a tune very slowly, putting in every single grace note as written, and when you speed up some of the gracing can be left in, but you can't shoe horn it in at speed when the pipes are in full flood.

So, half an hour with my chanter this evening. I listened to the Loch Alsh set: listened and played, listened and played. I went over Dargai very slowly with full gracing. And that was it: just paying plenty of attention to three tunes, to notes and grace notes and timings, polishing and perfecting the small things, in the way that you only really can with a practice chanter.

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.

Don't I know you?

I woke up this morning with bits of a tune going round in my head. I couldn't identify it, but I could "hear" it well enough to be able to hum it, so I wondered whether I might be able to pick it out on the chanter. I started and felt I got reasonably close, then I remembered what I thought might be an earlier part of the same tune, and felt more confident that I had got that. I was feeling slightly smug, when I remembered that the tune was The Glasgow Gaelic Club and as I've been playing it for three days I ought to be able to pick it out. When I got the dots out I discovered I had the shape about right, but hadn't quite got the right notes.

I was so pleased that I spent some time listening to the Club and other tunes on Tryst and then playing them over on the chanter, stopping to fiddle with timing or accuracy, trying out grace notes (and heavens, but I'm rusty with gracing).

The upshot is that on top of yesterday's excitement of getting Murray so quickly I've now got the whole of the Club by heart! To be fair, they are both very short tunes. I played Murray with the Rocks and they sound good together. The Club, rather like the Dragon, is a nice tune, but definitely feels as though it needs to sit with something else. It goes perfectly with the tune I began with this morning - Duncan McGillivray, Chief Steward - but sadly I don't have the dots for that.

Beep Beep!

Day three - more humming of Murray and with a little bit of trial and error I got the A part by heart! I made a concerted effort with the B part, but it's not there yet. This must be my fastest learning of a tune so far and bodes well for me learning new repertoire at a better rate than heretofore.

I began with A again and again felt it a struggle - a bit of neck strain, bit of tension in my hands. I moved on to D and had one of those days where I felt I had too much chest (it's a girl thing) and couldn't get comfortable. Still, it was uncomfortable but somehow not annoying so I carried on.

I've listed to the Loch Alsh tunes over and over and they are improving - I'm getting the timing better (although the grace notes, which come out on the bouzouki more like extra notes, make it difficult to follow the tune as I hear it.) There is also a note in one of them that sound like the wrong note, and I don't know whether that's to do with the different type of scale the pipes have and the different relative values between this note and whatever becomes before or after compared with the bouzouki... (I realise this would make rather more sense if  could remember which tune, which note and how it sounds odd....)

I've also stopped feeling that they would be nice to learn because of the geographical association and started feeling they are good tunes to learn in their own right.

I did some work on the Gaelic Club on those pesky DFA's. For some reason I find them tricky, although - note to self - the D to F is a darn sight easier if you bring you bottom hand down on the chanter after D, like the book says, instead of leaving it flapping in the air in a state of indecision. The same three notes appear in Balmacara, so it was doubly useful to work on them.

A couple of times with Murray I accidentally went in to the Dragon instead. They go well together and I must go back to improving the Dragon. I also mucked around trying to play Barren Rocks, because it's such a similar tune, and got lost in bits of it. I wonder if the three would go together? I should mention that I am only playing the first 2 (of 4) parts of Murray, as per Mr McInnes.

(Re - title of this blog post, I bow to the superior knowledge of Wikipedia, because I always thought that what the Road Runner said as he sped past was Meep Meep.)

Odds on favourite

I've been humming Murray's Welcome half the day. Naturally, that's the half where I was at work and not able to play. The other half started just about the moment I stepped back through my front door. Still, I have been humming it, so hopefully this means it will be the first of my new tunes to hit dotlessness.

I played for around an hour this evening. Both chanters - starting with A. I went round and round on Murray, because he felt so close (and I am as near as dammit there with the A part) then some of the others, and threw in an "old" tune (Galloway) as well. The A is tiring though: I'm having to sit down to play and I'm finding I'm tensing my neck, which isn't good...

I predict that The Falls of Glomach and Balmacara will come in last. This is because I recognise them, but cannot hum them (I must listen more), they are long (four parters) so I am inclined to play them once only each, and I am playing them together, so it feels like one endlessly long tune.

I've also thought of several other tunes I might like to learn, and have been reminded on the way home (listening to Canterach) how good The Snuff Wife is. But I don't want to bite off more than I can chew, so the wee wifie will have to wait.