Heads up only

Not much has been happening here in recent weeks. Be assured, I’m paddling like crazy beneath the water’s surface. Most of my time has been taken up with exam preparations. This does not mean that I have thrown my chanter and pipes aside to collect dust. Far from it.

However, I am merely keeping afloat by going through the SOTs (same old tunes), on both pipes and chanter. Not much focus other than to ensure that timing and technique is improving, or at least not deteriorating too much, as it is wont to do at times. 

Stay tuned. Normal programming will be resumed after June 18th. 

All going to plan thus far

As planned, I stuck to my three memorized tunes and kept working on these specifically this week. I am also playing them deliberately slower to make sure I don’t end up with squashed notes and movements. It’s beginning to pay off: they are a lot easier to play on the pipes now!

Interestingly, it is the tunes that I have memorized (or know well enough to almost have them memorized) that do not cause me to run out of air on the pipes. Hm…

I am still without a specific goal or plan, though…. not good. Need to fix.

bar by bar….

The plan hatched earlier, is beginning to work 🙂 Continuing on with it….

The bagpipe practice is working fine as well. It’s all good so far.

 

Cutting down to brainlet size…

I got off my plan. So, lets just take it back a bit, shall we? For this week I will

• focus on just getting one tune working as flawlessly and to the beat as I can
• keep in touch with the other tunes – by just revising them ie. not spend too much time on them at all

Basta!

It just can’t get any simpler than that for my brainlet.

 

Bah, day!

Played well before my lesson, and awfully during.  Just have to practice more to feel more confident with the tunes.  That way, there will no longer be bah days, just good, very good and excellent 🙂

A good good day, indeed!

I spent the first hour on the practice chanter going through six  tunes, focusing on good execution and the beat , the latter is still not where it should be, though…  Then,  up went the pipes and I played through the same six tunes.  While the performance was not flawless, it felt really good.  The best so far.  I almost danced along.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable 30 minutes.

Walking on clouds!

Don’t drown your chanter reed!

The Royal Society for the Protection of Chanter Reeds (RSPCR) have given me a serious talking to: do not drown your chanter reed! It is bad for the reed and will make it very very hard to play, and possibly ruin it for life.

Another lesson  in the life of the beginning piper  Fortunately, I was able to find one last low pressure reed in my collection of drowned, chipped and mouldy reeds, otherwise I would have had to suffer the medium pressure reeds.

Three new low pressure EZeePC reeds are on order. I hope that these will survive me a bit longer.

I am still limping along on just two tenor drones because of lack of time for tuning the bass drone. Once my assignments and exams are over, that will be my next challenge, which I am actually looking forward to!