newpiper

The one that got away

Mixed results this evening. Not quite reaching the comfort levels reported before, but no actual problems. I thought my chanter reed sounded a little sharp this evening as I began, but my fan says not.
I played around with a couple of tunes from chanter days - today's tune is one of them - The Green Hills of Tyrol. Last summer I was just starting to learn it and was thrilled to hear it being played in a pub as we walked around Berwick in Tweed one evening. I can play it quite competently on the chanter, but this isn't great, even stripped of gracenotes. When I strip a tune in this way I find that whenever I need a gracenote I keep reverting to a G, which is serviceable but dull.
Timing still not great, despite the fact that I only have to picture Andy Stewart in a kilt to have this tune rattling round my head for hours on end. It should be quite lively and I seem to have picked a good tempo for a dirge. Oh - and listening through again it sounds a bit short of puff in places.
Still feeling I need a bit more stucture so have been playing over more tunes from chapter 4 of the tutor. I like Vicki's tunes: there some unexpected note sequences, like that low G in The Golden Birch, for instance. Very satisfying, although they tend to catch you out when you're playing because it's not quite what you're expecting.
So I've been running through The Mill Mill O' and Fionualla's Little Finger. I seem to manage speed or accuracy. The one that got away, because I wasn't recording, was Dusty Pipes run through twice with all the repeats - hardly any errors and a good test of stamina, I felt, but you'll have to take my word for it!

Comfort Zone

I was putting my pipes on this evening when I suddenly realised how comfortable it all feels. I don’t really need to think about where the bellows sit, or how the bag goes under my arm, or what to do with the drones. The first time I was strapped in I felt as though someone had handed me a goose, a cat and a small piglet, all of which were eager to be away – an armful of squirm, fidget, squeak and cackle, that poked and prodded and nipped.
There seems to be a general wisdom that it takes two to four months to get the hang of pipes. Of course, I’ve stupidly been interpreting this as “it takes two to four months to become a really good piper”, which isn’t what is meant. What they mean is this comfort – this feeling that picking up pipes is the right thing to do.
I didn’t practice for long this evening, and I just noodled around. I did playing random notes that sound nice, which gives me time to concentrate on how the bag feels and the pressure levels and to relax my bellows arm. Then I tried playing some tunes that I suddenly realised I know. They are on Iain MacInnes’s Tryst, but after seeing Anna Murray on a very interesting BBC Alba programme on piping I listened to some clips of her CDs recognised some tunes, and of course, they are on Tryst. So tunes are starting to sink in.
This is one such tune – Dr McInnes’ Fancy. I’ve tried just to pick a random recording, rather than trying to go for a performance standard. This is just my private notebook, after all (says she, waving to the friends and family who drop by here!)
Learning point for today – being down the allotment putting together a raised bed and doing a spot of weeding, uses muscles that hurt when you later try to use them for piping.

What passion

I think I've discovered another way of getting a half decent recording: lower your expectations. It's been a bit of a week - very busy, some good stuff (piping inspiration from Michael McGoldrick on Monday), some not so good - but there has been no time for piping. I picked the pipes up this evening while dinner was in the oven, tired and headachy (me, that is, not the dinner). I had a go at three new tunes and couldn't get them to sound even vaguely recognisable. Back to Vicki. This time it's the Golden Birch and I was pleased just to get a single half-decent run through.
My starting is terribly - very ragged - but that's because I'm reaching out to hit the record button and so don't have a good hold on the pipes. I muff some notes. I also feel the sound isn't very even, but I think that's down to my feeling tired.
A new problem - I'm not placing placing my fingers well - I struggle to find finger holes, I don't get my fingers cleanly on the holes. It's like trying to get an octopus in a bag - no sooner do I cram some tentacles in than others flap out. Annoyingly, even once I've got one tentacle in - and it may have been nicely in the bag for ages - it will suddenly escape. I've never had problems with my fingers before. And although I managed about two hours at the weekend I've managed barely 45 minutes over two sessions today. Not good.
And the passion? St Celia's Ode - I got rid of the headache and a slight tendency to grumpiness.

Play it yet again, Sam

Practice apparently (allegedly) makes perfect. My fan conceived the idea of making me a nice recording - him on half a dozen instruments and me on pipes. My main problem with this was speed - he plays much faster than me. When he went out to play music with a friend for an afternoon I played Lochanside again, and again, and again. I don't know that I got any more accurate, and I stripped out nearly all the gracenoting, but I got faster. I also got rid of the elbow-pumping imp - all I have to do to stop pumping is...to stop pumping. The world doesn't stop, nor does the music, and I end up feeling less hot and bothered.
My fan spent today laying down tracks, and all I had to do was play along, listening to the other instruments through headphones. Very tricky to get the balance so I could hear myself and the other instruments. Learning to pick up cues, play along with others, and also make mistakes, and carry on are all new to me, but I'm getting there.
The usual red-button horrors meant I eventually gave up, recorded my own version (complete with abysmal timing and some fluffed notes) and the fan stuck on a backing track. So here it is – don’t listen too closely – Lochanside. (Musically pleasing version here – no pipes, but you can’t have everything in life.)

Finding a voice

Yesterday I went out with my fan to see Breabach: a great band, a good night out and some serious piping inspiration. I had a small wobble, listening to GHB, wondering whether I had really done the right thing in moving to smallpipes. Smallpipes, it seems to me, have more scope for interpretation. There are many pipers I admire and I know that I don’t want to play in quite the way they do. What I want to do is find my own voice, my own style, and that's not something that's going to happen in a competition pipe band. I am not sure how to develop my own style, but at the moment it's about listening a lot and playing as much as I can, picking tunes I really enjoy and want to listen to and play.
One style of music that really attracts me is pibroch. Breabach play three pieces: The Waterhorse’s Lament, The Desperate Battle of the Birds, and Park Piobaireachd. Playing the Birds last night they had us singing canntaireachd (in this and the step dancing I see the influence of Mr MacCrimmon’s time with Seudan). I’d like to learn about this – its history and how to use it.
Pibroch dots seem hard to come by online. The tunes tend to sound very simple, but like pieces of Bach they circle about, never quite revisiting the same notes in the same way. I love that formalism and intricacy. I also love slow tunes, but it takes a good steady pressure to get the notes to sing. This isn’t music for beginners, but surely something I can aspire to.
The tune I've recorded today is another of Vicki's (she kindly puts all her dots on her website). It's a pibroch-style tune called the Lone Piper. I had no issues with pegs or connector tube today. I got a good strong sound, but I am still relying too much on my pumping arm. My fan says that knowing what I am doing wrong is half the battle, but I just get frustrated that I do something that I know to be wrong, and which I don’t think I used to do. I've tried to concentrate on shifting across to my bag arm, and, judging by how sore it feels now, I must have had some success.
I've tried two different methods with recording today. The first is to wait until I play something really very badly indeed, and then hit record on the grounds that things can only get better. You'll be pleased to know this is not the one I'm posting. The other method I've stumbled on is to quit while I'm ahead. This means I've recorded the first part of the tune only, and I've just played it the once through.

Dusty Pipes

This tune is by Vicki Swan - it's Dusty Pipes from her tutor book. The title is apt as I do seem to be out of practice. Like playing the chanter the pipes are quite physical and muscles that take weeks to build take days to get flabby again. I managed to play for 45 minutes pretty much non-stop today, but I am pumping too much instead of relying on pressure on the bag - pumping is easier to do - and I think that's why the sound is so uneven.
Anyway, this is from Lesson 4 in Vicki's tutor book and it's a lesson about timing. My fan asked if I had been singing with my playing (the awfulness of my singing is legendary) but I had just been calling out the timings to myself. Timing not too bad on this. I waver when I am not sure what's coming next, or need to ward off a grace note, or accidentally play grace note. I feel like one of those pesky learner drivers who slows time every time they see another car, or a tree, or a road sign...
Grace notes do keep just popping out - I suppose it's ingrained from the chanter. However, the tunes at this stage in the tutor are grace-note free and I want to play them as they are written. I do like the simplicity of smallpipes with limited ornamentation, although I'm listening to Iain McInnes a lot at the moment and he uses quite a lot of ornamentation, and I am really enjoying his sound.
More lessons about recording. The best take will be the one where you didn't actually hit the record button. Second and third best takes are the ones where the connector hose pops out mid tune.

Duet with drones

Skipping over the previous effort... This is a duet with my fan. Yes - he's a much better musician than me! It's partly an attempt to try that drones-going-on-their-own thing. I couldn't find a comfortable way to hold the chanter closed on my leg - and the slightest movement means air escaping and the inevitable note slipping out. At the other end of the piece it means not stopping, flopping and rubbing the bits that hurt (my standard ritual), but remembering to keep pressing on the bag and to keep pumping. Result not bad, but could be a lot steadier. Red-button-itis caused the fluffing of a few notes in the second time of playing. Grace notes patchy - the D throw still my best (and favourite). Much more work needed on timing - back to Vicki's smallpipe tutor - "one...two-and...three...four-and..."

Not a performance

I'm a notebook keeper. I keep a diary, I keep a notebook of projects, I keep a notebook of reading. These are all on paper and all very private. I could start another notebook for piping. Certainly I can moan about all the few things I seem to have learned and the very many things I seem to be getting wrong - but checking progress is harder.
I've been urged by my one fan to consider how far I've come since I bought a chanter in Edinburgh in August 2010 and could barely get two consecutive notes out before feeling faint. He even says I've improved since I bought the pipes in November 2011. Perhaps I have - but all I can hear is all the things that I am still doing wrong.
So this is my private notebook (yes - I do appreciate the irony of that on the world's most public platform), where I will post clips of my playing in the hope that one day I'll be able to look back and see how far I've come instead of concentrating on how very far I still have to go.
Learning point for today. The moment you hit the record button your fingers disconnect from your brain. I have no idea why this is. I wanted to start with Lochanside, but frankly the clips I recorded were pathetic. I managed to cobble together an attempt at Mull of the Mountain. It isn't a whole lot better, but as I've said, this isn't a performance, it's a journey. Step one.