Progress!

This weeks lesson-as I thought, I was doing one little bit wrong on AG, and there were a few bits with a little crossing sound.  As usual, I played perfectly at home, with no crossing noises.  And I did a half way sorta kinda decent job on STB, even the hard part.  Just one correction to work on there.  So I get a new song to practice-No Awa' ta Bide Awa'.  Funny thing is, since I've always heard this played with STB, I thought it was just another stanza, didn't realize it was its own little song.  It's tough.  Almost every note has a grace note of one kind or another.  And-my instructor was impressed with my ability to play my one lonely little note on the pipes.  So while I was showing her my progress, she UNCORKED A DRONE!  This is huge-I get to play 2 notes (A and B) with one drone.  I thought I sounded kind of uneven on the chanter, but she didn't think it was too bad. 

I wish I could play as well for my instructor as I think I play at home.  I have issues about performing in front of people and that always comes into play during my lessons.  She wanted me to try No Awa' to Bide Awa'; I suggested that since it was completely new, maybe I could just take it home, practice on my own, then play it for her next week.  Teacher said "You want to go home and learn to play it perfectly before you play it for me, don't you?"  To which I responded-well, yeah.  She told me that kind of took away the whole point of taking lessons, which was to try new stuff.  So I played it for her, very poorly.  I'm going to have to get used to playing new stuff for her, even though it's really outside of my comfort zone. 

So the questions is, will I be able to overcome my anxiety about performing in front of people enough to actually play in front of an audience?  Seriously-how do people do it-how do people give speeches and sing and play musical instruments with others staring at them?  I hope that the day will come when I will just think about the music and just play.  I think the bagpipes may be the best instrument for me-they're so complicated, I'll be forced to concentrate on playing rather than on the audience.