I now am adding Highland Laddie to my repetoire, a favorite tune of mine. This one will take some time-there's some bits that seem complicated and the timing is faster; I love a challenge! As for all my other tunes, I seem to be getting sloppy. I have a lot of crossing noises and not very clean doublings. I think it's time to take a step back and concentrate on playing everything really, really well instead of focusing on the melody and trying to speed up the grace notes. So with today's practice I really thought about each note and how it should sound, not how fast the grace note should be. I think I'll ask my instructor to not give me another tune next week, and let me just try to play my current tunes better. I still have issues with playing for the instructor-I sound so much better at home in the comfort of my spare bedroom than I do when I'm sitting across from her and she's scrutinizing each note! As for the bagpipes-I have a long, long way to go. I'm overblowing the reed big time, so we uncorked the second drone and suddenly it so much harder! I can't imagine what it's going to be like when I finally get that mighty bass drone uncorked!
I've been running again these last few weeks and it's been hard. It's interesting to me that my 2 favorite interests have so much in common-who knew that bagpiping and running were so similar? They both require lots of patience; when I first started running I could barely manage a 1/2 mile before I had to walk. I was running for almost 4 years before I got the courage to attempt and complete a marathon-that would be like entering your first piping competition or playing for the first time for an audience. And it takes stamina for both, and good lungs, and a strong body and lots of determination. The good side to all this is my instructor thinks (and I agree) that I'm pretty strong on the pipes right from the get-go because I know how to breath properly because of running and I've got lots of lung power!
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