Highland Cathedral

I finally played a tune decently for my instructor-granted, it was only Sky Boat Song, but I got through it at the proper, stately pace, and I managed to hit all the grace notes competently, even the birls.  Keep in mind that my embellishments and grace notes are still slow and clumsy, but I played them all nevertheless.  And I played Scots Wha Hae on the pipes all the way through with nary a single cut out!  I was very happy with that.  So my new tune is one of my favorites-Highland Cathedral.  Once again, I took it home thinking it would take me days to untangle.  Fortunately, it's another slow tune; thus I was able to play it straight out of the box.  It still needs lots of work but at least it's recognizable.  I wish I were one of those people who can play a tune the first time round, and play it well. simply by sight reading it...

STB

No new songs for this week-we talked at length about the problems I'm having with STB.  To my slightly uneducated ear, it sounds uneven and nothing like the actual tune.  I always attributed this to my embellishments being too slow; and yet, when my instructor plays it with really slow embellishments, it still sounds like STB.  This tune is my Achilles heel of tunes.  I know it's the one everyone will want to hear, and it will suck like a Hoover if I never learn to play it competently..  So-my problem according to my instructor is that my tempo is very uneven.  I speed up on some phrases and slow down on others.  I'm going to practice it with a metronome, note by note if necessary.  Instructor says that if I can play Teribus (which I can) then there's nothing in STB that should give me problems.  I know the embellishments; it's a simple 2/4 time; I know the tune by heart and can play the notes in my sleep.  So why does my version sound so awful?

Memory

Yesterday was another productive lesson.  I was able to demonstrate that I knew some tunes by heart; I played The Minstrel Boy, Highland Laddie, and Will Ye no Come Back Again start to finish with some minor adjustments by my instructor-mostly fine tuning some of the embellishments.  I need to remember to write more notes about what needs to be corrected-I got home and realized I couldn't remember everything we talked about, in particular-which song was it that I was skipping a note?  I had to spend a lot of time today on all three songs, playing with the music in front of me, note by note, to try and find the missing D..

My new song is Teribus.  I took one look at it during my lesson and my first thought was "Oh, holy crap.  I'm never going to learn this one."  It really intimidated me, to the extent that I didn't even practice it when I got home from my lesson yesterday.  So today, I knew I had to start on it.  OK-take it one note, one embellishment at a time.  Pay attention to the timing.  Listen to instructor's recording.  Turns out-it's not as hard as it looks.  Maybe I am making progress!

The Skye Boat Song

I had a productive lesson today.  When the Battles O'er wasn't as bad as I thought it was-my instructor said it was fairly good, even the timing was close.  My new song is The Sky Boat Song-a personal favorite of mine.  I remembered this time to record her playing it for me which helps immensely when I'm fumbling through a new song.  And my new reed-a Warnock medium rocks!  For some odd reason that defied logic, I find it easier to hold a steady note on the pipes without cutting out issues with this, a supposedly harder reed.  One would think it would cut out more than a really easy reed, but that's not the case.  I was almost able to play Scots Wha Hae all the way through with no cutting out issues for my instructor-even those pesky high A notes.  And this reed is not nearly so sharp; even to my inexperienced ear it sounded flat and sure enough,we untaped my chanter and it sounded really good.  I managed the first few notes of Will Ye no Come Back Again And it would be nice to be able to play a couple of tunes for my next lesson on the pipes.  I'm hoping that very soon we'll uncork the mighty bass drone and I'll finally be playing the full Highland Bagpipes as they should be played.