Piper's Path

A blog describing my journey into bagpiping, from barely being able to blow a note to . . . well, still at that stage really, but hopefully I'll progress to proper piping.

Name:
Location: Dunbar, W. Va., United States

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Actual Content

My practice is about to surpass my native ability to raise my fingers up in sequence. Right now I'm trying to learn to coordinate:
  1. Listening to a note to hear which one it is;
  2. See a note and know which one it is;
  3. See a note and know what combination of up and down fingers it goes with; and
  4. Do all this even though the next note doesn't come right after the next note on the scale.
It's been 20 years since I last had to read music in high school band, and even then I was a drummer and at most had to know 4 notes per song in order to tune my tympani. Fortunately, I have good tone discrimination. When I first tried out for band they wanted me to play trombone, because I was good at hearing when I was on or off pitch. My exercises up til now involved going up the scale and back down -- pretty easy and I think I finally have my muscle-memory somewhat trained to where the fingers go when they come back down. I wrapped a bit of electrical tape around my chanter above and below the C hole, so that finger could more easily find its "groove," and I think my stretching exercises allow my fingers to be a bit more limber.
But now my exercises involve going all over the scale, albeit only on one hand, and I'm not thinking fast enough to see, hear and move all at once. I guess that's the point of practice, to make it habitual rather than thoughtful.

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