Yesterday I had my once a month lesson with Jori Chisholm in Seattle.  This was my second lesson with Jori and we spent more time going over the tune I'm working on right now.  Jori uses a nifty technique where he will highlight repeating phrases within the tune.  By using different color highlighters you can quickly see the tune structure.

For instance, the Welcome home Prince Charles to Lochaber tune has 4 beginning phrases that are repeated and 1 ending phrase that is repeated across all 4 parts, and a mini phrase that is repeated at the end of the 1st and 3rd lines of the tune.

This way you can individually work on these phrases and then eventually link them up to form the complete tune.  This would be especially helpful for very complex tunes.

I really like this technique and I'm going to highlight all of the common phrases in the tunes I have learned (and continue to work on) , it is so simple to do and actually kind of fun!

Next lesson Jori is going to give me some new music to learn... I wonder what he'll come up with?

Nothing new and super exciting to report on the bagpiping front.  Due to colds, work and allergies I haven't been piping much, or even practicing on my chanter these days.  I did manage to get about 30 minutes in on Wednesday on the ferry ride over to Orcas, and another 30 minutes on the ferry ride over to Lopez for my weekly Friday lesson.

Even so, I didn't suck as bad as I thought I would.  Definitely didn't make huge strides forward in my progress but I didn't really go in reverse either! 

My doublings are getting crushed, and I'm doing a funny little G gracenote when I doing a B or D grace, so it is like a GD or GB grace, which is just not right.  Sigh, time to get out my McGillivray "Rhythmic Fingerwork" book and work those into submission.

I contacted Chris Apps about the reeds I purchased a couple weeks ago, they said no problem on returning them for stronger reeds, which is great since the reeds I got were way to easy.  No sense in trying to play a super easy reed just as it doesn't make sense to play a super hard reed, it just isn't worth it!

The good weather and longer days is great!  The flip side is that the tree pollen is just a killer on my allergies, ugh.  Once the trees are done, then I get to suffer through the grasses, and then what is next?  Maybe mold spores in the fall?  Bleah.

Monday I have my 2nd lesson with Jori Chisholm, I missed last week because I came down with my daughters cold.  I'll practice a bit on my doublings tonight, work on the new tune for about 30 minutes and then head down to Seattle Monday morning to hook up with Jori.

This Friday was the start of the BC Indoor Annual Gathering or the BC AG for short.

I did not have a lesson this Friday since my instructor Helen Sanders was competing at the BC indoor.  I don't know if she was competing solo or band, or maybe both.  Probably both.

It is probably just as well I didn't have a lesson today.  Work has been totally nuts.  I mentioned in my last post I think this is the busiest we have been in the last 13 years of operation.  Not only do we have several customer projects at varying stages of completion we are also transitioning to a new accounting system, POS (point of sale) system, and have at least half a dozen internal projects running at once.

When I get home from work I 'm just dead tired, and I think my head is going to explode!  Even so I know I have to get out the pipes and play for at least 10 to 15 minutes, and then do chanter work for another 30 minutes.  I need to get some musicians ear plugs, especially when I practice indoors, the pipes are about 103 to 110 decibels.  Very loud!  Even with 12' ceilings in my shop my ears are ringing when I'm done.

This weekend I need to get some good chanter time in, next Tuesday is my 2nd lesson with Jori Chisholm and I want to make the most of it.  Getting lessons from Jori is a pretty involved process, since he lives just north of Ballard it is an all day affair, but the results are very much worth the time and expense.