kyrie

Now I just have to take time every day to practice and tune it. You’d be surprised how long it takes to tune 34 strings.

Ok, so now I gotta vent (again… :) ).

I got this dumb idea I wanted to start learning piobaireachd (classical bagpipe music). It takes approximately 4 years longer to play one piobaireachd ground than it does to learn how to spell the word,lol.

Anyway, so yes, DUMB idea, learn piob, etc. My very good light music instructor insists he is not qualified to teach anyone piob. so like an idiot I go online, thinking….”well, I can just learn ONE ground—an easy one, with an online teacher, and then that’ll be another bagpipe goal reached. Then I can count this general goal as “done”.

I don’t like piobaireachd any more.

I signed up with this very well-known piobaireachd player, thinking he’d give me something simple to start out with, like some basic techniques and embellishments and “rules” and “how to’s” etc.

It didn’t happen that way. (sigh)

On my second lesson, he played through some grounds and asked me to pick one I liked the sound of.

I did. I didn’t know I picked a hard one. I thought he knew I was a green player and wouldn’t let me pick from anything too difficult for me to play. Wrong…

On my third lesson, he wanted me to play through this whole ground. I felt trapped like I had nothing to build on, no basis to know how to play it. Every time I tried lamely to read the music (piobaireached never really sounds like how the music is written), he said, “no, like this” and played a much greater number of measures than I was capable of memorizing in a chunk right there. Everytime I played it, it was wrong, but I got no instruction on how to play it correctly. No technique, no how to approach a piob. at first, nothing.

I finally froze and couldn’t play anything more in the lesson.

I think he had a wrong idea about how advanced I was, and I can honestly say I’m no longer enthusiastic about piobaireachd…sigh.

It’s even crossed my mind to give up pipes for awhile, too.

Certainly this is proof that “a great piper does not necessarily a great teacher make”. It made me much more appreciative of the patience my light music teacher has, and how good he is at teaching. I also really miss my first teacher. If he hadn’t died, I’d never have gotten into the online lessons mess….arrrgh.

My pipes haven’t been out of their case for 9 weeks. Maybe I’m quitting. I don’t really want to, but gee at some point I’d like to feel like I’m not always climbing uphill with it.

I’d sure like to recover that feeling I had when I first got my practice chanter in the mail. Help….erg… :/
(Somebody play the sappy background fail music, lol).

I’ve always wanted to do this. I was such an Andrea McArdle fan when I was little.
Of course, I’m too old to play Annie on Broadway, but I feel good imagining myself up there. I did do Annie locally, in a review, so it wasn’t the whole musical, but boy that felt wonderful. I’m glad I at least had that experience!

Maybe some other opportunity will come up some day that can give me a similar feeling. Singing a good part in a local theatre again would work for me, too.

It seems as you get older, you let go of some dreams. It would be good to bring some of those wishes back again, even if the form has to change for it to be fulfilled. So what if I’m no longer 10? I’m not dead either! :)