When I play, I tend to just knock out tunes, which is great fun of course but doesn’t do anything for my, ahem, progress as a musician. I know I should just knuckle down and work on difficult bits in tunes until I can play them perfectly, but that’s so boring…
So lately I’ve been alternating the two, working on triplets and rolls and all that crap, and then bashing away, regs a blazing! for a while, and this seems to help a lot more than one or the other.
Anyone else have any comments on practicing habits?
I listen to the CDs while I’m traveling and get most of the tunes imbedded in my head first, meaning I whistle the tune out loud (with ornaments) or whistle it quietly inside. That really helps. When I’m working outside, a tune will somehow start playing itself (perfectly) in my memory and I feel it in my hands too. I don’t physically practice the fingering, but I picture the fingering. By the time I’m ready to go work it out on the chanter, it’s almost done and much easier to deal with.
I’ve already done this with a couple Brian McNamara tunes from his new album. Certain tunes just stick and they’re the ones I like and learn.
Being a beginner I guess I should still be playing scales and such exclusively, but that can get boring, so I mix it up like Kevin says.
I think it’s interesting how people learn tunes. I concur with Lorenzo. I listen to a tune repeatedly until it’s firmly in my head, then try to emulate the player. If it’s to speedy I use the Pacemaker plug-in for WinAmp and slow it way down so I can play along and practice new tunes this way.
Does anyone remember “The Music Man” a 1960’s musical with Robert Preston? ("76 trombones led the big parade…)? His flim-flam man character advocated “the think method” of learning music. You merely think of the tune, over and over, and you dare not pick up the instrument to play it until you can thoroughly think the tune through! This is what I’d been doing subconsciously for years. Maybe that’s why it’s coming more easily.
Rick
I think Lorenzo’s method sounds really interesting. I repeat the tune over and over in my head to learn it, but I never considered practising the fingering in my head too.
For me the practise on the pipes sometimes is a “struggle” between learning new tunes ,learning technics into the tunes. But I find it more developing to learn few tunes at the same times. And work alot with the tune.
When I have finished some tunes( when are you finish with a tune, but–)
I start again picking up about 2-3 tunes at a time. I play them without ornaments. I listen to the tunes played by the great players. Ex: The Merry blacksmith. from Seamus Ennis and ohters to get inspiration( try to get it into my own playing with the lack of kompetence I have) I am very fascinated by the way Seamus Ennis use the hard bottom d ( concert d notation) in the second playing of the tune.
I try to get the rythm into the tune as the basisstructure ; which I found is a difficult element in playing the pipes.
When I can play the tune by heart I began to use the ormentation I find usefull for me. I think it is very useful to divide a tune and the bring the pieces together again for getting into the tune. I play the tune very slowly and complete staccato. Then using of the regulators and drones .
In the proces I record my playing into the computer and listen.
I find it also very useful busking ( if that is a correct way to say it)
There is a lot differience to play of your own a then you have a “audience”
Back in the good old days that never were, I tried to be a bit of an aescetic about the whole thing and force myself to practice all the tight triplets, and all that stuff before moving on to more forbidden pleasures. But now I live in Japan, a country where soundproof walls are a laughable notion. I usually practice in the afternoon before most of my neighbors get off work but I’m always worried about freaking out some passerby or weird guy downstairs that keeps odd hours. I figure that if I’m going to play loud music, I should probably keep the exercises to a minimum and at least serenade my neighbors with something tuneful.
These days, I just try to resist the urge to rip through stuff and play tunes at a slow, measured pace. It’s made my playing more consistent and I’ve noticed a whole lot more tight fingering creeping in as well. When I do get in a jam, the best thing I find is to completely dismantle the ornament/phrase/whatever into the simplest possible components and put it back together one gracenote at a time, i.e. say you’re having trouble with a tight triplet on b or something, make sure you can lift your finger on each note with a nice, crisp stacatto then put it together and very slowly bring it up to speed.
I also really agree with the “think method” of learning tunes. Play the recording of the tune you want to learn over and over and over until it’s stuck in your head like a bad Top 40 single. Then pick up yer pipes and transmit what’s bouncing around in your head through your fingers. Of course, what’s in your head won’t be exactly the same as what’s on the CD. The oral tradition’s a lovely thing, ain’t it?
Please don’t bring up the Music Man, now all I can hear is “The Wells Fargo Wagon is a-comin’ down the street!” and “There’s trouble - right here in River City!”
I’ve learned a few tunes purely from old tunebooks, which can be weird; you wonder what it was like not to know this jig. It’s satisfying to play some piece of music that has been forgotten for God knows how long, too.
I’ve really gotten into lilting over the past couple of years - I get the tunes in my head, and just lilt them all the time. You get weird looks from people on the ole public transpo from time to time, but I like to think I’m just spicing up the social surroundings.
I swore off sheet music except for special cases…I found I was relying on it too much and my ear wasn’t getting trained.
Ah…The Music Man
“You got 1 -2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - pockets in a table”
I tend to work very like Lorenzo- listem to CD’s relentlessly in the car too and from w*rk, often repeating the track I’m interested in over and over. The tune embeds itself and I can picture the fingering in my head and work out (mostly) what is happening. Then with chanter, I work through the tune a phrase at a time of the CD with the dots as well. Then of course the scale, aroeggios, triples rolls etc practised over and over again.
The really FRUSTRATING thing is that although I have pictured and think I have worked out the fingering in my head, when I get to picking up the chanter, my fingers don’t necessarily agree…
My high school Drama teacher, Adnia Rice, was in “The Music Man”. She was one of the ladies in the the Mayor’s wife’s circle. She, in fact, starts the song “Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little. Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! Pick a lot, talk a little more”. That’s for you Kevin, to replace the other melodies in your head.
Rick
With a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for PIPES!
When I was in drivers’ ed the teacher told us to use “kinesthetic theory” which is basically the think method…by imagining in realistic detail over and over again what you intend to do you somehow affect the connections in your brain, making it easier to do when you actually try. Likewise, if any of you know how to enduce lucid dreaming, you can practice your pipes in your dreams and improve in much the same manner, because your body and mind actually think you’re playing for real. But, you don’t disturb the neighbors
Boyd
That’s for you Kevin, to replace the other melodies in your head. 
