Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Sometimes the weatherman gets it right. Yesterday, he predicted snow and WE GOT IT!!!! It's funny how a change in the weather can change your mood.

At band practice, we had to allow for extra warm-up time because all the pipes were cold from traveling. People were playing any long tune named after some ancient pipe major that they could remember to get the chanters warmed up.

We are trying to learn a new tune for the end of our Old Mill set (The Old Mill, Mari's Wedding, Rowan Tree, and 100 Pipers). Hundred Pipers is a 6/8 and tends to throw us off after the marches and slow airs that are the first three, such that we lose our competitions with shocking regularity. This new tune is called Pipe Major J.K.Cairns. I think I mentioned it before. And I know what you're going to say: "Not another tune named after some long dead pipe major that goes on and on! I hate those!" This one, however, is mercifully short and, although it does have 4 parts, 2 of them are exactly the same and they're short parts. It's also a catchy tune and fairly easy to play . . . except for the 1st ending, which has weird timing. So we were working on that part, going over and over it and continuing to get it wrong and I finally admitted that I wasn't getting it and could I just listen to it, once? Pipey allowed me to do that. Once. Dave on my left said, "Don't listen to me!", to which I promptly replied, "Oh, I have an earplug in that ear." That got a laugh. I think we finally got it, but it took over an hour. I'm supposed to listen to the website, but so far I haven't been able to get it to even finish loading.

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