Seven Years to Make a Piper

Looks like this week is going to be another good practicing week..

However, the actual playing at band practice last night was abyssmal..

First thing that happened was that Sande was having a hard time with her strike-ins, and Sean got so frustrated with that that he yelled at everybody, so I messed up the strike-in the next time and got all flustered from the yelling and the mistakes that I continued in the same vein for the rest of the night, messing up stupidly on every tune, even ones that I KNOW very well. I know I shouldn't get flustered; I need to be able to keep a cool head and just keep playing. But last night I couldn't..

Part of the problem was that Monday night I did a weight class and used 10 pound weights instead of my usual 8, and my arms, including the left, are very sore. As a result, I couldn't keep pressure on the bag to keep my notes playing because my arm was so sore. This caused me to concentrate on my arm instead of my fingers and the notes and added to my mistakes . . ..

But I did get my practicing in this week, assuming I go to my lesson tomorrow. I'm going to try to get one more in, seeing as there is a recital on Saturday. So far it looks like I'm practicing more and sounding worse. How's that for just desserts?