Seven Years to Make a Piper

My parts in this annual recital (my fourth, I was surprised to count) included a march-strathspey-reel set with 5 other pipers of about my calibre, and a march played solo.

I much prefer playing with other people, people who can cover up my mistakes when I make them. The march-strathspey-reel went off without a hitch. Jason, the pipe major and our instructor, was very pleased and even shook everybody's hand afterwards. He must have been really relieved. I was.

The solo, however, was 4-part march called Brogues on the Cobbles, written by Dennis McMaster who was my instructor for a long time. (See Sept 14 2007) He was running the curtain, just 4 yards away. The last part of this march is so off-beat it's very difficulty to play. Part I went fine. Part II started fine and somewhere in the middle there I missed a note and got completely lost so I played some collection of notes til I got to . . . well, somewhere where I could start the third part. So Part III started fine, but the same thing happened as Part II and I did the same thing, and then I got to the Killer Part IV. This one I have been working on and I DID IT ABSOLUTELY PERFECTLY! Yeah, me! I got polite applause. Afterward another student came up and comlimented me on what a fine job I'd done on a tune that has always been his Waterloo. I thanked him. (all compliments accepted). He hadn't heard any mistakes. He should probably work on that tune some more. Dennis even said I did fine. When I apologized for spontaneously rewriting the middle of it, and he said those things happen when you are performing, and at least I had kept going, so . . . good job.