Getting Ready for the Recital

This will be my fifth recital, by the way.  For my first one in 2005 I played the Mill on the PC.  If I had known any more I would have melted into the ground with embarrassment.   

Recital performances for me have not been stellar.  Two years ago I tried some tune or other and just as I stepped up onto the center front of the stage, my chanter reed gave up the ghost.  Every time I hit a high G or A, it squealed some other 2-octaves-higher note as loudly as it could.  People in the audience looked at one another and wondered if they should laugh or cry.  I carried on, but the tune I had picked was filled with high Gs and As.  It was another meltdown.

Last year I tried Brogues on the Cobbles.  I had worked very hard on the last, most difficult part, and got it down perfectly.  And played it perfectly in the recital, too, I hasten to add.  But I had spent so much time on Part IV that when I got to Part III my mind went blank.  I don't know what I played, but it wasn't what was written.  Meltdown.

I'm supposed to be improving.  I'm actually just making bigger and more terrible mistakes.

So anyway, guess what tune the Grade IV Band-Ready group is playing for its piece for this year's recital?   Uh-huh.  Brogues.  I'm hoping to get all the parts right, for the sake of my classmates, if for nothing else.  My own solo tune is the one I melted down on at the Jackson Games last summer with Catherine drumming.   I think I'm setting myself up for failure.