I practiced Smallpipes for an hour continuously for the first time yesterday, and damn, that was a workout. As much so, or more, than playing Highland pipes that long, because I was working the bellows arm too. I got through all the smallpipable tunes in fiddle club books 1 and 2 (there are only 3 in book 2 that aren't regimental marches). I'm hoping to be vaguely proficient with a bunch of tunes on the smallpipes by the end of the summer, so I can bring them with me to sessions. With the increased humidity, the pipes sound great, and are very stable. I've even got rid of most of the double-toning on my tenor drone reed.

Also got a lot of fiddle practice in yesterday, mainly on the book 11 tune sets for the upcoming fiddle club performances at the Potomac Celtic Festival and Virginia Scottish Games. My goal for the summer is to become proficient in all the tunes in books 1, 10, and 11, and begin to dabble in book 2. I'd say I'm about half-way through this task. I really need to substantially increase my fiddle repertoire in the next couple of years, not to mention getting to the club meetings more regularly.

I'm making progress on the 6/8 marches on pipes. I have a very strange - but common - problem. I either cut short the quarter notes in the quarter-eighth pattern, or I cut short the sixteenth in the dotted eighth-sixteenth-eighth patterns. Very annoying, because I know better. Moreover, I know how to count to 6!