There is a hazard to playing Scotland the Brave at a Scottish fiddle session. There just might be a piper in your midst, and he just might have his practice chanter with him.

It did get quite the laugh when I pulled out the practice chanter and marched back into the room at this week's post-fiddle club session, but it's always dicey to try to play in tune. The low hand was pretty close to 440 Hz, but the high hand was flat, and I can't push the reed in any further. I joked, "If you have 20 pipers playing practice chanters, they'll be playing in 30 different keys using 50 different intonation systems!" The fiddle club meeting was pretty cool, and we got more good tunes. One I'll probably adapt to pipes and pitch to John for the band, since it was a Skinner march done in the style of a pipe 4/4.

I'm still playing catch-up on my practice. On pipes, I've finally begun looking at Ghille Callum, as another example of a 4-bar phrase strathspey (along with Bob of Fettercairn). I've also continued to look at Struan Robertson's Salute, with an eye to competing with it, instead of Lament for the Old Sword, later this year. My new competition 2/4 will be 24th Guards Brigade at Anzio, and as with last year, the 6/8 will be Cock of the North, and the Slow Air will be Hector the Hero.

My fiddle competition set is shaping up, but it's requiring me to work on technique. Skinner's The Sadness of Life requires me to master "real" (as opposed to "fake") vibrato, along with accurate shifts between 1st and 3rd position, and good intonation in the key of C-minor. So I'm spending 30 minutes a day on just these technical exercises, along with bowing exercises (to improve the use of the wrist and fingers in my long bow strokes), and intonation more generally. Captain Cameron's Volunteers still needs development, but Dean Bridge of Edinburgh and Banks are sounding pretty decent, ready to talk about variation and ornaments.

I've started playing on smallpipes again after a long hiatus. I need to get them re-reeded, and the 3rd drone (which I have playing G, but could also play E) has a cracked mount on the end, which I'll ask EJ to replace. For now, I'm playing with all drones corked, so I can concentrate on the bag, bellows, and chanter.

My "home studio" is almost ready to start using, all I need is better audio capture software than what I've been using, namely CD Spin Doctor, but that will still do in a pinch. I imagine Anders will help work out the kinks next time he's here.

Still no news on the demo CD from Anders. Apparently, he has it with him now in Houston, is going to play it for mutual friends at Beltaine, but he hasn't sent me my copy yet! Bad Anders, no biscuit!