Anders was in town to rehearse the band material last weekend, and we decided to work on songs this time. On Saturday and Sunday, we came up with the basic arrangement of three songs we plan to perform, Cairn O' Mount, Sergeant Where's Mine, and The Mosstrooper's Lament. We also came up with the main instrumental solos for the first two songs (The Bonniest Lass in the World, and Hector the Hero, respectively). On Saturday, I sang, and on Sunday, Anders recorded guitar tracks for all three songs for me to practice along with. As with my fiddle, my vocals need intonation work, so the guitar tracks should give me a good guide to develop muscle memory. All in all, Anders says he likes my voice, and compares me to former bandmate "Wolf Loescher - without the extreme sinus congestion!" (whose condition must be pretty severe, because allergies were killing me this weekend). We recorded Cairn O' Mount with my vocals as well, and Anders is going to run it through auto-pitch correction to produce a "Britney-ized" (or is that "Ashlee-ized"?) version of my performance, to get an idea of what I'll sound like a little down the road when my pitch sense is better, as well as a guitar-only version of the track for me to practice to.

It was also the first competition of the weekend for me. On Saturday morning, we drove in heavy rain to Calvert County, MD, for the Southern Maryland Highland Games. First up was the pipe contest. I managed to convince the stewards to move me up in the roster, so I'd have plenty of time to make it to the fiddle contest and warm up. I played my piobaireachd first, and did quite well. There was a single choke, and the judge thought I played a tad slowly, but liked the tone and low pitch of my pipes, and thought my blowing was otherwise steady. I ended up taking 2nd place. This was quite the victory for me, since I'm usually fairly weak on piobaireachd. On the 2/4 march contest, I was forced to play even earlier than I'd thought I'd have to (they couldn't find the guy before me), and my reed hadn't warmed back up enough, so my high hand was sharp. Also, the judge felt that I played too slowly for the tune - I agree, but it's competition! We're supposed to play slowly! He liked my expression, thought my blowing was slightly unsteady, thought my heavy d-doublings were a bit too open, and thought I was slowing down just a tad at the end phrases. Except for the last bit, it was a fair assessment, and though I scored well, I didn't place.

Then there was the fiddle contest. Warming up downstairs from the competition, I was brilliant. And then I got to the contest, and my tuning fell apart. The room was poorly ventilated, and the body heat and humidity played havoc with the gut strings, which were also new (and thus less stable). On top of this, my d-string peg kept slipping, and one of the other contestants tried to relate an anecdote to me in the middle of my arduous retuning process in front of the judge, who was my teacher, Elke. Add to this the fact that I had zero sleep the night before (allergies plus over-affectionate cat). So I got rattled from the outset, and I bombed my performance. Granted, I'm at the stage where my "crash and burn" earns me a respectable 3rd place, but I did come behind a fiddler who - though with lots of classical experience - was a first year student and first time competitor. So needless to say, I've been beating myself up over that since. Even Elke said that, had I played my very challenging set the way I "had it in my head", I would have cleaned up. Hopefully, though, I am over the hump of the "first competition nerves" for this year, and will do better at my next contest in Houston.

I can't win 'em all, but I should have taken at least 2nd in this contest. I consider myself sufficiently chastened.