It’s been nearly two months since my last post and I really do apologize to the folks that actually followed my blog. I don’t know how many of you there are out there, but I do feel I let people down. That three weeks without lessons and the loss of any sort of structure in my life that came with Summer break along with a lot going on in my life with financial issues and a bunch of other boring things took its toll and my practicing and blogging took most of the brunt of it.
So I stand at a precipice. Right now it begins to feel like an impossible task and I am afraid it would be like starting over. Finding the time to practice was difficult but I tried, but now I wonder if I was really cut out to begin with. I am certainly not musically inclined and I suppose it’s better to find out now than after investing in expensive pipes. I have had a few set backs in terms of support from my family as well, so maybe those doubts are part of it… nagging me in the back of my brain despite how cavalier I might be on the outside about their opinions of doing what I want with my life.
I am also a bit afraid to try going back to my lessons after such a long absence. I know they would probably welcome me back with a little ribbing and well-meaning scolds, but it is still a difficult idea to wrap my head around. School is starting up again tomorrow and I wonder if a schedule will help jolt me back into my bagpipes practice. I recently watched Monty Python’s “Not the Messiah” and they had bagpipers march out during two numbers and the crowd went insane and I had that proud feeling of someone who is a part of something so I really think it’s still in me… I just need to step up and make it happen again. It doesn’t make it any easier knowing that.
Well, where to begin? There’s much I’d like to say!
First, it’s better to find out now that piping is going to take too much time considering where you are in your life. When I was in college, I had very little time to do anything but go to school, and work. The demands on one’s time when immersed in a period of intense study preclude participation in outside activities. When you graduate, you can always take up piping again.
Yes, you will have lost time, but that’s better than trying to take on too much, and then failing. Success is a habit, like anything else. A successful habit is established and then maintained by the accomplishment of many small goals as you go. So, to become a successful piper, you must have a well defined program that brings you to establish and maintain the successful habit of piping. That takes time, dedication, and hours of practice. It doesn’t appear that you have any of these just now, but take heart! When the pressure of college is gone, you can take it up again.
Pipers are a notoriously independent breed, especially really great pipers. My teacher, a professional piper, is OCD beyond reckoning with an incredible drive level, and rightly so! Caring what family or friends think about what you’re doing with your life is silly, as long as what you choose to do with it is basically moral and legal. So, if you take more stock in others’ opinions over and above your own goals in terms of your own life path, I doubt you’ll ever do anything that you truly find rewarding, such as becoming a piper. Be your own person first while respecting diverse opinions! Wasn’t it Thoreau who said first to thine own self be true?
I recall reading one of your very early posts where you boldly declared that you were going to be piper. I had a bit of a giggle over that, because it appeared to me that you were more in love with the romantic notion of being a piper than actually being one. Sometimes the wanting of something is more desirable than the being of something. So it is with all of us! It’s part of human nature to do so, but to become a thing is far more difficult than wanting a thing. Lesson learned, perhaps?
Right now, you are in the time frame of an fledgling academic rather than a fledgling piper. I say concentrate on your studies, do well, and then if the idea of really buckling down to the many, many hours of hard work that will bring you to being a piper still appeal, then go ahead. Stop beating yourself up over this little bump in the road, and continue on. All these doubts, and pity party notions that you talk about are both childish and foolish. What are you getting done by doing this? Nothing. What good are you doing for yourself or others? None. Stop spinning your wheels in self pity and recrimination, and drive on with the things that are most important now-like finishing college with a more opportunistic view of your future. Unless you plan to make a living piping, it will always be a hobby. A serious hobby perhaps, but a hobby nonetheless.
Yes, a set of pipes is costly. It makes no sense to me to buy them, and not play them. From what you write, you’re not even close to being ready to make that investment. So why consider it now? I’m sure you understand the concept of delayed gratification. I counsel you to wait until you’ve really earned that set of pipes in every way, as I describe above. You’ll really feel great when you’ve reached that point; anything else will end up being far less satisfactory. The time and effort needed to learn how to blow a set of pipes well is significant, and should not be taken on lightly.
Oh, and being ‘musically inclined’ as you say has nothing to do with it. Don’t believe me? I encourage you to read “Talent is Overrated’ by author Geoff Colville. Mr. Colville pretty much debunks the widely held myth that talent is instinctive and only something one is born with. Check it out!
I hope that you take all this in with the kind spirit that I intend. I’m 52 years old, and have been around the block a few times. I started my piping studies when I was 48, and I’m still at it. I have 17 solo/joint public performances to my credit, with only 3 years on the big pipes. It can be done! But, you have to have the right attitude, and enough time, energy, and resources to go after what you want outside of your career. You’re not there yet. Establish your career post-college, and then reconsider piping. If it’s to be, it will be-only you can make it happen!
By: Reed on August 29, 2010
at 2:51 PM
Wow… you’ve pretty much hit a lot of nails on the head there and everything you say makes a lot of sense. I definitely don’t take what family and friends say too close to heart, that’s why it surprised me that this might be the case as I am usually pretty independent in what I want to do. I am going to school as a History major in a family full of Engineers after all. Just the other day my grandfather pretty much told me it’s a waste of time and to go for my MBA but it’s not what I want to do.
Perhaps you’re right about this just being the wrong time. I’m going to have to see how everything pans out for me after the Spring when I will (hopefully) be a graduate. I think right now my life is so up in the air, I’m in a transient state and I need to be grounded and stable to put in the time piping deserves. I certainly respect the opinions of folks who have been around the block as you say, especially when they have gone up against the same obstacles. Thank you for the thoughtful reply, it does mean a lot.
By: primordialmuse on August 29, 2010
at 5:52 PM
don’t give up, I went through what you are going through ten years ago. I regret stopping totally because here I am 10 years later trying to make my dream come true, had I just even practiced the exercises from the tutors, I would already be a “Piper”. But now I’m 40 years old and way ahead of what I was 10 years ago.
Don’t cheat yourself out of what you love, if the pipes are in your blood, then you will never fall out of love with them.
Don’t give up!!!!!
at least practice GDE’s and the embelshments.
You’ll be happy you did, I know, cause I regret not doing that myself!
By: Dan on August 29, 2010
at 7:39 PM
Thanks for the support! I am going to try and gauge how rough this semester is going to be (hopefully not very) and see if I can at least still practice the basics like you said. It’ll be nice to sort of push myself to just do the practice instead of pushing myself to advance. I think I was putting too much pressure on myself before. If I go into it without expectations then it may make all the difference. Then it’s just a matter of going back to my lessons with my tail between my legs.
By: primordialmuse on August 29, 2010
at 10:41 PM
I must respectfully disagree with some of the advice given here. I think you should pull out the practice chanter and play for fifteen minutes today, and thirty minutes tomorrow, and go from there.
I took up piping my first semester in college. I had no previous musical background or training, and piping could not be farther from my area of study. I went to school full time. I worked multiple part-time jobs. And I took lessons and learned to play the bagpipes. Did I practice three hours a day? No. Did I practice every day? No. I aimed for an hour a day, usually made at least half an hour a day, and didn’t beat myself up when I failed to practice — whether I missed practice for a single day or for three weeks in a row. The key is to KEEP GOING BACK TO IT.
If you quit now, only a few months in, the odds are excellent that you will never be a piper. If, instead, you approach it as “How can I find half an hour to practice today?” and repeat that question tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, you will make steady, consistent progress. In three or six or nine months, you’ll be looking around to buy a set of pipes. Virtually everyone I’ve ever known could find half an hour a day to practice, if only by cutting back on TV, video games, or Facebook.
About the two months or so that you haven’t been playing? They are done with. Move on. No one will judge you for leaving and then coming back. It is well known and understood that practice gaps happen. So go back to your band *immediately* (as in, this week!) and say, “Hey, I fell off the horse there for awhile, but I’m ready to start up again.” No one will be shocked.
If you were my student, I’d say “Turn off the computer. Now. Get the practice chanter. Take a shot at Scots Wha Hae, or Brown Haired Maid, or whatever you were working on when you left off. Try a couple of exercises. And then, in fifteen minutes, call it good for the day. You will sound rusty. You may have forgotten how to do some stuff. It doesn’t matter. Play for a few minutes today, and come back to it tomorrow.”
By: Martha on August 30, 2010
at 1:18 PM
So you think I should go back immediately? I was thinking of trying to get myself back to at least where I was or close to it on my own before going back because I didn’t want them to feel like they were wasting their time with me. I definitely did feel guilty and kind of beat myself up over missing a day of practice and then it kind of steamrolled into missing it rather than thinking about it because it was easier than being guilt ridden. I think I need to really stop being so hard on myself and enjoy it instead of making it into a competition to get as good as I can as fast as I can.
By: primordialmuse on August 30, 2010
at 5:07 PM
Go back immediately. Do not wait.
Why? First, if you wait until you are back where you were, you may not get there. It is way too easy to fall into a pattern like this: You didn’t practice, so you don’t want to “waste anyone’s time” at a lesson. But since you skipped the lesson, you didn’t get motivated to practice. And since you haven’t practiced, you don’t want to go to a lesson. . . . Weeks can pass this way. Or months. You see how this is a bad cycle?
Second . . . I’ve taught a lot of people to play. I’ve taken lessons myself (on and off) for twenty years. Trust me when I say that you won’t be the first student they’ve ever had who did a little backsliding. I have students come in all the time who have forgotten something I showed them, or who had to miss a month’s worth of lessons for whatever reason. If they’ve missed a month or more, I fully *expect* that they will have not practiced much and may have gone backwards. I’d be astonished if they hadn’t. So I work with them where they are, not where they might have been. I fully expect your band will be willing to do the same.
Cut yourself some slack. Forget the last two months. Practice a little bit tonight and tomorrow, and go to band practice. Skip the involved apologies, and say, “Hey, I missed a few weeks, but I’m back.” No one is going to yell at you or judge you. Good luck!
By: Martha on August 30, 2010
at 5:51 PM
Thanks, that’s really good advice. It’s easy to forget that part of my backsliding was due to not having the lessons for three weeks in a row. I guess they really do provide some of that motivation. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes and thank you for being so kind and supportive.
By: primordialmuse on August 30, 2010
at 5:55 PM
So, it’s been over a year! I wonder if you’re still alive? Have you graduated? Have you taken up piping studies where you left off? Nonetheless, I hope that you are well.
By: reed9t98 on September 14, 2011
at 9:38 PM
It’s funny, someone was talking about taking up guitar on a message board I frequent just a week ago and it got me thinking about picking up my chanter again. School is over, yes, I am a graduate as of a few months ago! Yay! I also haven’t managed to find work yet… boo! I would love to get back into lessons, in fact I think one of my tutors played at my commencement ceremonies.
Unfortunately, I am so tight on cash at the moment that I am lucky to still have car insurance, much less being able to make the long trip with gas prices the way they are. I definitely want to get back into it, and plan to once I get settled with a job. I think I’ll take your query as a sign to at least pick up my chanter and blow the dust out of it a bit. Thanks for checking up! I really appreciate it and hope you are doing good as well.
I may be moving to North Carolina when/if I finally find gainful employment, but it’ll be near Fort Bragg which I would hope would have some piping resources the same as we do here in the Norfolk area due to the military presence. I’ll definitely try to update once I get going again.
By: primordialmuse on September 14, 2011
at 10:30 PM
Good to know that you’re still with us. I haven’t forgotten about you, and your piping quest. Yes, I agree, you need to find sustainable work that will provide a steady income stream before taking up serious piping studies again. Did you find that getting through school without the added stress of piping lessons, et al, good advice? Or, do you wish that you continued piping along with your academic studies?
You can always start up piping again when you’re ready. My teacher, as well as several others, offer video lessons via Skype format. You don’t need to report to a rehearsal hall or band practice to study. So, no expense for gas, etc; just the lesson fee. I’ve done a lesson via Skype when my teacher was in Denmark for 6 months. I still prefer to go to his house when he’s home. I like in person lessons better, but the video lesson thing does work!
The other great thing that my teacher started this year is his Internet studio. For a yearly fee you have access to all the content 24/7, which is considerable, and growing larger every day. There are a ton of excersises, performance videos, some tune lessons, some lectures, and so on. Enough to keep you busy for years! You can post audio or video of your playing, and he and/or other studio members offer a critque for free! This would be ideal for you! Think about it! You can read all about it at http://www.bagpipelessons.com.
By: reed9t98 on September 16, 2011
at 4:03 PM