The Impending Solo Competition Season

The season is still a few months away, but I've definitely been thinking about them. Practice sessions of late have been focused on tunes, especially a new march and strathspey. I've been experimenting with a new practice structure and approach to tunes that works like this:

1. Play every day
2. Warm up with a gracenote or doubling exercise, then a few slow airs and 4/4 marches to get the fingers moving and the pitch settled
   
3. Tune the drones
4. Play one part of a tune repeatedly
5. When playing a full tune, play it backwards. Play the fourth part, then the third and fourth part, then the second and third and fourth part, etc.
   
6. Play the tune straight through from the first part.
7. Go on to the next tune

Step 5 is something I have decided to implement after listening to a number of lower level competitors. Many of them started the tune really well, but the quality of playing in the fourth part was much lower compared to the first part. As I thought about it, when you first learn a tune you start with the first part and learn it sequentially, and when practicing most start with the first part. This means the first part is usually pretty good, with each part after that being practiced less frequently and therefore not as well. The theory with my approach is that by starting the tunes backwards, the ending parts get played more often, at least as often as the first few parts. This should mean they come off better in competitions, and the last part the judge hears is at the same high quality as the first part. I'll report back to see if it works.

I'm also adding a countdown to my first competition, as seen to the right. The clock's a-ticking, so I'd better get a-playing!