One of those practice sessions

This morning I walked over to the science building to play my pipes for a while; it's raining outside and there are other musicians in the dorm so I went to my classroom to be a courteous neighbor. It was one of those awesome practice sessions where everything just felt right.

I played for I think about 90 minutes (I didn't have a watch with me and had only a vague idea of what time I started), and things just went right. I played for ten minutes and retuned the drones, then didn't touch them again. The fingers weren't perfect, but they were working pretty well. The pipes were comfortable to play and felt like I've had them under my arm for my whole life.

Part of that I'll credit to my new bag cover, made by TrueFit. This is only the third time I've played with it and I'll tell you, it's great. The idea is that if the bag cover fits the pipe bag exactly, it won't affect the position of the pipes, and the bag won't slip as you play. The top of the cover is made of a Spandex-like material that conforms to the bag, and the rear is made of a fabric not unlike denim that will keep the bag from sliding. The cover I was using before tends to constrict the drones so they fall in a real natural spot, but the TrueFit is great. I highly recommend it for anyone.

Ken "The Captain" Eller is a well-known and respected instructor and judge, and I heard him say at a workshop that there's a difference between practice and playing. Playing is when you just play through tunes, maybe a second time, but don't pay much attention to what's wrong and you play a lot of different tunes. It's not practice until you concentrate on what's wrong and think about fixing it, and it's not fun. Playing is a great time, but practice is not enjoyable: it makes you tired, sweaty, frustrated, and just want to quit.

What I played this morning was practice, not just playing. I played pretty much only my competition tunes, several times through each, going back to hammer out rough spots and making notes of things to work on with the practice chanter. I also recorded a few tunes so I could hear from a different perspective, and actually practiced both of my piobaireachds instead of just playing through each once.

So is practice enjoyable? Ken, I know what you're saying, about the difference between playing and practicing, but I demonstrated this morning that even productive practice can be fun.