Gigs are done!! (Until the weekend)
This would no doubt be a bit more fun with pictures, but it might be that Someone forgot their camera today....
At any rate, home, done with gigs, total Zombie Brain! Nothing left, but I will give you what there is. Had a great day playing with Bedlam today, even tho it was 87 and humid, brutal to play in. I love it when I get a chance to play with them, full on rock, even outdoors today with no mics, amps or toys. I am going back next weekend to do it again. (Cabel, had a great time, everyone loves him, and he gets SO much attention in his costume.)
Joe Smith has been playing with Bedlam since I nipped off on other projects, and when the two of us meet up with violins, it's magic. We call it between us "Weaving" Joe is one of those, Fods, how to say it, he is one of those players that doesn't come along often. He can play circles around me, and I am not maligning my playing at all. He is simply, very, very good.
He is also my Ullieann Pipe Teacher, as of today. Had my first lesson. I wish you could have all heard it, everyone who did, dissolved into puddles of laughter. (WHO has their first Bag Pipe lesson in public, I ask you??? When I do things, I do them BIG!)
The sounds I made were truly quite hideous. I love it.
Pipes are hard. It's the only instrument I have ever come across that the first thing you do is to strap it to you with an array of leather straps and buckles. (Don't think the jokes didn't come quickly..) Your right arm works the bellows, and your left the bag, getting just exactly the right amount of air into and out of both, while your fingers play the notes on the chanter. One cannot, by the way see ones fingers, or the holes on the chanter.
My task this week is to play ONE note, steadily, without wavering. If I manage that, I move onto learning the finger positions for a scale.
Joe said today to me that if you cut open his heart and pulled it out, what you would hear would be Ullieann Pipes.
I have to say, I think the same is true for me.
Love and Pipes,
Lorraine
posted by FabulousLorraine @ 6:33 PM
35 Comments
35 Comments:
Cool, sounds like great fun - have fun practicing your note!
Fun, uh, not sure fun is the right word, hee-hee. It's REALLY hard. I'm going to do short sessions, four or five times day.
ummmm, i should be doing bills - thank god you posted this evening! I can't google the pipes you have as i can't spell it and a bit too lazy to copy/paste- uille.... something or other :) so, these you don't blow into? do they sound like bagpipes? the leather strapping thingies sound a bit on the kinky side! oh danguy has enabled comments for a bit on your boss' journal, and has put a link to your blog on the site too!
heat was brutal today here too - tomorrow sposed to hit 90- so glad i don't teach tomorrow as we would all look like wilted lettuce - art bldg is not air conditioned. i hope you enjoy your french class, and find it fun - auditing is great, particularly when the rest of class is sweating over the tests.
I feel a bit like wilted lettuce right now, I do admit...
Hadn't seen that on Boss's blog, must go look. Sneaky Danguy!
Yes, you don't blow into them, it's all weird, and perhaps a bit.....
I knew that you don't blow into the Uilleann pipes. I remember seeing an Uilleann piper trying out for the band in The Commitments. he didn't make it into that band.
Pipes are difficult to learn, or, at least, I've never heard anyone claim it was easy. I know a man who was learning to play the great pipes when he was in the Army serving during the Vietnam Conflict. He took them to Vietnam, and practiced in the field. A good bit away from his squad. Granted, I didn't get to hear him play until he'd gotten quite good at it, but can you imagine what was going through a native's head at hearing the sounds coming from someone learning to play bagpipes?
The uilleann pipes look pretty complicated, between the bellows and the chanter and all. I just wiki'ed them and didn't realize how many parts there were..a lot to keep track of at once!
Ariandalen I can just imagine some poor Vietnamese farmer thinking "What in the heck is that weird noise?" LOL Bet the wildlife got spooked too.
Well, I don't know what I did wrong on my hyperlink, but it goes to the IMDB.com page for the movie "The Commitments," which I didn't realize had come out quite that long ago (1991). ::sigh::
Woooohoooo! Bondage!
Hem.
Seems like this playing is going to take a lot of coordination skill. I had to laugh imagining the public lesson.
Never mention straps when Nathalie's around...
Huzzah! Pipe lessons! In public! I didn't know that you don't actually blow into them-- I'd been imagining you'd have to do breathing exercises. :D (My flute teacher used to make me do that.) Good luck with the note! And yay for cool gigs! Your shows sound really fun. I want to see you guys rock out.
Have fun with the French lessons! Everybody's going back to school... I don't know that I want to go be a student again, but I miss being on campus. :)
One sustained note sounds like a worthy goal.
I really have to wonder about how they name these storms. It's like they want the public to know which Mad Scientist is behind each one.
Thanks for the Mitch Benn video, Dan. He is brilliant.
I mentioned straps BECAUSE Nathilie is arpund, hee-hee...
They are beyond frustrating, I get one bit going and the others all fail miserably . I may not get this note today, I've done two practices and squawked horridly both times.
Merry Housekeeper laughs and laughs....
I can't believe it is 1:00 and I am JUST getting my morning comments in. A bit busy today, things are.
Have had no tea yet either!!!! And I've been up and at it since 8.
Hmmmpf. Such a world.
Stretchy time says it's only 2:00 pm in Minnesota, which means there's still time for afternoon tea! Have a chai for me-- I'm out. I need vicarious chai.
Vicarious Chai is another good name for a band! Or title for your debut bagpipe album.
It's nice to know that you cater from my old story's tastes, dear. Leather straps...
What with you being so quiet, Lorraine, it did seem that life was a bit hectic your way.
Woke up to a LOT of e-mail. And I always wake up to lots of e-mail....
You will hopefully soon be living this Bagpipe expierence more than vicariously. I just figured out how to record them with garage band.
Now I just need someone to tell me how to post a sound file in the blog, and you can share in the pain!!
I tried to see if I could post a story on my blog but it seems you can only post pictures or videos.
There must be a clever way to do this...
(Sorry I haven't been around -- lack of Internet at home propels me to the library and all were closed on Sunday and Monday. Sob.)
Congratulations on learning something new and wonderful (and doing it in public)!
~Emily
Looks like you need somewhere to host the sound files, but you can use "Link Fields" under the Settings/Formatting tab to do it.
/help desk
ACK! Ok, so it can be done, but it makes my little brain hurt!
I have it in I tunes. And I do have Last FM. But I am lost in a sea of Tech. My brain isn't wired that way!
Help!!!!!
I'm not sure I quite understand it either, so I've been messing around with my settings just now. I think this is how it's supposed to work:
If you go into Blogger Settings and look under "Formatting", there's a thing that says "Enable Link Fields?" Set that to "yes."
Then go to post a new post: right under the "Title" box you'll see another one called "Link." I think you should be able to enter the url of the audio file there, and then people can click the link to download the file-- it turns the post into a podcast.
The other option might be to embed a one-track LastFM playlist into the post itself-- I think LastFM will let you do that. If you switch to HTML mode in Blogger and copy/paste the embed code there, the LastFM player should show up in the body of the post. Does that help at all?
Whoops! Addendum: if you're using Link Fields, click on that little thing that says "Show enclosure links"-- that's where you stick your audio file's url, not that little box next to "Link". I think.
*runs far, far away before Lorraine's internets implode* ;)
ACK! You've imploded me!!!!!
Run quickly, I am going to chase you....
I should be able to put it up on Last FM, and just link to that, perhaps.
Tho, then the whole world will be able to listen to me. I am very brave, aren't I???
I called Kitty and left her a bagpipe voicemail message, hee-hee, something to go to sleep on...
Apparently, Last FM doesn't think it is an audio file.
(Perhaps what Last FM is really saying is that this is not MUSIC, hee-hee)
But I just e-mailed the file to myself, and when I click on it, it opens right into Garageband.
So if you want it, e-mail me. And if you can post it somewhere, feel free to.
It's painful tho...
that will, no doubt, get Kitty up and moving if she listens to it in the morning.
can you put it on a myspace page?
totally don't know how to do this audio thingy.. but I bet you Malena will!!! After all, I started watching this blog when Neil mentioned (in October 2005) that Malena had asked him how to post a song on your website lorraineamalena.com... and the songs were there for a while so Malena should know how.
how is fabulouslorraine.com coming?
totally forgot that bit in The Commitments.
ah Nat, straps indeedy.
ok, fablo, I have to tell you, watching you strap yourself into that thing did make me giggle..
I swear everytime she played a note, a new storm rolled in.. where did they come from again??? hehe
I have a friend who lived in Dublin for 2 years and learn to play the pipes while there, they're amazing but hard!
Now he's in Sydney...maybe he'll try the didgeridoo next?
Good luck!
It's roasting here, 90+ and we don't have A/C becuase it's not supposed to get that hot! I think I'll take Ben down to the beach since it's always cooler down there. He likes to smash the sand I mound up and call a castle.
Dan Guy is working on putting the Day One Of Piping up. We'll see what he does and I can post the link after Doggie Boot Camp.
It was pretty funny, and a new storm did roll thru every time I piped, Who knows what will happen when I can really play them?
They ARE hard. To Quote one Pipe Website....
"It's do-able, but you have to both concentrate and relax. "
Heh.
I can now hold my one note much better than this morning, and have started on the scale.
We were 90 here and humid but the storm washed all the heat away. Fabulouslorraine.com just needs me to tell the Webgoblin what I want done, more or less. Sort of. I think.
OK, one more practice then off to dog school...
Hurrah for pipe lessons! I would like the music file; that'd be cool.
Chicken soup is very, very good. Jess, I think I put way too much spinach and basil in your version. ;/ But Boss' version turned out well, in spite of slightly burning everything for a couple of minutes (geez, you fall asleep while it's boiling, and look what happens).
I can't wait to hear the pipes!
I have no coffee, only ginger tea and have not been able to open my eyes properly today. I bet the pipes would do it. :)
Tomorrow is M's first day back to school and I get to read sonnets all day. As long as I can find enough quarters for coffee I will be a happy girl.
Hope you had fun at dog class. I can't believe the drop in temperature today. It is so beautiful right now. I may actually need a jacket in the AM.
Oh, and, I made Rata-what-not for dinner. YUM!
I should be able to post a link after dog school, then you can all suffer with me.
My piping could wake up the DEAD. (Which is kind of cool)
I know! I may need a jacket, it went from 90 to 70 in like an hour...
Yay! Pipes!
The boy and I had them at our wedding. Even better - they were *stealth* bagpipes, up behind the wedding guests and in the balcony. Few knew that we had even hired them, and those few didn't know when they would play. There was just a speech, a moment of silence while the boy and I grinned knowingly, and then WHAM! I wish I had videotape of the audience response. :)
Pipes at a wedding! very cool! My friend's husband had pipes play "amazing grace" at her funeral which reduced us to utter messes. Was a beautiful way to say goodby.
Cool weather!!! Is it coming our way? was brutally hot and humid - felt sorry for the kids going back to school today. i had irish dance class and it was like breathing hot fog, ugh, we were NOT too peppy.
MY piping could well reduce you to tears....(Hee-hee)
Danguy is trying. I just don't seem to be able to save it in any known format....
Agh-- sorry to have imploded your internets, Lorraine! Dan Guy will know what to do. Of all webgoblins, he is webbiest. Erm. Yes. (And any trauma I suffer from dodgy notes will be well-deserved, so honk away. :D )
Glad the soup was good, Val! No such thing as too much spinach and basil in my book-- I sort of go with whatever quantities I've got, and whatever I feel like.
Stealth bagpipes! Brilliant! :D
And yes, I meant to make that comment too! Stealth Bagpipes at a wedding! That's the best, Mistres Mousie!
I think Danguy has figured it out, because he IS the Webgoblin!
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