Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Dunshire Bagpipe Forum 11/29.06

Playing tunes above your grade. (my comments on playing for my son's solos)

I say give it a shot. I'm in a little different situation, but the intimidation factor was the same.My son is a grade IV drummer and I'm a grade IV piper. He's 11 years old and I'm 48 years old. He is a much better drummer than I am a piper, but his instructor encouraged me to pipe for him in his competitions. Now I don't mind if I screw up my own competition because I can deal with my own mistakes. I was petrified of messing up my son's competition. I got on these forums in the drumming topics and voiced my concerns. I especially wanted to know how my performance might effect his. I was told that my son should find the best piper possible to play with him, but that we had an advantage in being able to practice together. I was also told that judges would be paying more attention to the drummer than the mistakes of the piper and that as long as the piper kept the tempo it shouldn't effect the score.I also had a discussion with my son and expressed my concerns to him. He didn't really care about winning anything, he just wanted me to play for him.I went ahead and played for my son in his four competitions this year. He placed 2nd, 3rd and 4th in three of the competitions. All of his competitions had at least five competitors and the one he placed fourth in had twelve. I played fairly well in all but one of the competitions and the one I messed up on I was still able to keep the tempo up and he placed 2nd. Interestingly enough, he placed over many drummers who had much better pipers playing for them.He likes having me play for him and I enjoy it as well. To me that is the most important. Of course, our goal was to have fun and not necessarily to win anything. If your goal is to win then you'll have enough pressure trying to prepare your own solos.

No comments:

Blog posts