This is my (mostly) instructional piping blog. As I approach 60 (I’m 57), I’m frequently amazed at how snippets of knowledge I’ve accumulated since I started piping in 1966 are grabbed up like gold nuggets by less experienced pipers. I toss off a comment on a forum somewhere, and people email me just to thank me for being me. It’s flattering. It’s humbling. It’s surreal.
Sometimes I understand it. Piping is how I make my living. I’ve had great instruction and I’ve thought long and hard about all of it. Some things have just seeped in through my ear holes because I was in the right place at the right time and just kept my mouth shut and listened. I sometimes don’t even know this stuff is in there until I write it down.
I learn a lot when I write, and I love doing it. That’s one reason I’m doing this. I’m also doing it because I like sharing what I’ve learned. I guess it’s good for my self-esteem. Maybe that’s part of what makes me a teacher.
But I’ll make no bones about it: I’m also blogging so you’ll have reason to come back to my site more than you otherwise might. Then maybe you’ll buy more of my sheet music or my pipes and books and I can keep doing what I love to do.
Some days I may post non-piping things here: feelings, opinions, notions, memories. But mostly it will be bits of piping knowledge that might be helpful to some. Kind of like this –
~Driving it home~
I teach piping at St. Andrew’s College, a wonderful independent boys’ school in Aurora, Ontario. I’m continually assigning tunes for a class to memorize. Not infrequently, a boy comes to me on ‘memory test’ day and says, “I’m sorry sir, but I tried and tried and I just couldn’t memorize this.”
I always give them the same answer, and it’s not a very charitable answer. “You didn’t try hard enough,” I say, with no hint of kidding in my voice. I’m a forgiving person, and I always give my boys the benefit of the doubt. But not in this area. Memorizing tunes is dog’s work. It’s tedious, and it’s boring. It’s one of piping’s more unpleasant necessities.
Often the boy will reply, “But sir, I must have played it 15, 20 times last night and it’s just not sticking!”
I say, “Try 100 times.” As he takes that stunning piece of information in, I drive the point home: “In fact, try 150.”
It’s no exaggeration. If someone hands me a 2-parted 4/4 march I’ve never heard before, I figure I have to play that tune at least 100 times — 10 times a day for 10 days — until it’s memorized. After that I have to play it on the pipes a couple of times a day for two weeks or I’ll lose it. If I don’t make it part of my permanent repertoire for the next 6 months it’ll slip away. Memorizing a tune is an ongoing commitment. It’s like a relationship.
The bad news is that the older I get, the longer it takes.
Everyone thinks the next guy memorizes faster than they do. Pipers are embarrassed by how long it takes them to memorize a tune. Don’t be. There are a small number who can do it remarkably quickly, but not many. I’m not one of them. I suspect you aren’t either.
100 times. Maybe more. I hate it. But it’s gotta be done. And don’t kid yourself: your bandmate is pounding through it just as many times as you are. He’s just not telling you that.
Welcome to memory work.
Welcome to my blog.
-JM
Welcome aboard…look forward to your wisdom,as in the past. Recalling our days together in the front rank of the Fraser’s, are my lessons free?
Hey Ken: you always paid with your lessons with your good nature and sense of humour. I just never bothered to tell you that!
Jim, I remember saying to you something very similar back in ’07 about a 4 part 2/4 you gave us at the summer school. By Friday I had it memorized and amazed myself. Not perfect mind you, but I could by in large make it through with minimal mistakes. Now when someone tells me they’ll never get it memorized, I tell them try again, it just takes practice and some work.
Hi Jim
Good information on learning tunes, i thought i was the only one who was having trouble trying to remember them. As i didn’t start learning the pipes until i was 51, its been a bit of a lesson in frustation as we don’t usually remember things as well the older we get. I do find that i have to spend a lot of time working on them but some seem to come faster than others and then some just won’t stick!! But as you say, play it 100 or 150 times and it will eventually find some nook or cranny in your brain to reside.
Thanks for the post and i will check it out often for more tidbits of information.
Thanks Jim. Your comments on memorization
Are spot on for me. There was a day when a tune was mine in minutes. For a long time it’s been months and seems to be getting worse. Your words give me encouragement to continue even though there are times I feel like giving in after all these years.
Ken
I look forward to more of these. This one really hit home as I thought it was just me having trouble memorizing tunes. I’m 54 years old and have clutched it as the reason it takes so long. May have to give that one up.
Our pipe teacher has always said that you know a tune when you can play it and think of something else while doing so. If that’s the bar, then I can play about three songs. I’ll do as you suggest Jim and feel much better doing so.
Hey Jim,
I’m really looking forward to reading your blog. Your first post was a home run for me as this is my biggest issue with regard to piping. You have always been helpful to me in my piping either directly or indirectly. Thank you for setting this up and I look forward to reading more.
All the best,
Gy
This will be a regular bookmarked stop for me. Your perspective and scope will be massively engaging for the struggling mass of hobby pipers like me.
Jim,
Your words are comforting. As a beginning piper – at age 57 – there are lots of struggles and memorization is but one. It encourages me to hear the amount of repeats needed – as I was thinking this was coming easier to my classmates. Maybe not so. I cling to a glimmer of hope that I may be “acceptable” sometime down the road and look forward to that day. Meanwhile, it’s back to Scotland the Brave for the 151st time…
Steve
Steve:
Listening to recordings of pipers playing the tunes I’m working on helps me to memorize them much quicker.
Steve
Thanks, Jim. I might have to read this a few times to keep it in memory- I am older than you;-) The bit about keeping it in your repetoire for months after memorizing it is a good one. There’s many a tune I knew dead cold, that turned up cold and dead a few weeks later when I tried to recall it.
Repeated practice of something till you get it right brings to mind a rare gem of Aliester Crowley’s “poetry”.. “the Mountaineer”. “Thought is a symptom of dis-ease. All conscious effort, all thought, all will is contrary to ease. Practice a thousand times.. it becomes difficult. Practice a Thousand times a Thousand…it becomes easy. Practice a thousand times a thousand thousand.. it is not you that does it, but it that does itself through thee”. Ok.. maybe that is more applicable to doublings & embellishments. 150 times through to memorize a Chune isn’t as many times through as it could be.
I like this blog its a master peace ! .
Ahighbloodpressurediet.com
If I really love a tune, the notes usually find a few viable brain cells to which to adhere themselves. But I’ve noticed (I am also nearing 60) that memorizing 6- or 8-part rounded hornpipes is a disaster for me. I favour strong, distinctive, traditional melodies more these days.
I think I just found my new favorite blog.
I hope you recieve many more emails thanking you for being you Jim
And I thought it was just me…
Have enjoyed your advice and instruction. Your books have been a great help in working toward a mastery of the basics – and I have a long way to go. Thanks for your contributions to the piping community and this blog in particular.
This is going to be really useful. I’m looking forward to coming here often – thanks for doing this, Jim!
Jim, I am a beginner age 62 and You are right memorizing a tune is quite a challenge for me. Thanks for that information. I need all the help I can get.
John:
You’re in good company. We are all beginners at this. I’ve been seriously working on piping for five years. I’m about to turn 65 and although I compete in Grade 3 with all the youngsters, I’m still struggling and feel very much like a beginner. It’s the stamina and finger agility for me. For memorizing, it helps me to find common phrases that reoccur throughout the tune. Keep up the good work and never give up.
Steve
I really enjoyed this post and especially the story about memorizing pieces. Its hard to memorize tunes, but you had some great points. I’ll be looking forward to reading more. Great work!
Thanks Jim!!!!!!!!!!!I’m looking forward to these little “chats” of yours. It’s good to get the thoughts and wisdom of someone we all respect. Keep it up.
Thanks Jim. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over, and over, and over again expecting to get different results. In that case, I’m as looney as they come because I keep playing the same piece over and over again hoping to lock it in somewhere in the grey, grey matter. At least you have shown me that I am in good company.
Looking forward to reading your posts. You are highly respected in my piping circle, and I know that you have a wealth of knowledge and experience that I can’t wait to read. Now, back to my GDE’s!
I enjoyed this blog and I am interested to find that learning pipe tunes is hard work for almost all pipers, not just a late starter like me. I have lost count of the number of times I have played Scotland the Brave on the chanter to get it right but at least now I know it’s not just me. I am a very determined beginner, hoping to be able to play my first tune on the pipes for my seventieth birthday later this year. According to my tutor I am making fairly good progress and I might just make it.
Great blog, I am looking forward to more, also Pipetunes is a great website. Thank you Jim.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
I have been struggling with memorizing a MSR. I got the music about six weeks ago and was getting frustrated with the memory “glitches”. At aged 53, I now realize that I’m being too hard on myself.
Thank you Jim…I am so glad that I discovered your blog. It is marked as a favourite.
Hey Jim – this is now my most “go-to” blog! Thanks for all the good tips, and reading the other comments have been so inspiring. There are so many folks that have posted who started the pipes later in life, as I did, and that gives me even more inspiration! I treasure those workshops in Shreveport that you came to so many years in a row. Now, it even makes more sense to me that I must play that tune over and over and over to nail it into my brain cells. I knew that, but seeing it posted and all the comments supporting that, well . . . sometimes us 50-plus aged students have to see it written out several times before it sinks in!!
Hi Jim – I just found this site, and love it!
This story about the kid who can’t remember a tune is great. Years ago when I studied jazz at York U. and had the great experience of meeting and working with Tommy Flanagan – a very gifted musician – I asked how on earth he could know so many tunes.
Tommy’s answer was: After the first thousand tunes or so, you start to see a pattern.
Yes. It is work. It is tedious. But one day it becomes easier.
Scott
Hi – as a retired half a….. pipe major, I was so glad to see that what I preached for years was true. Thank you for restoring my confidence which often slipped. memorizing os good for the soul. You get a real feeling of accomplishment when “You get it.” Annie