If you don’t listen for it, you won’t hear it…but others will.

Many years ago, legendary PM Alex Robertson gave me a gift. “Ringo, you can learn by listening to other pipers, even the worst of us.” He encouraged me to analyze what I heard, embrace the good and avoid the bad. I paid attention to his words and developed a personal style that contrasted much of what I heard. At that time, tempos were generally quicker and embellishments were often “crushed” and distorted. I concluded that all the notes, even those within complicated embellishments, were meant to be played separately, distinctly, and sequentially. This became my mantra over the years.

In teaching, I often encounter embellishments where individual grace notes are not distinct. Students may be moving the right fingers, but at the wrong time. Notes overlap or they may be out-of-order. Sometimes additional notes are introduced in the form of crossing noises. Students are often unaware and plow through a piece oblivious to the errors in technique. This becomes ingrained and infects their entire repertoire.

Over the past several months I have required my students to record themselves. One tune. Any tune. Together we watch/listen to the recording. I have my student put on their “judge’s hat” and write down his or her comments. We review the recording again, referencing those notes. I provide my comments as we review the recording again. We repeat this until the student hears what I hear, can identify issues, and correct the technique. This takes time, patience, and perseverance, for both of us. The reward is monumental.

We’ll dive deeper into this in subsequent Average Piper posts.