I must say, your last strike gave me a chuckle! Overall, in some of your recent performances, I've noticed that the tempo tends to be a bit excited. You might benefit from relaxing your playing, which should help improve your strikes and prevent your grace notes from feeling rushed or cut. I wondered if your marching might be contributing to excessive chanter movement, making strikes more challenging, and covering that G1 chanter can feel quite wide at times. At home, I try to always play with a metronome on my phone, which has a visual or play along to a full band, paying attention to the drums. Sometimes I'll use an earbud in one ear as well. You have some strong grips, and I've heard you really nail some taorluaths, which is great. However, your throws on D could use some practice. I've struggled with them myself and found that practicing them slowly with the little finger pinned to the low G, gradually increasing speed, then lifting the pinky for the full movement as written and bringing the speed up again, really helps. Your strike-ins and strike-outs are decent. To take them to the next level, try tuning your ear to the drones for correct timing, followed by a strong anacrusis or leading note given it's full weight; if the tune has one, and then dive into it. This really helps set a statement that you are here to play and settles the rush into the tune. I listened to your first solo, and I think you did well for the grade. There are some takeaways from it, but for a first solo hit-out, you should be proud-it's not easy learning as an adult. Keep at it, mate the meaningful practice is showing!
I must say, your last strike gave me a chuckle! Overall, in some of your recent performances, I've noticed that the tempo tends to be a bit excited. You might benefit from relaxing your playing, which should help improve your strikes and prevent your grace notes from feeling rushed or cut. I wondered if your marching might be contributing to excessive chanter movement, making strikes more challenging, and covering that G1 chanter can feel quite wide at times. At home, I try to always play with a metronome on my phone, which has a visual or play along to a full band, paying attention to the drums. Sometimes I'll use an earbud in one ear as well.
You have some strong grips, and I've heard you really nail some taorluaths, which is great. However, your throws on D could use some practice. I've struggled with them myself and found that practicing them slowly with the little finger pinned to the low G, gradually increasing speed, then lifting the pinky for the full movement as written and bringing the speed up again, really helps.
Your strike-ins and strike-outs are decent. To take them to the next level, try tuning your ear to the drones for correct timing, followed by a strong anacrusis or leading note given it's full weight; if the tune has one, and then dive into it. This really helps set a statement that you are here to play and settles the rush into the tune.
I listened to your first solo, and I think you did well for the grade. There are some takeaways from it, but for a first solo hit-out, you should be proud-it's not easy learning as an adult. Keep at it, mate the meaningful practice is showing!
thank you for the detailed feedback! you will see it adjusted in future videos.
Very well done! What microphone do you use? It seems to pick up the bagpipe very well.
Just my phone