Sixth Competition First Place Piobaireachd

The Williamsburg Scottish Festival was a nice surprise. The venue was very nice, the judge's tents were about 30 feet from the water where a dam is located. All in the shade, so I warmed up under a tree. My first event was the piobaireachd ground, I have spent time with the "The Little Spree" with my teacher and countless hours practicing the "otros" and "edres", phrasings, bar endings, line endings, not to mention the last line of the ground, which needed a mature understanding. Although it took a long time to put it together confidently, playing it with correct phrasings, pausing at the end of each bar and holding longer at the end of the lines made the tune better from last year's second place. The tune was played slower, and the judge noted it, the phrase endings did get the time it needed to announce the beginning of the next phrase. The F was emphasized, the edres and otros were a lot cleaner with the Low G

sounding big. cont......