I share a student's viral pipe-band arrangement of Sound of Silence before walking through my full system of shorthand symbols for marking up sheet music. A small set of consistent marks — for holding a note, cutting it short, playing exactly on the beat, a wrong note, false fingering, and crossing noise — replaces vague circles you won't remember the meaning of a week later.
Every tune worth real practice time deserves two pages, not one: the sheet music, and a separate tune success log tracking what's good, what needs work, and the fix. The log format is borrowed from an Olympic shooting coach's book, and it's built specifically to capture both what's working and what isn't, not just a list of flaws.
Member questions turn to playing bagpipes at altitude, where thin air, temperature, and humidity each cause distinct problems worth solving separately. A Tone Protector keeps a reed stable at a set humidity level, and a dedicated plastic chanter is the practical answer for extreme conditions a wood chanter can't handle.
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Video🔒 Members Only
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Taking Notes on Your Tunes and Sound of Silence Video
Matching recorded tempo part tone and across every🔒
Why bagpipe recordings edit to are so hard🔒
covers on Copyright and YouTube🔒
vague on circles don't sheet work music Why🔒
core hold, The and cut, on-the-beat symbols:🔒
Wrong missing notes extra notes, and notes,🔒
and noise False fingering crossing🔒
success tune The log🔒
at bagpipes elevation playing Q&A:🔒
reeds reviving old Q&A:🔒
About this class
🔒 The write-up and the quotes from this class are part of the members’ page.
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Key takeaways & member Q&A are for members
Inner Circle members get the full notes, every member question I answered, and the complete searchable class.
📜 Full class transcript
🔒 Members Only
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The complete transcript is for members
Every word of this class, cleaned up and time-linked to the video — plus transcript search across the whole library.