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The nine notes of the standard bagpipe scale gives us 81 possible two note combinations. Add in a third note and we have 729 possible three-note combinations. But some of these combinations are trickier than others to master. A very common, yet mysteriously difficult-to-master combination of notes is A-B-C — where the A is long and the B is short. It often appears with a grip on the C, as is found in Green Hills of Tyrol:Or, sometimes there's a doubling on the C, as found in The Duke of Roxburgh's Farewell to the Blackmount Forest: And the third part of the Conundrum: Like in all of our tunes, the challenge is to keep the dotted notes long, keep the cut notes short, and keep the embellishments clean. So why is this so hard to master in these examples with the Long A-Short B-C? Even when you focus on holding the Low A, why is the B resistant ...