Saturday, March 14, 2015

The Adventure, Part Three: August 3 - September 1, 2014 - Bagpipes, friends and relatives


August 2014 was my third long trip to the Czech Republic and the first where a major portion of the trip was not part of an organized tour. It had been a dream of mine for a number of years to attend the bagpipe festivals in Domažlice and Strakonice and I wanted to participate in a two-day workshop on the Czech bagpipe (dudy) before the Domažlice festival. The ten days between the festivals I would mostly be staying with friends in Brno, with a weekend break to visit distant relatives in Veselí nad Lužnicí and the surrounding Blata area. Another dudy player from Nebraska, Sue Placek, and her husband would be joining me for the Strakonice festival and we planned to travel together by rental car the week after, doing some exploring and shopping for the Czech museum in Wilber, Nebraska.


So that was the basic structure for the trip. The challenge was getting between the various locations by a combination of buses and trains. I have very limited Czech, a tiny bit of German, (and a good background in French which seems to be useless in the Czech Republic!) I had taken a train and a bus solo on my 2009 trip and had done a fair amount of research ahead of time on the http://jizdnirady.idnes.cz website, which allows you to search train and bus schedules in English. So I knew it was possible to make connections and get where I needed to go. But transfers needed to happen, sometimes from bus to bus, sometimes from train to bus, and this was where things got difficult.

Saying goodbye to twin grandchildren for a month:



Son and twins, with daughter and another grandchild on the way:


August 4, 2014 - Domazlice


OMG. I am in Domazlice. I have been traveling for 22 hours. After two planes, the trip from the Praha airport to Domažlice involved 3 buses. I did manage with some help in Plzeň to locate to bus to Domažlice. What I didn’t realize was that there was more than one bus stop in Domažlice, so instead of getting off at the one that was two blocks from my pension, I got off at one where the center of town was not visible and I wasn’t sure what direction to go. It was a long, hot walk to the city center where a street vendor and a couple of students helped point me in the general direction for the pension. I found it, but the door was locked and no one answered the bell. There was a phone number to call, but I didn’t have a cell phone, only an iPad that would work when I could get a wi-fi connection. Eventually, a housekeeper showed up and called the owner. There was some confusion about my arrival date, but they agreed to have a room ready for me if I could wait an hour. This was all negotiated with only very few words and some hand gestures on my part and some help from the housekeeper, who also let me into the room to use the toilet and get a drink of water while she was getting it ready, as she saw how sweaty and stressed I was. Scary, but I'm relieved to not be starting to look for a room now at festival time! The reservation had been made a year in advance, with an arrival two days earlier than planned, once I knew I needed to pick up my new bagpipe tomorrow. I thought the early arrival date had been confirmed, but maybe not?


Domažlice is really a lovely little town. Will be glad to be spending a week here. 

My sidewalk dinner spot.









The bus schedule for tomorrow back to Stod, which I had gone through today on my way here.




August 5, 2014 - Domazlice


This morning, I needed to retrace some of my previous bus journey to get back to Stod, where I was picking up a new bagpipe and leaving my old one for repair with Lubomir Jungbauer. I wasn’t sure if he was meeting me at the bus stop or if I was walking to his house. I had his address and a Google map route for walking, so when he wasn’t at the bus stop, I walked and found it with no problem. Though this visit was a business transaction, I was again reminded of Czech hospitality. Marie Jungbauer served 5 different pastries, as well as a full tray of chlebíčky for our 10 a.m. gathering, and while I wanted to try everything, there was no way I could eat that much, especially since I was supposed to be trying out the new bagpipe and communicating without words about the repairs needed on my old bagpipe. Marie Jungbauer and I finally ended up using a small Czech-English dictionary she had to point to words, so the other would know what we were trying to say. In this way I was able to explain what Minnesota was like and about my grandchildren.

Then back to town to find the location for tomorrow's bagpipe workshop. The rest of the time will be for exploring town and getting used to the new bagpipe before class tomorrow!

Simple victories! Discovered that I forgot to pack a single pen or pencil. I could use the iPad for notes to myself, but seemed rude to me to show up to class tomorrow without a writing implement! I had walked by a large number of shops this afternoon with no success and happened upon a paper goods store and remembered, of course, that would be the place! Mission accomplished! Then had a nice local lunch and remembered to order a salad to get some vegetables besides potatoes!

Amazing when the clock says it's midnight and your body thinks it's late afternoon, how noticeable the town bells are that ring the time every 15 minutes! Last night I panicked thinking I had overslept and couldn't figure out why so many bells were ringing. Got up and checked the clock - it was only midnight! Awake at the same time tonight and surprised not to be sleepy after the missed night Sunday to Monday. Still on Minnesota time for a bit yet. May need to buy a small fan for sleeping in the heat?























My new dudy, picked up this morning. A bit more ornate than the older one. The challenge for tomorrow's workshop is that it plays completely differently than what I'm used to - size of the bag when inflated, amount of pressure to maintain the sound, position of the chanter - so I expect to sound like a rank beginner tomorrow. Argh!!!






Folk Museum closed for renovation - drat!




August 6, 2014 - Domažlice - Bagpipe Workshop, Day One


Of course you have to get yourself here and bring your own bagpipe, but I'm still amazed to be getting two mornings and two afternoons of master classes from expert teachers for the sum total of $20!

Today was the bagpipe workshop. I had found the building the day before so I knew where I needed to be. Very intense day. Lots of Czech spoken with only minimal translation. I could tell by hand gestures that I was being introduced as from America and not speaking much Czech. There was a beginner’s session and an advanced session. I was the only non-Czech attending and they were a little flustered about my lack of Czech. They divided up into the two groups and told me to follow one set to another room. I was not sure if I had been placed with the beginners or the advanced attendees. Most of the people my age were in the other class, while the younger folks were in my class, so I assumed this was beginners. They decided that I should be the first to play for the master teacher. I was using the new bagpipe that I had gotten the day before and had only had a few minutes to play on it. The air bag and position of the finger holes were different from my old pipes and I had difficulty getting a good tone and covering the holes. But at least I had something I could play from memory with no warning.

The format turned out to be what I would call a master class. We each had to play for the master and then he commented and made suggestions on how we could improve. He started with me, so without knowing anything about the skill level of the others, I had to play a piece from memory. I chose Na Bíle Hoře as a personal favorite and something I was pretty sure of remembering. He then explained my issues for several minutes in Czech to the other students and briefly to me as best he could in English. I was having some pretty frustrating issues with the new pipes, so sounded not so great. It was made clear to me that a piper who doesn't sing while playing is only half a piper! Fortunately the mother of one of the younger students was able to translate some of what he was saying and she took on a mentoring role with me for the two days of the workshop. Then I had to sight read the piece the class "traditionally" performs together after the workshop. He was impressed with my reading and sense of rhythm. Once the young people began to play and sing, I realized I had to be in the advanced class – they were pretty amazing. The star student was 18 and had been playing since he was 7. He was very honored to have been asked to play at the Strakonice festival later in August. 

The last part of the morning was all six of us playing the group piece for tomorrow, which was a total thrill for me, as this is more dudy players than we have in the U.S. I'd never played with more than one before, and that only once! Then we shifted to folk songs from memory and I sang along roughly in Czech as they were songs I play.

Lunch break and then we repeated the process with the solos we will be performing tomorrow!!! I was encouraged to not go first but to go get more used to the instrument before my turn. It is getting some better, but they convinced me to go for slow and simple tomorrow as the best option under the circumstances.

Two of the Prague students were there with their teacher, and he took me out in the hall and we switched instruments. He saw that I could play pretty effortlessly on his instrument and he could experience the issues with mine. We went back in and he had the teacher try my pipes and he made some of the strange bleats I had been making, which was very satisfying, to say the least! He thinks my dudy should be redone to be playable with more strength, as mine seems to be set for a smaller or less strong person. But that won't happen by tomorrow, so slow and simple it will be for my public solo.

We then ended with more work on the three group pieces. I am invited to lunch with the group tomorrow, but for today I was glad to get away to regroup for the afternoon on my own.

Tomorrow's advanced teacher is Josef Kuneš, who Call of Dudy fans will recognize as the lead piper for Domažlice Dudácká Muzika, so I'm glad to have had someone I hadn't heard of for the first day. I'm, of course, supposed to practice for hours before tomorrow's class, but I'm exhausted and not sure how dudy will go over in the pension!!! But I'll for sure do some work.

Domažlice is near the border with Germany, so it's assumed if you are not local, you are German. What this meant tonight at dinner is that I ordered in my pronunciation of the Czech item and the waiter repeated in German to make sure he understood. Only serious consequence is that we had a misunderstanding about whether I wanted another beer or not - silly question, but we rectified this later by my holding up my coaster and looking sad!

In class today, when we were discussing slow and simple for my solo for tomorrow, the teacher from Prague demonstrated Amazing Grace as an option! I was of course hysterically laughing and fortunately the woman who could translate for me explained that I only do that for funerals! At which point the main teacher suggested Oh, Suzanna, which I also declined. I'll stick with my simple Czech folk song, thank you very much!

Photos: Door sign, a couple of students (Jura Pavlíček on left), and our teacher for today, Václav Švik.




Phone numbers for my pension:


Shop where Dave Martin's fanfrnoch and vozembouch came from!






Festival of St. Lawrence starting Friday!