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!
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