Somebody told me that they heard Mary taught students in one of her classes a tune from Packie Manus Byrne’s book, A Dossan of Heather, and I am curious to know whether she did or not. Many thanks.
I was in her morning class and that title isn’t familiar at all. If she did teach it I would guess it was in her afternoon class.
That’s the name of the book. I don’t know which tune she might have taught. Could you list the tunes you learned? Thx!
Oh, ha! I had a look at the tunes in the book and Mary Bergin didn’t teach any of them to us. At least I think so, there are lots of tunes on that list and I didn’t look very diligently. Here are the tunes she taught to the morning class:
The Bride’s Favorite
First House in Connaught
Drunken Landlady
Woman of the House
Flax in Bloom
The Chattering Magpie
The Swan
Sport
Great tunes, those. Well maybe it was in the other class - otherwise, the information I got must be the result of some wires getting crossed. Thank you.
I was only there for a day, but I know that she did teach Donnybrook Fair, The Duke of Leinster, and a hornpipe in her afternoon class. I can’t remember the name of the hornpipe though.
So what do you do in a Mary Bergin class. Does she teach mainly tunes? or does she go into technique, articulation, musicality? Do you learn by ear or with music?
I was only in the afternoon class for the first day, but IIRC she taught Rose in the Heather.
I was in the morning class all five days. She taught us two tunes each day, by ear, and with each tune she did get into technique, articulation, etc. She told us about, and demonstrated very effectively, jig phrasing and reel phrasing. Once we learned the day’s tunes by ear she wrote out the notes, kind of like ABC, and then Jean (don’t know her last name, the one who did the Joanie Madden book and Mary Bergin book) copied it for us. If she happened to have the tune transcribed in her book she copied that for us, too.
It was a very enlightening class and I’m very glad I took it!