Listening to Mary Bergin’s CDs again - Feadoga Stain 1&2. Every time I do that i think: “damn, how cool she is!”
She’s so different from the whistle you hear in Flook/Dervish/Lunasa/Deanta/whatever. When I try to copy ornaments from Flook playing, I slow that down and wonder - “what the heck, how is that done?”. When I listen to Bergin’s playing, there’s no need to slow down to understand: there’s no “magic” there. I know every ornament she plays, no “cool tricks” involved. But the music she plays is just plain beautiful.
And that’s the real magic.
( just a small IMHO, to dilute the numerous whistle threads with a whistling one )
Yeah, I got those CD’s not long ago, and I’m listening to them a lot. Lovely.
One thing I have always wondered about was why she plays so much music in (somewhat) unusual keys…I know most people do some in other keys, but she seems to do it a lot. Anyone know why?
She’s using different whistles to get different feel and sound and tone. It’s pretty standard for a lot of whistle albums, I think, and ditto for piping and fluting. I don’t know about no tricks though. How she plays is every bit as tricky as Flook or whoever, just in a different way, and especially to achieve a different style. I do think it’s a lot more subtle and it’s easy to think “I’ve got it exactly like her” only to go back in a year and find tons more you didn’t hear before. I do that pretty regularly, in fact. Well, just the hearing more. I don’t think I’ll ever think I’ve got anything exactly as someone else.
Well, no, I don’t think I can get it “like her”. You can play the same ornaments, but the music will be different, as the music is not only about ornaments.
Grey Larson transcribed a tune or two of hers in his whistle and flute book and she does some things that sound like one thing but are actually (according to Grey) another. For example she uses a ‘shake’ in Old Joe’s Jig, which sounds kind of like a double cut. And if you listen enough you’ll hear how she changes her tunes up, first time through tongueing a pair of repeated notes then cutting them the second time. There a million things to listen for in her music. It’s a master class in articulation.
I’m not sure I agree with that. Brian Finnigan maybe, since his style is deliberately idiosyncratic. But the rest - Bergin, McGoldrick, Crawford, Smyth, Kelly, et al. - all share the same basic underlying musical grammar and vocabulary. They’re no more different from Mary Bergin than they are from each other. I agree with Nico and FJohn … Bergin’s playing is as subtle and complex as anyone’s. The magic of anyone’s playing is always in the details.
I think what he means is that she is strictly traditional and raw, while the others have a little contemporary flare to their music. She is an unbelievable whistle player though, I love to listen to her. Her style is different from a lot though, I can tell if it is her playing vs. Crawford or the others.
Just to be argumentative, that’s my point. What exactly is “raw” about her playing? And how is she more “strictly traditional” than other trad players? I’m not sure what that means.
If one day Mary Bergin substituted for Kevin Crawford on a Lúnasa recording, would you actually be able to say “Aha, that’s Mary Bergin playing, not Breda Smyth or Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh”, and not simply “Hm, that’s not Kevin Crawford”. I’d bet not.
In other words, I think the dichotomy of Mary Bergin vs. “Crawford or the others” is a false dichotomy.
Maybe it’s partly the solo recordings. Even Mary admitted that she wasn’t entirely happy with the recording quality of Feadóga Stáin 1. Maybe it’s hearing whistle played in the context of a band with lots of rhythmic backup and sometimes syncopated arrangements that gives an impression of different style and technique. But I’d still argue that the players have much more in common than not, and that “trad space” is not two-dimensional but multi-dimensional, with individual players occupying different but equally traditional points within it.
I actually can tell the difference between all of their styles. Kevin uses a lot of tounging in his playing. Lunasa is trad/contemporary while, Mary Bergin is a great old school player. A lot of younger players play more like Kevin and Michael M., and not like Mary anymore. I really can’t explain it, but her style is very different. Her and Joanie are the crann queens.
The Bothy Band is old school, where as Lunasa has a newer sound to it. Just using a plain old Generation over a more high end whistle. She has more of a raspy instead of pure tone, and I don’t think she plays low whistle either.
Well, that’s an example (Bothy Band), not really a definition (or explanation). When Mary Bergin plays her Sindt, she’s no longer old school? If I play my Freeman Blackbird with its clean tone, that’s “new school”? When Paddy Keenan plays low whistle, is that new or old?
Compare, say, Mary Bergin’s playing of Sliabh Russell on Feadóga Stáin 2 (Track 9) with Kevin Crawford’s whistling of the very same tune on Lúnasa’s Otherworld (Track 3). How do you describe the old vs. new stylistic differences between those two whistle performances? Why does Mary use more tonguing in her setting than Kevin does in his?
I’ll admit I’m just having some fun here and trying to draw out some assumptions, not trying to be mean. But I think there’s a whole tangle of memes here that get echoed in settings like C&F, and that don’t necessarily stand up to either scrutiny or listening.
Listen Guru, I know you don’t want to take this to proctology do you??!! Only kidding, I know this argument is all in good fun. I understand fully what you are asking, and it is a great question. I am just not the one to explain, I have difficulty explaining stuff on a forums.
Seriously … I understand what you’re saying, and was kind of where you’re at, when I first got re-interested in Irish trad; my first two CD buys were Solas and Lúnasa.
This is it. It’s not really feasible to characterize stylistic differences with just a few broad generalizations. There’s a lot going on.
Try playing one of Mary’s tunes (or any one of your favorite players) note for note and record it when you think you’re close to achieving the same sound. Then play it back, compare, and you’ll know how much you missed.
Only kidding, I know this argument is all in good fun. 
I understand fully what you are asking, and it is a great question. I am just not the one to explain, I have difficulty explaining stuff on a forums. 