Linzi Murphy’s 2nd session with Anne Neilson
Well I seemed to do alright with my homework from the first mentoring session with Anne Neilson, though I did find the listening exercise and critique of Arthur Argo’s version of ‘Lord Ronald’ quite tricky. It’s really useful to compare my notes to Anne’s and to find out what I should be listening for as opposed to what I may have been. The other part of my homework was to start learning ‘Mary Hamilton’ (also known as ‘The Four Marys’) to a melody that I was given. I had heard other versions of the song sung to similar tunes and I found it hard to learn a different version but gave it my best shot, even though I wasn’t particularly confident or comfortable enough with the song yet. Then we discussed the song and how historically accurate it may or may not be. I really like finding the hidden meanings in things, for example the various birds in ballads are often wee clypes, and they tell tales of what has happened. This serves the purpose of moving the story along and I think it has a moral meaning of ‘the truth will come out in the end’ kind of thing.
My homework is to learn Marie Hamilton without using the lyric sheet, and to work on sustaining notes.