File: biggarjackie06-oh-tunememory_M.mp3
Speakers:
JB – Jackie Biggar
KP – curator Ken Perlman
And a lot of times when I was learnin' I'd have a dream that I learnt the tune; I'd get up in the morning and play it. I'd be friggin' with it that night, and couldn't get it. I had the tune in my head but I just couldn't get it into the fingers. And then you just just wake up in the morning, and you say, "Jeez I dreamt that tune, I could play that tune." And you grab it and you play it! Slick as can be! I don't do that now, but I used to, when I was learnin', when I was young.
KP: A lot of fiddlers used to say they could hear a tune twice and they'd have it; does that sum it up?
JB: Yeah pretty well. We'll go to practice there (with the Prince County Fiddlers) and Jim [MacDougall] came up with a new tune. And I haven't heard it before so I'll get him to play it three or four times. And just while we're practicing they probably'll play it the first [time], and ten, fifteen, twenty minutes they'll play it again, and the third time – not all the time, I can't do it for every tune, but sometimes – you just, bang -- play the tune there. If you can hear it in your head, and know what you're listening to, then you should be able to play it.
