Bodhran players without ears!!!

Just a little gripe from the far south of Australia…lil ol Tasmania. As a percussionist the one thing about fellow bodhran players is that they have no concept of their sound and tuning. A battery of high pitched bodhrans is so annoying….they’d sound better in a middle eastern setting as their Egyptian cousins the Tar. A little water or ice is all that’s needed. Then of course there’s the story about the bodhran player who insisted on playing 6/8 to EVERYTHING….
Anyhow….is this a problem elsewhere in the world?

Not in Egypt.

Sorry….my history of that region is a bit iffy…..you know what I mean though…

Oh…..a bit slow this morning….I get it now….a joke.

It’s my private opinion that the worst thing that ever happened to the noble bodhran was Ringo McDonough’s discovery that you can bend the pitch UP, thereby creating an even more annoying instrument.

It’s been a curse ever since.

Some of the best bodhran playing on record is that of Mel Mercier on the first few chieftains records.

His technique was a simple as dirt, but oh, delivered with exquisite taste. Never a bomp out of place, and all the notes were good and low, they way they ought to be.

I once bought the bodhran video his son (peadar) put out, thinking that some of that impeccable taste might have rubbed off, but I was sorely disappointed.

Oops, got the names backwards. Peadar is the father, Mel the son

eddie cotter from my uncle’s band the kell’s plays well. he believes that the bodhran is the heart, that it lifts the music, not takes it over. on their newest cd, he blends in so well at first we thought he wasnt on the cd.

i disagree about the tuning thing. i think that its fun to tune them as you play them. but it shouldnt be played up the whole time. it should go up and down etc.

If a guy sells you a tar but tells you it’s a bodhran -- it means Egypt you.

Hey Jack, didn’t know you did cabaret!!! 🙂

Jim

Yes Jim, I’m a tar baby. 1 2 3 4 dum dum - tek dum tekka tek -- dum dum- tek dum tekka- tek -- dum dum - tek dum tekka tek -- dum dum- tek dum tekka- tek na nana na na na na naaaaaaaaaa ne na nana na na na na naaaaaaaaaa ne na nana na na na na naaaaaaaaaa tekka tek tek tek Ok… now do some floor work. taksim… ready?

Is this that song that goes “I said naa, na na na naaa, na na na naaaa, na na naaa, na na naaa…na na na NA!”

(Most profound rock lyrics EVER!)

What about inagodadavida?

Does tassiebodhran know about how we wreck threads?

another bodhran bashing thread? gosh, it seems like this happens about every other week or so.

Know what you mean, like there aren’t any tasteless Fiddlers !!!

PP

Or out of tune pipers 🙂

Yes, another bodhran player bashing thread.

But hey! there’s no smoke without a fire.



And what better for the fire than . . . .

Why slag off the bodhran when there are so many Bongo “players” coming to sessions these days? They are much louder too and, to my horror, I discovered last week that they are large enough to be shared. There were two guys playing the same drum simultaneously with room for more. 🙁

Bodhran players without ears haven’t a clue what is going on as their hat usually slips over their eyes due to their lack of ears.

Far worse offenders in my opinion are whistle players who play very loud susato whistles tomake themselves heard over the session and fiddles, flutes etc., who cannot keep proper time and speed up and slow down all over the place and play out of tune and people who keep starting bits of tunes but never finish them off. Lay off the bodhran people, its a fine instrument in its own right and there are abusers of every instrument in the tradition.

…and worse still the ones in the Generation game who play a quarter tone sharp and overblow for effect…..ye givers of tinnitus we thank ye all!

Jim

…and as far as I know, you can’t get tinnitus from a bodhran unless you’re inside one! 🙂

Jim - you could also damage your ears if you inserted a bodhran into the ear canal.

No, showaddydadito, you got it wrong. Bodhrans go in the ship canal. (Sorry John Joe if you’re reading this).

You callin’ me big ears, ya b***ard?

Jim

Anyway, I thought bodhan

You thought bodhran was what ?

Finish your

…I didn’t mean to send it. It was tagged on the end of the paragraph and would have read, “Anyway, I thought bodhrans went in the ship canal.”

Jim

Oh.
For a minute I thought you “taught” bodhran

It’s about time somebody did!

I was bashing tars.

I read that as “I thought, ‘bodhran!’”

Very Zen.

As a bodhran player i’ll say that i agree that the thing should, in most cases, be played down, to be certain. of course, there are times when playing up high can be used to very nice effect, but these times should generally be far and few between. The bodhran should be played as low percussion since the *banjo* plays higher percussion. On Mr. McDonnagh: i honestly can’t hear his intonation all that well on my old copy of the first Bergin album, but i will say that his rhythms are impeccable. he and mary are like a bloody metronome. and he’s just got an amazing flair.

and as much as i’m sure some bodhran players sometimes deserve to be bashed (myself included, i’m sure… 🙂 ), its true that a disjointed fiddle right next to you, or a ridiculous whistle player, is probably just as bad. oh, and yes, more people need to teach bodhran because MORE PEOPLE NEED TO TAKE LESSONS! peace and love, all!

Do not blame Ringo. He probably started changing the tone by bending the skin, but it was others that took it over the top. Ringo always played a steady fantastic beat. I nowadays sometimes have the impressions, that some bodhran players play a continiuous solo. They are showing off instead of playing a rhythm to a tune. It is as if a Drummer in a rock band would play a 90 minute solo. I hate the small bodhrans. That is not the sound, Irish music needs.

We had a bodhraness who used to play three beats in a bar for jigs.

Trouble was, she would play like it was the firs three beats of a 4-beat bar. So you got 1-2-3-Blank, 1-2-3-Blank.

That was hard to work with.

I know I’ve told this story before - but then we’ve had this discussion before. And nothing wrong with that.

I now know how to get you back Showdaddy.

Ok BegF - give it a try at your session and see how it works out. Should be a bit of a larff.
Yer other trick is to play on a Eb whistle until the fiddler has tuned up. Then put it away and get out yer D whistle.

I’ll have to borrow a bodhran and cut off my ears “Well I don’t know why I came here tonight”

Our bodhran player is fairly handy, so maybe
I’ll get some spoons instead.

Couldn’t you borrow a didgeridoo, maybe?

Didgeri-don’t !

I think we should TAR and feather the bodhran..
or at least use the horse hair to whip it out of existence!!!
Colm ODonnell song pays too much homage to this vile and disgusting animal!
I am now going to change over to play something made from the inside of a sheeps stomach….
anyony here know how to tune a haggis!!!!!! (-:
Hugs to all bodhran players!!! (female of course!)

In fact, wouldn’t music indeed be much better off if we just all stopped playing, then none of us would ever play our respective instruments wrong?

We wouldn’t have to worry about whether we played traditional or not. Or need to spend all that time learning tunes. Or spend all those money on (‘better’) instruments. Or lessons in the usage of those, for those who are into that. Actually… it sounds like it would be something with an immense load of benefits, hm? ;)

(Yes, I play the bodhrán. And I’m also taking lessons.)

Ah, but freso -- that’s what makes this music so fascinating and appealing. It’s what separates it from most other forms of music popular today. The very thing that frustrates us is what gives this music the depth we crave. It’s not “snack music” that you can learn over night and invent as you go -- it’s music with an element known as “tradition” as a key ingredient. The struggle to maintain the integrity of the tradition challenges us beyond mere entertainment. Only the people with a casual interest will give up and decide to play “Celtic Rock” or some such non-sense when the going gets rough -- or they might give it up all together. But those who pursue it earnestly will one day find themselves with something of great value to enjoy for many years to come.

DKJ,
but surely the roots of Celtic rock is with Tradition? Take the Horseslips for example?
Track- Dearg Doom etc… born out of pure Trad music, with a twist! Improv of tradition culminating to a newer / younger audience.
Did Christy Moore not do the same with his electric tracks?
Just a thought…

Yea… I know, Eoin, but the examples around here are made up of people who chose to play Celtic Rock before they became well grounded as ITM artists. It was simpler to play Irish melodies with rock back-up and amplified sound than it was to buckle down and learn the music it’s being derived from. Most Celtic Rock musicians I know were barely getting started before they decided to have their Celtic Rock bands. The result (to my ears) is as if they tore pictures of ITM out of a magazine and taped them to rock music. My opinion is that musicians should master the art forms they endeavor to fuse before they fuse them -- if it’s truly going to be fusion. Otherwise -- it’s just confusion.